The Tertiary Console Room: Review - Doctor Who

'Doctor, who is this dreadful woman?'

While the Doctor is taking the Gravis to the uninhabited planet of Kolkokron, fearing that the TARDIS is tired after its recent experiences, he stops over on the world of Artaris, where he meets up with a nomadic Warlord named Grayvorn who is searching for an ancient Holy Relic. Upon arriving at a nunnery, they find that they are joined in the quest by one of the nuns and an old 'acquaintance' of the Doctor's - a certain Iris Wildthyme - and that their quest is only just beginning as everyone has their own motivations for wanting the Relic, and not all of them good...

Excelis Dawns is the first in a series of four connected plays revolving around the town of Excelis, featuring the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Doctors with the fourth play bringing Big Finish's other main audio series - the adventures of the Doctor's New Adventures companion Bernice Summerfield - into the equation as well. With this years 'season' of Eighth Doctor adventures taking place over six months, the Excelis series is arguably a counterpoint to that to keep the three 'past' Doctors in the public eye and a chance to do something a little different to the usual type of story as well.

Paul Magrs' Excelis Dawns is a very odd story, but given the author and his past work within the field of Doctor Who, that is not really a surprise. With the quest format of the story being reminiscent of Magrs' debut Who novel, The Scarlet Empress, it's fitting that Excelis Dawns is the story that introduces Iris Wildthyme to the audio world of Doctor Who.

One of the things that characterised the quality of 2001's Fifth Doctor audios was the quality of Peter Davison's performance which has of late become increasing strong and confident. His performance here in Excelis Dawns, continues this quality and it's easily one of the best aspects of the play. His more assertive Fifth Doctor proves to be more of a match for Iris than the Eighth Doctor was in the novels and because of this strength within Davison's performance, Iris never has the opportunity to dominate the story the way that she did in her novel appearances.

The character of Iris Wildthyme has had a very divisive effect on the readership of the Doctor Who novels with a wide range of views from those that love the eccentricities and excesses of the character and those who can't stand the woman. In bringing her to life on audio, Big Finish cast former Doctor Who companion Katy Manning in the role and her performance here is a far cry from her Jo Grant days. Sounding like a refugee from Last Of The Summer Wine, Katy's Iris Wildthyme captures perfectly the irritating qualities that made her such a standout character in the novels and she turns in a performance which shows that she enjoyed her return to Doctor Who, yet I'm sure that many listeners will agree with Grayvorn's assessment of her.

The Excelis series' main guest star though is Anthony Stewart Head, who plays Warlord Grayvorn in his first appearance in Doctor Who. Head, possibly best known as Buffy The Vampire Slayer's Rupert Giles, is superb in his role as Grayvorn, a rather odd nomadic warrior type figure, who sets off in search of this mysterious Relic and encounters the Doctor along the way. Grayvorn at times takes on the role of narrator within the story and because of the way that Paul Magrs has written these scenes, this allows him to show that there is more to his character than initially meets the eye. The scenes with him and Peter Davison together work very well and Grayvorn's continued referencing to Iris as 'the hag' are very memorable. With the way that the story ends here, it's going to be very interesting to hear what happens to his character in the next two Excelis stories...

The smaller than usual cast gives Excelis Dawns a more intimate feel to it than usual, and the performances of the other cast are quite good. Posy Miller's Sister Jolene is a likeable character, yet she conveys the underlying feeling that there is more to her than it appears well. And both Patricia Leventon and Billy Miller's performances are convincing, although Millers perhaps lacks a sense of ferocity and menace that his role as The Zombie King should have had in abundance.

Rather surprisingly there is a lot of past continuity mentioned in this story. It's surprising because it's something that Big Finish's past DW stories have largely avoided but with both the Doctor and Iris frequently talking about their past adventures and experiences on many occasions throughout the story it does quickly grow tiresome. Also given the nature of the Fifth Doctor's time on television, Magrs takes great pains to establish precisely when the story takes place given that the Fifth Doctor never travelled alone this leads to the rather odd notion that it takes place during the concluding episode of Frontios and Tegan spends the whole story skulking inside the TARDIS. All of this helps to contribute to the odd nature of the story and while it doesn't affect the story in a detrimental way, it doesn't really add much either.

David Darlington's score adds a lot to the atmosphere of the story making its presence known through it's odd ryhmthic beating rumbling away in the background yet never straying into becoming intrusive on the drama.

Excelis Dawns opens the Excelis saga promisingly, especially in the closing moments of the play which bode well for the future instalments. While it's a relatively straightforward story, it's quite enjoyable and diverting without really scaling the same heights of quality that some of the other recent Doctor Who releases from Big Finish have reached. It's good, but not essential listening material.