Archaeological Adventuress: There are several reasons why
Bernice has remained such a popular character for so many years (I cannot
believe we are about to celebrate her 15th anniversary! Way to make
me feel old!). For one thing the people responsible for the various stages of
life have ensured that the storytelling has been top of the range and there has
always been a great deal of fun to be had with Benny.
Secondly her character has evolved and reshaped as she has entered each new
phase of her life taking us through bacheloresshood, marriage, divorce,
pregnancy, motherhood and surviving all kinds of dangers in between. Thirdly
you have Lisa Bowerman who has proven to be an incredible performer and a
perfect fit for Benny and taking us through the highs and lows of her life in a
very intimate and likable way. The Adventure of the Diagnoses Damsel sees Benny
at one of the crisis points in her life, stripped of her home, alienated from
her friends, on the run from her mentor and without even the company of her son
for comfort. With all these pressures weighing on her and trapped in the wrong
time, Benny still manages to shine as she inveigles her way into high society
and involves herself in a chilling Victorian mystery. If you need an example of
why the Big Finish Bernice range is about to enter its 15th season
(with the box sets I find it hard to work out how they work as seasons so I
will just assume a season is a years worth of releases) then check out this one
release which characterises her with all the magnetism, humour and astuteness
we have come to expect from her and then some.
Her life isn’t playing out in the right order at the moment
so Benny doesn’t see why we should get off that easily! The only real
certainties she has in her life now are a fountain pen and a moleskin notebook.
There is a real feeling that Bernice is living her life on the run these
days…not from anything in particular but that she has no solid base of
operations and she is just falling into one scrape after another without any
purpose. Its extremely jarring after the time she had on the Collection
building up a family and friends but I’m rather enjoying the ride at the moment
because the series feels so different and unpredictable. She is the very
image of a modern Victorian woman wearing as she does men’s clothes and with
her hair cut short. Time travel used to be easy for her but these days it’s a
bit trickier without a chaperone. She describes herself as a part time
associate of Sherlock Holmes and once she knew where she was she made her way
to Baker Street where she discovered that Sherlock was dead (this informs us
rather neatly where in Sherlock Holmes continuity this story would fit). Thank
goodness Benny wasn’t a canonical character in the Sherlock Holmes universe
because she goes and spoils the end of The Final Problem and makes clear
Mycroft’s involvement in his fake death! There’s a glorious moment where
Mycroft examines Benny and draws conclusions about her identity that are highly
improbable but fit the facts (Benny mentioned the name Menaxus which is only
mentioned elsewhere in John Watson’s hand written manuscript All Consuming
Fire). Her vocabulary is strange as is her stance which marks her out as
somebody who is not of this Earth and she possesses knowledge that is so secret
that she must be from the future. She once said that Earth in the 19th
Century was the most alien place she had ever been but its currently worryingly
like home. Given recent events living in the lap of luxury at Pall Mall is
something she could easily get used to if she wasn’t so worried about Peter.
The thought of never being able to see Peter again makes her feel hollow. Its
only when they introduce a clone of Chris Cwej that you realise how long it has
been and how far Bernice has come since she last saw him. Straxus is stuck in
the era Victorian era, his TARDIS can travel anywhere in space but it is
trapped like a fly in amber in this time period. Bernice is complimented on her
interrogation techniques…by the interrogator (‘you’re rocketing into my top ten
wankers with alarming speed!’).
Standout Performance: ‘The most remarkable brain of this
age and a woman who wont be born for centuries…’ David Warner could turn up
in every Big Finish story as far as I am concerned because his talent is
without limit and his voice drips with class and intelligence. To match him up
with the role of Mycroft Holmes is a stroke of genius and to then highlight his
formidable intelligence against Bernice’s sarcasm makes for a fantastic double
act. Add in another Doctor Who stalwart – Peter Miles – and you have an
economic but very impressive cast.
Sparkling Dialogue: ‘You find the death of my brother
principally a matter for your own inconvenience?’
‘There are civil servants of history who monitor and observe
the shape of time…’ – Benny trying to describe the Time Lords to Mycroft
Holmes.
‘Tied to a chair by a top hatted tosser with a title!’
‘We are clones! Wouldn’t it be more surprising if there was
just one of us?’
‘I intend to ask my future self some pretty searching
questions in the near future!’
Great Ideas: ‘I know what you’re thinking…you feel like
you’ve missed an episode!’ Leave it to Bernice to turn up and put our minds
at rest as we seem to have wandered into Jago & Litefoot territory
(ooh…Benny and Ellie?) but considering this is such an evocative period I
didn’t mind the slight delay in the explanations! Its funny that Bernice should
mention that she always thinks of the London Underground as a 20th
Century thing because it’s the same reaction that I have every time I hear it
mentioned in Victorian set dramas. Naturally to greet Bernice on her return to
Victorian London there is a crime spate and this time some nutter is committing
crimes that are all linked to the number seven. Something has gone wrong with
her time ring but lets be honest nothing ever goes right when the time rings
are involved…and we can blame the seventh Doctor for that! It’s a lovely idea
to pair up Bernice with Sherlock Holmes’ brother because it plants us straight
into a world of criminal gangs and Parliamentary plots and it avoids having to
hash up the past that a reassociation with Sherlock would have (Benny having
previously teamed up with him and Dr Watson in the innovative New Adventure All
Consuming Fire). Mycroft’s housekeeper is called Mrs Grose and we’ll assume to
appease our inner fanboy that that is the same plump and jolly woman who served
Kedgeree to Ace in Ghost Light. I laughed my head off when Bernice suggested
making a mark on history so that the Time Lords notice her anachronistic
presence and pick her up and take her home! She scoffs at the idea of doing
something as dramatic as assassinating a President which was Roz Forrester’s
exact plan in Christmas on a Rational Planet! Benny is certain that Mycroft’s
firm still exists in some form in the 27th Century so if she is
trapped here for the rest of her life she will write a letter for them to give
to Peter in the future at the right point after she is kicked back to the past.
Its head spinning enough to be a Steven Moffatt twist! I remember way back in
season one there was a memorably graphic and atmospheric death scene in the
audio adaptation of Birthright where a Charryl murders Lancashire Lily…well
stone me if they don’t top that here with a similarly grotesque and memorable
sequence where the killer shoots a police constable seven times (his modus
operandi). There’s a mention of a Transuranic which is a not very guarded
reference to Sapphire and Steel – I really love how this story feels as
though it is part of a much larger mythology. The appearance of Straxus too
ties the Bernice Summerfield range to the adventures of the eighth Doctor and
Lucie Miller. Chris Cwej is a cloned soldier that the Time Lords have grown in
order to assist them with practical and military matters. The Cwejans (not sure
about that name) can feel the pain when one of their clones dies. Straxus was
placing ancient historical treasures in a market place where they were never
meant to be in order to reshape human history and inform his people in which
time period he was ensnared. A noticeable but non destructive way of waving a
red flag from history! The Cwejans have been introducing the number seven into
their sequence of crimes to draw the attention of the dark figure that lurks in
their minds otherwise known as Mister Seven (I was certain this was going to be
an incarnation of the Doctor with a certain Scottish purr…). London will be
devoured in an all consuming fire and Mister Seven will descend and take the
Cwejans to safety. A regeneration in Victorian London – could this story get
any better? Straxus pulls Bernice out of the time stream at the point the bomb
was about to explode. Bernice questions his ability to do this since he has no
access to temporal technology but he informs her that his insane scheme to
attract the attention of a Time Lord succeeded – it was himself! He’s an
earlier version of Straxus, saving his own life before he has even gotten into
trouble! I’m going boss eyed! Mister Seven is simply the Cwejans trying to seek
affirmation for their existence and actions from mythology, not an actual
person. As usual with these things it is the Time Lord’s heavy handed approach
to things and their lack of feeling towards their inferiors (Straxus calls the
clones ‘instruments’) that has caused all this bother!
Audio Landscape: A steam train puffing, polite applause and
guffaws, scribbles, birdsong, gunshots, biting wind, door knocking, seaside
gulls screaming, a bomb exploding in water. I giggled when I heard the bubble
bursting Time Lord appearance sound from Terror of the Autons!
Standout Scene: I loved the audio landscape of the swirling
nuttiness of time in which Straxus explains the plot to Bernice. Its
deliriously surreal.
Result: The Adventure of the Diogenes Damsel is a special
one off Bernice Summerfield story that ties together so many strands of Doctor
Who and literature it is worth listening to just to pick up on and bask in the
references to other works. The eighth Doctor range (Straxus), Sapphire and
Steel (Transuranic agents), the New Adventures (All Consuming Fire, Chris
Cwej), Doctor Who mythology (with references to Ghost Light, The Time Lords,
Vampires), Bernice’s own mythology (the Time Rings), the eighth Doctor novel
range (Faction Paradox) and the Jago & Litefoot series (the foggy Victorian
setting) are all alluded to and the way the writer juggles these elements whilst
still telling a riveting story is worthy of some praise. Jim Smith is not a
name I recognise but given the quality of this script I am left wondering why
not. He has a great ear of memorable dialogue and juggles Bernice’s continuing
story with an eclectic mystery of his own (I love how this starts out as a
typical Holmesian mystery and evolves into a typical Doctor Who adventure).
With Lisa Bowerman as erudite as ever and David Warner and Peter Miles to
support her, Diagnoses Damsel is beautifully cast too and allows for some
delicious face offs during the stories second half. It’s a story that has an
evocative atmosphere because of its setting and some attractive literary detail
but also flaunts some clever science fiction ideas and climaxes on some very
satisfying twists. I really wasn’t sure to expect from this season but after a
dicey start with Zombie Titanic (otherwise known as Beyond the Sea) we
have had a standout Lawrence Miles adventure followed up a standout literary
piece. If they keep this standard up I might just fall in love with Bernice’s
new aimless adventuring as much as I did with her time at the Collection! An
exceptional standalone story with lots for long term fans and new ones to
enjoy: 9/10
3 comments:
Jim Smith also wrote two fantastic Kalor City audios.
It is such as shame when incredibly talented authors like Jim Smith, Lawrence Miles & Jim Morimore write a few phenomenal books/audios that shake up everything that Doctor Who is meant to be and then stop.
Jim Smith also wrote two fantastic Kalor City audios.
It is such as shame when incredibly talented authors like Jim Smith, Lawrence Miles & Jim Morimore write a few phenomenal books/audios that shake up everything that Doctor Who is meant to be and then stop.
The nod the the Seventh Doctor by the clones was correct. They call him 'Time's Champion', which was how he described himself. And as the original Chris had travelled with that Doctor, it makes sense.
I love this story!
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