Monday, October 24, 2016

The Queen of Time by: Brian Hayles adapted by: Catherine Harvey directed by: Lisa Bowerman: The Celestial Toymaker Done Right

The Queen of Time is performed by Frazer Hines as Jamie McCrimmon and the Doctor, and Wendy Padbury as Zoe Heriot with Caroline Faber as Hecuba.  It was written by Brian Hayles, adapted by Catherine Harvey, directed by Lisa Bowerman, and released in October 2013 by Big Finish Productions.

 

The Celestial Toymaker is a visual story that had its original ideas rewritten by the production staff and the story was altered beyond recognition.  It changed from a surreal piece to four episodes of children’s party games with Michael Gough, but as it would turn out writer Brian Hayles didn’t give up the concept of extra-dimensional beings capturing the Doctor.  He would turn in his script for The Queen of Time to the production office, only for it to get rejected and the surviving materials sent to the exile of Frazer Hines’s garage.  Big Finish however was able to get ahold of the information and adapt the materials into a four episode Lost Story in 2013.

 

The plot has a similar premise to The Celestial Toymaker opening with a very tense TARDIS scene where everything is normal until a record starts playing and an invitation appears on the scanner inviting the Doctor to dinner.  A pretty face appears and the TARDIS is captured in the domain of Hecuba, the titular queen of time, who makes the Doctor sit through dinner with her while Jamie and Zoe have to escape her domain of clocks.  While the story never really reaches the levels of The Mind Robber in terms of surreal atmosphere, it still feels a lot like the atmosphere of time screwing around is a really good one.as we get to at least have vivid imagery.  It takes a style similar to a thriller story with some gross out imagery with the actual dinner for the story to work.  The biggest problem in the story is that it does go over the ground of The Celestial Toymaker, because on audio you can’t really go with the idea of surreal atmosphere that the script really wants.  A lot of the imagery that happens is the disgusting food and a scene where Zoe just ages both ways over and over again which really sort of goes on way too long.  The actual challenges are just dealing with these parodies of historical figures and the theme is just time goes on and on.  You aren’t really expecting a lot of the weirdness the story features.

 

Caroline Faber as Hecuba is Doctor Who does femme fatal.  Hecuba obviously wants the Doctor in more ways than one and she’s ready to go to any lengths to get him under her power.  Faber has this silky quality to her voice that lures you in, but also makes you a little wary.  She gets Jamie under her power causing a lot of the mess the story goes into.  The listener cannot really tell what she’s thinking before everything is about to fall apart.  She plays the part like a temptress, enjoying herself as she plays with the Doctor and his companions.  It helps that Lisa Bowerman only had three people for the entire story, Faber and the two regulars reprising their roles.  It makes the story feel very tight and Bowerman’s direction focused on getting the actors to give good performances which overall works for the story.  Frazer Hines again is brilliant as the Doctor, so much so that his performance as Jamie actually suffers in this one as a result.  The Doctor toys just as much with Hecuba as she does with him which is something extremely interesting for the story as it goes into just how manipulative in general the Doctor becomes.  He is trying to find a way out of the game as he simply has to watch as Jamie and Zoe are the ones doing the playing.  It’s also Wendy Padbury being able to recapture the magic as Zoe that helps with a lot of the danger coming through in the story.

 

The writing style from Brian Hayles also touches upon what could have made The Celestial Toymaker a great story and improves The Queen of Time which is lacking without any real visuals.  The Doctor is allowed to have fun in this story as he has to play the game and keep Hecuba entertained throughout a revolting dinner.  He is cracking jokes throughout the entire thing and trying to get little hints to Jamie and Zoe as to how they can get out of this situation.  The music by Toby Hrycek-Robinson should also be noted for how much it sounds like it was meant for a period piece.  It has this gramophone type quality that just sort of works for this type of story as it takes place outside of time as a way to signal how this situation works.

 

To summarize, The Queen of Time is an interesting look at exactly how a story could have worked with an extradimensional being as the villain of the piece.  The concepts of the story are honestly great, even if it treads a lot of the same ground as The Celestial Toymaker.  The direction and music score add to the atmosphere the story is evoking and the acting performances from the three performers are great, but Jamie McCrimmon suffers extremely as a result of the Doctor being in the foregrounds for the story’s duration.  Hecuba is a great villain and Caroline Faber is a great actress.  85/100

No comments:

Post a Comment