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Freakshow
MARCH 2010
(2 EPISODES)
The Companion Chronicles
were originally conceived
as a vehicle for the first four Doctors, who - due to either death or
plain old grouchiness - are unable to participate in Big Finish’s
better-known full cast audio dramas. This ‘bread and butter’ type of tale
was effectively showcased to the readers of Doctor Who Magazine
last year with Katy Manning’s free downloadable performance of The
Mists of Time, but this month Big Finish are giving away a production
that will show DWM’s readers just how broad the remit of the range
can be.
What sets a Companion Chronicle apart from an audio drama is the
singular insight that it offers into the thoughts and feelings of its
narrator; an insight that has led to some thoroughly fascinating audio
books featuring later companions, which could have been produced as full
cast audio dramas instead. And Freakshow is a particularly fine
example of this - had Big Finish been able to twist Janet Fielding’s arm
(something that they’re getting better at) then Freakshow could
have been a contender for the main monthly range. However, somewhere along
the line a decision was taken to make it a Companion Chronicle; to
shift the onus; to show us the inner workings of the sharp and scheming
mind of Mark Strickson’s Vislor Turlough.
And particularly in its first half, Mark Morris’ script does a magnificent
job of conveying the ambiguity that most viewers associate with the
character. Picking up the tale immediately after the events of his
traumatic showdown with the Black Guardian in Enlightenment, the
Turlough that we hear at the start of this story is frightened and
insecure; so much so, in fact, that he doesn’t even want to be aboard the
TARDIS, where the Doctor is giving him the cold shoulder and the
excessively petulant (even for her) Tegan Jovanka really has her knives
out. Incidentally, Mark Strickson’s rendition of the erstwhile Australian
air hostess is really something to be heard.
As
we enter the second of the two episodes though, Morris’ story unavoidably
begins to focus more on the narrative and thus take on a more
‘traditional’ Doctor Who feel. Toby Longworth’s delight of a
cliché, Thaddeus P Winklemeyer (or “Willy Wonka”, as Tegan boorishly dubs
him), is brought right to the fore, and Turlough himself takes more of a
backseat as the Doctor and Tegan arrive in Buzzard Creek to rescue him
from the freakshow that he finds himself imprisoned within.
The
whole production has an authentic Western feel to it, though please bear
in mind that when I say ‘authentic’, I mean that it put me in mind of
Back to the Future, Part III; not that I’m any sort of authority on
the period. I particularly like the idea of the alien freakshow, which
works very well in the Old West setting and would no doubt have Ricky
Gervais’ pet podcast monkey, the freak-obsessed Karl Pilkington, literally
salivating.
More negatively, some elements of the story feel a little hackneyed.
Winklemeyer’s “elixir of life” – a cure-all that isn’t actually a
cure-all, but a means of propagating his species on Earth – stands out
above all, particularly given the propinquity of James Swallow’s
relatively-recent new series tie-in novel, Peacemaker.
Furthermore, as was the case with The Mists of Time, Big Finish
aren’t showing off the full potential of their startlingly proficient
download system here. Once unzipped, the Freakshow file comprises
just one seventy-minute mp3 track devoid of any sort of tagging or cover
art, which is hardly likely to impress those who like to break up the
listening experience - if they can find the story on their iPods to begin
with, that is.
Ultimately though, these trifling quibbles do not detract from what is, at
the end of the day, a thoroughly pleasurable yarn. A thoroughly
pleasurable yarn with the most appealing of price tags…
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