Telling a story out of
order and through flashbacks where you can call into question just what
happened in the story, is always a risk as the story could become convoluted
completely or turn out to be brilliant.
Guy Adams’s Random Ghosts does
this style of storytelling doing something close to found-footage on audio
drama as the characters are on a planet which wipes everyone’s memory after
twenty-four hours. This allows Adams to
write a mystery with a frantic pace as the listener has to attempt to keep
track of everything while the characters choose to forget certain events could
even have occurred. Characters have
affairs, the end is a twist, and the entire story is a comment on how people
get attached to fictional characters in a twisted way and how they obsess over
them. They’re only people whom we see
snippets of their lives and we feel as if we know exactly what they’re going
through. It’s an interesting idea to be
sure and the short run time actually allows the comment to sink in as you
listen and you deal with the characters changing personalities.
The planet is actually
Skaro of course as this is a Dalek story, but Adams’s writing keeps you
guessing through the story. You want to
figure out the mystery, why Ace is so determined to stay away from the city,
what is with the expedition, why would the Doctor send Ace here of all
places. These questions are of course
asked, but this is merely a lead in to the finale of the set, but on its own it
still manages to be another emotional roller coaster. Now Doc Oho aka Joe Ford often complains of
Sophie Aldred’s acting style as she doesn’t really do well on audio. I’ve never really seen that and I could use
this story as an example as to how good Sophie Aldred is and how well she
embodies Ace as a character. She goes
through Ace’s sadness and anger which is captured perfectly in the script, she
becomes manipulative and deceitful, and does it all with a bit of humor that
makes you realize that we’re dealing with a much older Ace. She’s made it to the Time Lord Academy and it
shows. Aldred has a blast with the role
and is really good in this section of the story. I think it helps that the Doctor is nowhere
to be found in this audio.
There are a couple
supporting characters in this story as part of the expedition team who all work
together to make the story work as a full plotline. With the frantic and choppy style of the
audio you see relationships change from happy, to sad, back to happy and then to
the destruction of everything they held dear to them. Klinus played by Matthew Gravelle, is a
special case as he is one of the ghosts which is revealed in a twist while
falling in love with Benny and toying with everyone’s emotions. Could I forget how Benny is portrayed in this
story? Lisa Bowerman as Benny actually
gets to have a lot to do as we start with her in media res which really makes
the hour long story feel like a snippet in something that has taken much longer
than we could ever really know.
To summarize, Random Ghosts is another piece of
emotional turmoil from The New Adventures
of Bernice Summerfield Box Set to bring us close to the tense
conclusion. The acting is perfect, the
direction and writing both are effective, and of course the way the story is
told makes everything feel a mix of unique and familiar to really bring home
the messages the story is trying to tell.
Bowerman and Aldred make a perfect team as companions and strengthen
their character dynamics better than any novel ever could and having them
without the Doctor has been a stroke of genius for the novel. 100/100.
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