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| PLANET
SF HOME | DOCTOR
WHO HOME | BIG FINISH AUDIOS
| 8TH DOCTOR NOVELS | EPISODES
| MISC REVIEWS |
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After getting to meet the Sixth Doctor in THE SPECTRE OF LANYON MOOR, Nicholas Courtney completes the set (if you include his appearance in THE DALEKS' MASTER PLAN) by guesting in the final story of Big Finish's first Eighth Doctor "season." The back story of Ramsey the Vortisaur has provided some form of linking between the four stories, so it's perhaps fitting that the Doctor's attempt to return him home are behind the events of MINUET IN HELL. The story itself kicks off with the Doctor apparently suffering from amnesia and separated from Charley, who's been picked up by the local chapter of the Hell Fire Club. The Doctor's amnesia leads him into contact with the Brigadier, although neither recognises the other (which is arguably at odds with the continuity established in THE DYING DAYS). Meanwhile, another inmate of the institution in which he finds himself thinks he's the Doctor... The performances from the lead trio of McGann, Fisher and Courtney are as excellent as ever. The Doctor doesn't get a lot to do early on, with Nicholas Briggs finally getting a chance to "play" the Doctor in an official DOCTOR WHO production, and he clearly enjoys his role as Gideon Crane. Charley, also amnesiac at the start, didn't seem particularly threatened by her surroundings which jarred slightly for me, and for no real reason she later gets to dress up as a cut-price Emma Peel from THE AVENGERS: A TOUCH OF BRIMSTONE. However, these aren't the actress's fault and India Fisher continues to be an excellent audio companion. The guest cast are a bit of a mixed bunch. Apart from Nick Briggs, Helen Goldwyn probably gets the largest role as Charley's fellow Hell Fire Club "hostess" Becky Lee. The only fault here is that the character sounds like she's from somewhere in the South of the US but claims she's supposedly from L.A. Unfortunately, the others didn't come across as well in my opinion. Robert Jezek's performance as the barmy Brigham Dashwood sounded too close to his portrayal of Frobisher in THE HOLY TERROR, while Morgan Deare's Waldo Pickering and Maureen Oakeley's Dale Pargeter sport accents that distract from the rest of the production - Deare's is too cliched and Oakeley's just sounded wrong to these ears. Clocking in at well over two hours, MINUET IN HELL is one of the longest Big Finish audios so far, with one of their more complex plots. It's not the best story they've produced to date, and I'd probably rank it third out of the four "season 27" stories - behind STORM WARNING and SWORD OF ORION but ahead of THE STONES OF VENICE - but if you can ignore some of the accents then it's pretty enjoyable. And there's a neat little plug for next month's LOUPS-GAROUX in there as well! Back to the top |
MINUET
IN HELL |
