The Tertiary Console Room: Review - Professor Bernice Summerfield

'I do not - I cannot - believe that I have walked to ancient Babylon.'

In choosing Kate Orman's 1998 novel Walking To Babylon for adaptation to audio, Big Finish's Professor Bernice Summerfield range takes a change in direction from its first two releases as this story involves time travel and as such is something of a throwback to Benny's time as the companion of the Doctor in the New Adventures. Given that most of the novels in Virgin's Benny range were set in the same time frame of the late twenty-sixth century, choosing this story opened up the possibility of adapting other Doctor Who novels - minus the Doctor, of course - with historical settings and thus the loosely linked 'Time Ring Trilogy' was born.

The audio of Walking To Babylon is largely faithful to the source material, although the greatest changes have been made in how the story begins which is a shame as given the involvement of the People here, it would have been interesting to hear a representation of the Worldsphere originally introduced in Ben Aaronovitch's New Adventure The Also People. Instead, the creation of the silver path in which the characters will be able to transverse to get to Babylon is created through the use of Benny and her ex-husband Jason Kane's engagement rings, a present from the (unmentionable) Doctor, which can be used for time travel. Jacqueline Rayner, who adapted the novel for audio, has obviously done this to introduce Jason into the story in readiness for the next two parts of the trilogy, Birthright and Just War, which as versions of Doctor Who New Adventures featuring Benny (rather than solo Bernice novels) obviously require greater reworking than this story. Given that he's more important for the forthcoming stories, it's unsurprising to discover he spends much of Walking To Babylon offstage either tied up prisoner by the rogue People or knocked unconscious as he's almost wholly superfluous to the plot.

One of the most defining aspects of Orman's work has been her ability to create believable worlds, alien to our own, and she brings this to bear with ancient Babylon here. Much of the depth Orman uses to examine the society has been lost in the translation to the performed medium, but there is still enough within the script to show how the culture of this city is radically different to own through their belief system and their customs and the deft use of music and sound help to emphasise the period setting.

The main plot behind Walking To Babylon sees two rogue People enlisting Jason's help to use both Time Rings to create a path back into the past to Babylon circa 570BC which causes a problem because the People as a whole are not allowed to indulge in any form of time travel due to their peace treaty with their main rivals, the (unnamed, obviously) Time Lords. In order to prevent their transgression from causing another war, the People are prepared to destroy all of Babylon to wipe out the evidence - leaving the only person concerned by the potential effects on Earth's history as one Professor Bernice Summerfield, who must walk the path to Babylon if she is to avert its destruction…

The main focus of the story is on the relationship which develops between Benny and John Lafayette, an Edwardian linguist whose latent psi-powers ensure he gets tangled up in the path and ends up in ancient Babylon, rather than the late 1901 archaeology expedition he was on. Where this production comes into its own is through the contrast of Benny, a very frank and forthright woman at the best of times, with someone with the attitudes and morality of the early Twentieth century and the results are quite touching as the unlikely setting provokes an equally unlikely romance between them. The audio downplays this more than the novel, using Orman's dialogue of the characters reaction to their carnal act, but never really stating openly at what they've done and as a result of this, and the presence of Jason skulking in the background, means that Benny's relationship with Lafayette doesn't effect her in the same way as it does in the novel. Here she seems to be able to move on from him very easily without any fuss as she's off for her next adventure. This is one of the inherent problems with adapting the work of someone like Orman into this medium as she is a writer who holds the capacity to tap into the consciousness of her characters where her emotional state is laid bare. With audio, it isn't as easy to get the deep insight into how the characters feel and notwithstanding the conviction of Lisa Bowerman's performance, the way Benny reacts to Lafayette overall seems slightly superficial.

The motivation of the people who journey back to Babylon is kept quiet until the end, but this is where the story's real subject is found. The People are near omniscient, especially after their recent victory over their rivals, and these People want them to learn the lesson of humility by coming to Earth and living without the ability to have whatever they want in an instant. Benny tries to tell them how she learnt the hard way with an affecting account of the time she recklessly tried to conduct an archaeological dig by herself, only to fall off a cliff and injure herself badly with no hope of rescue and having to fight to survive, something which is expanded upon after this adaptation was released in Orman's Steal From The World in the short story anthology Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Dead Men Diaries (2000). The implication of this idea is that seemingly perfect and all powerful beings have lost sight of their place within the universe and must be made to realise they are not infallible.

The race against time aspect, while a commonplace element of these type of stories, is effectively conveyed here through constant cutting back to the 'present' of Benny's time, where one of the People and his drone are readying their bomb to send down the path. These scenes do help to convey the growing sense of time running out, but they have the consequent effect of breaking the tension generated in the Babylonian scenes because they are far too many of them and most of them are saying the same thing with the People asking the drone how much longer there is to go and while it does keep the amount of time until the bomb is on its way focused in the mind of the listener, this is an aspect of the production where it could have been done better. Benny has a device given to her at the start of the play which lets her see how much time is left and given that she's very concerned about the timeframe, the emphasis with the additional scenes feel extraneous.

The denouement of Walking To Babylon leaves much to be desired. While there needed to be links between the three previously unconnected stories which form the 'Time Ring trilogy' to justify its inception, the fact that the cliffhanger ending here denies the listener a satisfactory resolution as while it ties all the elements of the story together, the hurried pace it all ends means there is no real consideration of the events that have just been played out.

Lisa Bowerman continues to show a great deal of assuredness in her performance as Bernice Summerfield emphasising her vulnerability beneath her defensive humour, as well as showing how she will bare her soul if necessary to help her achieve what she's set out to do. She and Barnaby Edwards, as Lafayette, play off each other superbly and he provides a good contrast to her ex-husband. Stephen Fewell, perhaps recognising how redundant his character is to the story, sounds rather disinterested for the bulk of the drama making it difficult to care about Jason's fate or see what Benny saw in him in the first place, although he's much better during the opening scenes where Jason charms his way into Benny's rooms and distracts her long enough to swipe and make off with her Time Ring.

The special guest star for this story is Elisabeth Sladen, best known as the resilient and fearless Sarah Jane Smith of Doctor Who and latterly her own Big Finish audio series, as the Lady Ninan-ashtammu. It's rather a small role although Sladen brings out the characters delight at hearing stories of other's expeditions and exploits brilliantly as she covers her own sadness that she cannot leave the Temple due to her religious beliefs. While the plot of helping her to see she can make her own choices is shunted to Jason, which makes him seem rather presumptuous as almost as soon as he's met Ninan he's telling her how she should change her life, it's still effectively played by Sladen who ensures that Ninan's realisation that she can make a difference to herself by choosing the path not yet walked is very powerful.

The audio production of Walking To Babylon sacrifices the depth the novel on which it is based possessed in order to present the story in its rawest form, giving it a frantic pace but it lacks the intensity to make a real emotional impact. As such, much of it comes across superficially as the implications of the characters' actions are glossed over, such as the personal significance of Ninan's actions towards the end, in favour of sustaining the dramatic momentum. This is a pity because at its heart, Walking To Babylon is all about its characters and with the power of Orman's characterisation diminished due to the constraints of the medium it looses its power to provoke and is content to merely be a straightforward and undemanding drama, rather than the more challenging piece it could and should have been.