The Selachian Gambit by: Steve Lyons directed by: Lisa Bowerman: Doctor Who and the Heist of the Dolphins

The Selachian Gambit is performed by Frazer Hines as Jamie McCrimmon with Anneke Wills as Polly Wright.  It was written by Steve Lyons, directed by Lisa Bowerman, and was released in February 2012 by Big Finish Productions.

 

Who can resist a good old fashioned heist story?  Well add in some space sharks and you can get a Doctor Who suited story that is straight out of the swinging sixties.  The Selachian Gambit is one of those stories.  It opens with an evocative image of the Doctor, Ben, Polly, and Jamie in a Galactic Bank because the Doctor got a parking ticket and is going to get a loan from the bank.  So the premise to get the Doctor into the story is interesting, at least in a way that when you really think about it doesn’t make sense.  So the Doctor is going to take out a loan, but how’s he going to be paying it back.  He isn’t employed and he doesn’t really have money so it seems like he’s just going to be getting himself in even more trouble.  Really the story is quite simple as before the Doctor can get the loan the Selachians arrive, try to steal money from the bank, but because it turns out the vaults are in other dimensions they decide to blow everything up.  The story has the Doctor dealing with a lot of the heist elements and the bomb is really just so we can have a good climax to the story.

 

Steve Lyons really understands how to right for the Second Doctor and Polly Wright in particular in this audio.  Lyons writes the Second Doctor very much as the mischievous imp in the early years of his own life.  He jumps around the bank and is working in the background to defeat the Selachians similarly to the characterization in The Tomb of the Cybermen.  It’s also very interesting to see how Lyons decides to handle Polly Wright, who is an underrated companion, and in keeping with the stories surrounding The Selachian Gambit has her told to go and make the coffee.  While this happens in The Moonbase, and the implication in that story is the same as it is here, she goes and finds a way to deal with the threat.  It’s while she makes the coffee that the story can actually progress.  Anneke Wills is an excellent actress in the role of Polly and is a natural in the audio medium.  A lot of her problems is on television she went over the top, but in an audio medium Wills just relaxes into the role of Polly and plays it for all it’s worth.  What’s interesting however that Lisa Bowerman and Steve Lyons only gives Wills the role of Ben Jackson to play.  Ben really doesn’t do much in the story, but Wills actually gives a good performance similar to the performance Katy Manning will give for Jon Pertwee.  It obviously isn’t Craze doing the voice, but Wills lowers her voice a few tones and adds a slight accent and gives us Ben.

 

Frazer Hines basically plays the other roles in the story.  His Selachians are excellent, but Bowerman may have added a bit too much voice modulation for the entire story.  He plays a rich lady which is honestly hilarious and as always his Second Doctor is on form.  Jamie McCrimmon is out of his element in this Galactic Bank as he really doesn’t know what any of these things are.  His curiosity really makes the story interesting overall as Jamie, but really this is a story centered more on Polly.

 

To summarize, The Selachian Gambit is an excellent story that has Steve Lyons extremely interesting Selachians in another story with the Second Doctor.  Anneke Wills and Frazer Hines are the only two actors in the play which allows each of them to flesh out their strengths as performers.  The plot while pretty good overall, has a bit of a convoluted mess when you really put the premise under any lens of scrutiny.  The direction is surprising as while Lisa Bowrman is usually excellent, but a lot of her choices just are a bit odd when it comes to the story.  75/100