Thursday, March 31, 2016

Colditz by: Steve Lyons directed by: Gary Russell: The Escapers Prison

WARNING: This review has major spoilers for the twist of Colditz.  Please find this story and listen to it if you care about spoilers

 

Colditz stars Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor and Sophie Aldred as Ace.  It was written by Steve Lyons, directed by Gary Russell and released in October 2001 by Big Finish Productions.

 

If there was an audio to echo the early Virgin New Adventures style it would have to be Colditz.  Colditz is full of tropes from the Virgin New Adventures with the Doctor being the eternal chess master manipulating events from the beginning, a threat on a universal scale and of course Ace being put through the wringer emotionally although in a twist of fate the Doctor isn’t to blame in this one instead it’s Ace’s favorite, Nazis.  Yes Colditz takes place in the middle of World War II at Colditz Castle which was a prison for the prisoners of war and this story sees the Doctor and Ace captured after landing right in the castle.  That wouldn’t be too big of a problem and could lead to a great historical story but like Lyons’ previous story for Big Finish, The Fires of Vulcan, there is a twist.  The twist is that because of their interference and Ace leaving her Walkman behind, the Nazis win the war and the Doctor is shot.  This is thrown for a second loop when it is revealed that this is just a potential future and Officer Klein has travelled back in time on a mysterious Johann Schmidt’s orders to ensure the future comes to pass.

 

Lyon’s plot is extremely intriguing as everything just seems to go wrong for the Doctor and Ace until the final part where everything falls into place and the Doctor and Ace can hightail it out of the camp.  Ace in particular gets put through the wringer as she is harassed by Nazi Officer Feldwebel Kurtz played by David Tennant.  Kurtz is your stereotypical evil Nazi who hates all who are not German.  He lusts after Ace as she is a beautiful young woman and becomes extremely violent when Ace doesn’t let him.  Lyons’ script becomes very subtle with these two as Ace always has just enough time before things become more life threatening.  David Tennant is great as Kurtz and comparing it to his performance as the Doctor shows just how much range the guy can pull off as an actor.  Sophie Aldred is also great as Ace as she is channeling the character seen in the novels Timewyrm: Exodus and Nightshade which I really like.  She knows how she can get out but just can’t do it as nothing goes her way.

 

The Doctor is also paired up with a Nazi, but for him it is Elisabeth Klein who is from the alternate future and is just brutal.  She is stone cold and isn’t afraid to get people killed so she can get her way.  She tries to out manipulate the Doctor knowing that messing with the timeline can create a paradox.  The performance from Tracey Childs is sublime and works really well off Sylvester McCoy’s scheming Seventh Doctor who is content to stay in the background for most of this story as he tries to figure out how he’s going to get out of it all.  The story also has a pretty well developed supporting cast.  Toby Longworth plays Julius Schafer who is a Nazi who has become tired with the war.  It is never stated but Schafer may have become a Nazi just so he could avoid the concentration camps.  Schafer even sneaks food to the prisoners whenever he can as they aren’t fed nearly enough.  Longworth is great as he always is.  On the prisoners side of things we have your standard defiant soldiers which is where the story suffers for me mainly because of how boring they are as characters.  The only one who stands out is war journalist turned prisoner Timothy Wilkins who is just really whiny.  That becomes the only reason I can remember him.

 

I’d also like to touch upon the music of Colditz.  The music was done by Toby Richards and Emily Baker who work at a separate company from Big Finish so it has a very different feel from the other audios.  The music uses what seems to be an actual band and there are several points where you hear trumpets and piano playing in a very 1940s propaganda film style which I really liked.  Gary Russell also does great with the direction knowing just how to set in the transitions between scenes.

 

To summarize, Colditz is a nearly perfect story as it shows just how good Steve Lyons is as an author as he writes an intriguing plot that is let down by a rather large supporting cast that isn’t fleshed out enough to be interesting.  90/100

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