Roanoke Island, 1590. The TARDIS materializes in the past, and the Doctor’s companions, Professor Litefoot and Henry Gordon Jago, find themselves prisoners of the natives in the New World. But there’s something something strange here – stranger than even the colonists, led by Englishman John White. What are the ghostly children? And who is the Old Man of Croaton? The travellers are about to discover the secret of the lost colony… and it may cost Jago’s life.
VOYAGE TO THE NEW WORLD
After “Voyage to Venus,” I assumed I knew what to expect from the second “special” Doctor Who release pairing the sixth Doctor with Jago and Litefoot: a fun, entertaining story featuring the infernal investigators getting out of dangerous scrapes in an unfamiliar time period. What I actually got from Matthew Sweet’s brilliant script was one of the most atmospheric, compelling stories I’ve heard from Big Finish in quite some time.
The story deals with a historical mystery I’m surprised Doctor Who has never touched: the complete disappearance of the colonists at Roanoke, who vanished without a trace, leaving behind only the word “Croatoan” carved into a post. To be fair, it’s not much of a mystery – there’s a nearby island called Croatoan and various circumstances prevented the empire from going there to search, so they probably just relocated there – but Sweet incorporates this into his story, turning Croatoan from simply a nearby island into a mystical place evidently possessed by the ghosts of small children.
Surprisingly, the story doesn’t dwell on the ghosts to any great extent. Rather, it’s concerned with building up an atmosphere of dread and suspicion: the Algonquin, the English, and the TARDIS crew are all suspicious of one another and tensions ratchet up throughout the first half of the play. Add to this a mysterious illness and disappearing people, and mix in the astonishingly good sound design from Fool Circle Productions, and you have a recipe for atmosphere unmatched in most recent Big Finish stories. Much like Sweet’s own “The Magic Mousetrap,” “Voyage to the New World” feels like it is building toward a terrifying revelation, and is utterly gripping as a result.
And yet the end result isn’t terrifying. In fact, it’s a time travel plot about Sir Walter Raleigh (Mark Lockyer), who gains possession of the open TARDIS and tries to divine its secrets. Sweet pens some wonderful scenes in this sequence, including one of the TARDIS itself trying to tempt Raleigh into pulling the fast return switch by drawing undue attention to it. The resolution is quite elegant, so much so that it’s easy not to notice that it’s a bit of a cheat. Frankly, I love this script. To date it’s Sweet’s third and final Doctor Who audio script, though he’s penned a few Jago & Litefoots since. I’m not sure if he’s willing to be tempted back to Doctor Who, but if so, Big Finish really should make it happen.
As for the TARDIS crew, this is a fantastic display of their abilities. I love the Doctor and Litefoot teaming up: more than any other story in this pairing, here they really feel like two scientists working together. And Jago, on his own again, gets to shine: Christopher Benjamin is a fantastic actor, and his portrayal of a feverish, confused Jago is his best performance in the role since all the way back in the first Jago & Litefoot story. Frankly, I’m surprised that Big Finish didn’t leave any room for additional stories with this group, and I’m sad to see it come to an end despite the uneven start in the actual Jago & Litefoot range.
I mentioned it before, but the sound design and score from Fool Circle Productions are first-rate even according to Big Finish’s usual high standards. Ken Bentley directs, expertly capturing the atmosphere of Sweet’s script and getting some great performances from his cast. Overall, “Voyage to the New World” is fantastic – if, like me, you’ve gone this long and haven’t heard it yet, make the small investment and pick it up. It’s well worth it.
Excellent.
9/10