Planet 14 - Doctor Who

Like the BBC Radio Collection's last release, THE HIGHLANDERS is narrated by Frazer Hines, and like THE WEB OF FEAR it's probably best remembered today for introducing a popular long-serving character, in this case, Hines' own Jamie McCrimmon. It's also the last historical story until BLACK ORCHID a decade and a half later.

As an audio-only story, THE HIGHLANDERS gets off to a bad start with a fight scene where we have absolutely no idea what's going on. Fortunately things pick up after this, but unlike, some of the previous BBC Radio Collection releases, the story does suffer throughout from a number of action scenes which make little or no sense to the listener.

After that opening scene, the TARDIS materialises in eighteenth century Scotland, where the Doctor, Ben and Polly find themselves involved in the aftermath of the Battle of Culloden.

The Second Doctor still has his early trait of confusing everybody, taken to some ludicrous extremes here as he passes himself off as a German doctor, a washer woman and a Redcoat. But there's actually a point to most of this clowning around, especially a great scene where he throws a flag over Solicitor Grey before bundling into a cupboard and then asking Grey's clerk Perkins if he suffers from headaches before smacking his head into the table, diagnosing "print blindness" and recommending Perkins lie down for at least an hour, enabling him to make his escape.

While all this is going on, it's left to the under-rated Ben and Polly to carry most of the story. The addition of Jamie to the regular cast meant that some of their subsequent stories had lines shared between three companions instead of two, and this pair suffered most, so it's good to hear them getting something to do for a change.

Unlike some later stories that are set in the companions' past, there's actually a sense that the pair out of their time, with only their wits to rely on. Polly has to hastily cover up her mention of 'fillings' to Kirsty and is also unsure whether they actually had orange sellers in the eighteenth century. Both struggle to come to terms with the idea that the English are the 'bad guys' here. Okay, so it's been well documented that the story erroneously portrays Culloden as an Anglo-Scots conflict, but it's strange that the very same people who point the finger at this sort of thing as a massive error will cheerfully write novels where, say, the Beatles didn't split up in 1970 without a second thought.

THE HIGHLANDERS can boost plenty of interesting characters, all of which are well-performed, including Dallas Cavell's over-the-top Trask. For its age and nature, the quality of the recording is mostly fine, as is Frazer Hines' narration. What drags the score down is that as a story THE HIGHLANDERS is pretty run of the mill, and is suffers from scenes that are difficult to follow with just the soundtrack to go by. BACK TO THE TOP

THE HIGHLANDERS

Written by ELWYN JONES
and GERRY DAVIS

Starring PATRICK TROUGHTON,
MICHAEL CRAZE, ANNEKE WILLS
and FRAZER HINES

Narrated by FRAZER HINES

BBC RADIO COLLECTION CD

RATING: 6/10

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