{"id":36137,"date":"2022-08-28T00:58:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-27T23:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/?p=36137"},"modified":"2022-08-26T20:59:30","modified_gmt":"2022-08-26T19:59:30","slug":"reviewed-the-thrill-of-going-on-further-adventuress-with-the-eighth-doctor-and-charley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedoctorwhocompanion.com\/2022\/08\/28\/reviewed-the-thrill-of-going-on-further-adventuress-with-the-eighth-doctor-and-charley\/","title":{"rendered":"Reviewed: The Thrill of Going On Further Adventure(s)s with the Eighth Doctor and Charley"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Charley Pollard: The Further Adventuress<\/em>. A title and also, well, a title for the 1920s aristocrat-turned-time traveller. The Eighth Doctor\u2019s first audio-exclusive companion returned for a full boxset of adventures in January <\/strong>of this year and it\u2019s four episodes of fun, flirting<\/em>, and further adventures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Mummy Speaks!<\/em> is the boxset opener and is immediately a load of fun. In fact, it\u2019s a right romp and it\u2019s set in 19th Century France. At the centre of the tale is a mummy with a mechanical heart, much like the Foretold that the Twelfth Doctor faced in Mummy on the Orient Express<\/em>, and just like that future foe, it is a thousands-year-old mission that the mummy is trying to complete\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each story is split into two episodes, and the first runs entirely through what could be the mummy\u2019s entire story. But all is not as it seems, and the appearance of Charley at the scene of a murder means she ends the first episode awaiting the guillotine while the mummy \u2018lives\u2019 to see another day after being saved by the dying owner of a chateau where much of the action is happening in parallel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charley is remarkably calm on the block, and keeping her talking while she awaits her fate is as much a mechanism to reintroduce the listener to what makes her tick and the bubbliness of her personality (early in her travels with the Doctor). And she is then saved by one of the newest additions to the pantheon of Doctor Who<\/em> companions. And I can\u2019t spoil who that is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new addition to the central team works surprisingly well and on audio it\u2019s maybe easier to make this believable in the writing than if this were on television — although it\u2019s still requiring Alan Barnes to really know what he wants to do with his characters for the new dynamic to truly be functional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This story is a pastiche of several eras at once, as it combines its French setting with Charley\u2019s 1920s prejudices and 1950s British B-movie mummy horror. Those all gel nicely and create a very visual story, and the fact that Charley does hold certain prejudices still at this point in her travels makes her a flawed and therefore even more appealing character. It\u2019s a great way to properly bring her back for a selection of adventures rather than just the one-off full-cast Doctor Who<\/em> releases she\u2019s appeared in since the end of her Sixth Doctor arc in 2009. It even goes a bit The Phantom of the Opera<\/em> at the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barnes actually created Charley, script edits this boxset, and provides an interesting behind-the-scenes interview about the character. Joe Kraemer, who did the music for the boxset, also shares interesting details about the release in his interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kreamer\u2019s work, and that of the sound design team, delivers from the off in the second story of the boxset, Eclipse<\/em>, and it really shows off the production values that Big Finish can bring to its releases. It\u2019s actually one of the best produced boxset for quite a while, and the storyline lives up to that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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