The
dawn of the 21st century sees the birth of America's 51st state:
Malebolgia. Brigham Elisha Dashwood III, evangelical statesman
and pioneer of a new therapy for mental illness, is the favourite
for the state's first governor. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart
is present at Malebolgia's inauguration, conducting a secret
investigation of Dashwood's facilities, where one of the mental
patients claims to know the Brigadier of old. Meanwhile, an
amnesiac Charley finds herself working as a hostess at the Hell
Fire Club, where all manner of wicked activities include demon
worship...
It's
been a good month for fans of the Brigadier, who also appears
in one of April's BBC novels, The Shadow in the Glass.
However, the nature of this story means that he and the Doctor
don't spend much time together on this occasion. It's also
annoying, to a continuity buff like myself, that the Brigadier
(Nicholas Courtney) fails to recognise the Eighth Doctor,
despite having met him in 1997 in the Virgin Books novel The
Dying Days. (The Brig's previous Big Finish adventure,
The Spectre of Lanyon Moor, had been careful not to
contradict the mythology of the books.)
Like
Sword of Orion before it, this story was originally
produced as part of the Audio Visuals series of amateur cassettes
back in the 1980s, although the setting (among other things)
has been changed from the original Hell Fire Club of 1760s
London to the club's 21st-century recreation. This relocation
means that we are inflicted with some over-the-top renditions
of southern-states accents, the most extreme of which comes
courtesy of Morgan Deare as Senator Waldo Pickering, who makes
his portrayal of Hawk in Delta and the Bannermen seem
positively restrained. Somewhat gentler on the ears is Helen
Goldwyn as Pickering's granddaughter, Becky Lee Kowalczyck,
a kind of southern Buffy, who is adept at kicking demon butt
and provides a spirited foil to the strait-laced Brigadier.
The
activities of the Hell Fire Club, where companion Charley
(India Fisher) is forced to don a number of erotic outfits
and threatened with a whip, would be too unsavoury for Who
if it were presented on TV or perhaps even in a novel. Charley's
decidedly casual attitude to her plight may help to lighten
the tone, but doesn't seem like a very realistic reaction.
Meanwhile
McGann gets a relatively small, but pivotal, role as he spends
the majority of the story suffering, like Charley, from amnesia.
This is a condition that afflicts his incarnation far too
often, having also cropped up in the 1996 TV movie, the 1997
novel The Eight Doctors, and the ongoing BBC Books
series.
The
highlight of this adventure is undoubtedly the part played
by Nicholas Briggs who, thanks to writers Alan W Lear and
Gary Russell, is given an ingenious opportunity to hark back
to his portrayal of the Doctor in the Audio Visuals days.
(Don't read this next bit until you've listened to the CDs,
but this story could offer a way for the AVs to be incorporated
into the licensed Who universe - they could all be
past adventures of the real Doctor, as remembered by the delusional
mind of Gideon Crane.)
This
is the weakest entry in what has generally been an excellent
series of stories starring Paul McGann (another six are already
in preparation for 2002). However, Nick Briggs and Nick the
Brig make it well worth listening to.
Richard
McGinlay
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