The Tertiary Console Room: Review - Doctor Who

'Are you sure Doctor? The game hangs on it...'

The Doctor and Turlough arrive in London in 1702 where a strange series of incidents have occurred. The mysterious Sir Nikolos Valentine always seems to win his card matches, and has an agenda of his own to pursue. Highwaymen roam the streets and gentlemen are disappearing all over the city. It soon becomes apparent that there is very much more than is readily apparent occurring...

Mark Gatiss, author of the highly praised New Adventure Nightshade, makes his audio scripting debut with Phantasmagoria, the second original Doctor Who story from Big Finish and the first solo story with the Fifth Doctor and Turlough. And while there have been many releases since Phantasmagoria, it still stands up to scrutiny as an entertaining piece of drama.

Gatiss' novels have always had humour in, and considering that he's one of The League Of Gentlemen this is not a surprise. Phantasmagoria follows this trend with some of it being very amusing indeed, but in the best tradition of Doctor Who there is much more to it than just that with Gatiss showing a good line in the sort of horror that the television series always used to use to such good effect.

Peter Davison's episode of The Sirens Of Time was easily the best of the three that featured each of the three Doctors, and his performance in Phantasmagoria does build on this but Davison's confidence in the role seems to be lacking sometimes here in his performance. This is quite understandable really given that this is the first time that he's played the role of the Doctor properly since 1984, and with recent releases like Loups-Garoux and The Eye Of The Scorpion he has firmly re-established himself as a formidable Doctor. But concentrating on his performance here the first thing that is noticeable is just how different his voice is now. It still sounds the same, but there is an added maturity which comes from the fact that Davison is nearly twenty years older than when he became the Doctor.

Mark Strickson's performance isn't bad, but it remains unspectacular. It's not helped by the fact that he's not really given very much material to work with, and Turlough acts very out of character throughout a lot of this story. In a nice moment, Gatiss recognises this by having Turlough say that he's acting out of character for himself. But while that might make a good moment in the drama, it doesn't really excuse the fact that Strickson's performance suffers because of the unfamiliar character that he's playing here.

One of the most memorable aspects of Phantasmagoria is the performance of David Ryall as Sir Nikolas Valentine. His villainous turn here is quite marvellous and he remains one of the best villains to have appeared so far in a Big Finish production. Although there aren't any real standout performances from the rest of the cast, their performances are all up to a good standard and they ensure that the enjoyment factor of the story isn't compromised by any over the top or substandard performances.

The setting of the story in the early 18th Century makes this a historical based one, and whilst the quality of the story isn't as strong as those historicals who would follow, the London of 1702 is effectively recreated through the script and the sound effects used by the production team.

Phantasmagoria is hampered by its most inherent flaw though, and this prevents it from living up to the potential that it has, which is its shortness. At just over eighty minutes long, Phantasmagoria is the shortest of all the Big Finish Doctor Who dramas released so far and this gives no real chance to develop depth to the story and the whole drama ultimately comes across as a little unsatisfying. Despite this though, Phantasmagoria has enough quality performances to prevent this feeling to dominant the entire experience of listening to the drama.

Judged against the majority of titles that followed, Phantasmagoria doesn't compare too favourably. But judged on itself it's quite an entertaining Doctor Who story. The script is good, if short, and the performances are never anything less than acceptable. David Ryall's Sir Nikolas Valentine is the most memorable aspect of Phantasmagoria as his character really stands out as was undoubtedly Gatiss' intention when he created him. While Phantasmagoria is entertaining enough, it never really reaches the level of quality that later releases have, and the shortness of the story really works against it as the story never develops as fully as it should do. But it does have some noteworthy elements which ensure that Phantasmagoria is an engaging piece of drama but little more.