Probably Not the One You Were Expecting #12: The Well-Mannered War by: Gareth Roberts adapted by: John Dorney directed by Ken Bentley

The Well-Mannered War stars Tom Baker as the Doctor and Lalla Ward as Romana with Tim McInnerny as Admiral Dolne, Hamish Clark as Fritchoff, Michael Troughton as Menlove Stokes, David Troughton as the Black Guardian, and John Leeson as K9.  It was written by Gareth Roberts, adapted by John Dorney, directed by Ken Bentley, and released in April 2015 by Big Finish Productions.

 

Adapting The Well-Mannered War was kind of a given considering Big Finish already had decided to adapt the other Gareth Roberts Fourth Doctor Novels.  They make this nice little trilogy of stories that can sum up just how good the Season 17 tone could be, but my biggest problem when reviewing these, and the same with the rest of the Novel Adaptations, they’re just too perfect of adaptations.  The Well-Mannered War’s writing process went something like this: John Dorney sat down with a transcript of the novel and changed everything into dialogue.  That’s really all that happened when this novel was adapted into a two hour audio drama.  Okay so the small scene with Stokes at the University of Dellah wasn’t included, but everything else that I can remember from the novel was.   There really isn’t much I can say about the plot itself as I already covered it in my review of the novel.  I will say the way that Dorney put in the cliffhangers and ended the episodes was really great and made you want to keep listening even when Roberts didn’t actually include many points at good cliffhanging points.  It’s all in the adaptation and Ken Bentley’s direction of the actors that makes the adaptation of the novel into audio work, which is great considering that this was originally meant to be the last novel to be adapted.

 

Tom Baker and Lalla Ward are on top form which is still amazing considering they don’t actually record their lines together.  Yes their divorce is still affecting their lives as they don’t record their stories together, but you can’t tell.  They sound like they did back in Season 17 when they were madly in love with each other and didn’t have a care in the world.  The laughs in the novel get a bigger laugh just because they are done on the audio.  Baker as the Doctor has this way of mastering comedy with one line, but with the next line giving us this sense that the world could be ending and we need to be listening to what he’s saying or else we will suffer a horrible fate.  It’s all in Baker’s performance that the comedy of the story really is allowed to work and he pulls it off marvelously.  Lalla Ward as Romana also shows just why I like her version of the character just a touch better than Mary Tamm.  She’s got the voice of an aristocrat, but acts almost childish as she is a Time Lady which is this interesting offset for the character.  She works well with the material from the novel especially with her scenes with John Leeson as K9.  John Leeson is just doing his standard performance as K9 which works to offset Lalla Ward in several scenes and make the big reveals near the end of the story to stand out from the rest of the story.  The ending itself is a highlight as it is performed by Baker and Ward.

 

The adaptation also sees Michael and David Troughton in the studio for their own parts.  Michael Troughton reprises his role as Menlove Stokes with a rather flamboyant performance that suits the idiotic artist.  The character’s betrayal near the end is also brilliantly performed by Troughton as you really feel bad for how Stokes and every other character has been manipulated into getting the events into motion for the Black Guardian as played by David Troughton to take over.  David Troughton only gets the one scene as the Black Guardian, but easily does the role justice considering it was originally taken by Valentine Dyall, a celebrated radio actor.  The rest of the characters also get to have a good time to shine with the Femdroids being performed as androids and the Darkness being truly scary with just this normal voice.  It’s the normalness that makes the villain work on audio as it draws you in.

 

To summarize, The Well-Mannered War in adapting the novel word for word doesn’t fix any of the problems of the original novel.  It’s essentially just another way of experiencing the same story, but that story is such a good one and mixed with perfect casting and direction, the audio is just as good as the original novel.  The cliffhanger is intact from the novel and hopefully Big Finish will be able to give us some sort of ending to the unresolved escape.  90/100.