Polly Wright has tracked down an old friend of the Doctor’s… Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, former Brigadier at UNIT. As the trade stories of their time travelling in the TARDIS, it soon becomes clear that their pasts are intertwined, and linked to a current crisis on the planet Earth. And there’s a third companion, watching them from a distance. A certain Thomas Brewster… An epic story featuring the Doctor’s former companions Polly, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and Thomas Brewster in a fight to save the Earth, The Three Companions was previously released in serialized form and is available to hear in a new compilation edit for the first time.
THE COMPANION CHRONICLES: THE THREE COMPANIONS
From 2009 to 2010, Big Finish tried an experiment with their main range Doctor Who stories: for 12 consecutive releases, a Companion Chronicle, Marc Platt’s “The Three Companions,” would accompany the main range in 10-minute serialized episodes. As the title implies, the story involved three companions – Polly, the Brigadier, and Thomas Brewster – narrating three tales that intertwined into a greater whole. Then, in 2011, “The Three Companions” was released in a more conventional format as part of “The Specials” box set. This review is of the 2011 release, something that was entertaining but not all that impressive.
The framing device of “The Three Companions” is quite involved. The first two episodes are presented in epistolary fashion: Polly, after reading Jo’s account of “The Doll of Death” on the internet, reaches out to the Brigadier via email and the two reminisce together about their time in the Doctor’s company. Platt writes this somewhat inconsistently, though, as the story rapidly shifts from formal “Dear Polly” address to a more casual, conversational style. Maybe they moved to Gchat? There are also occasional interruptions from the other character, perhaps intended to remind the listener that the other character was present, but hearing Polly gasp out “My goodness!” for no reason is amusing in any case. When the story reaches the third episode and Brewster becomes involved, it dances between full-cast and narrated action, often in the same scene – and this is unnecessarily confusing. Perhaps this worked better in the original 10-minute installments, as the shifting nature of the frame doesn’t benefit the story.
The story itself, predictably, doesn’t need to be quite so long, but that’s another consequence of the serial format. Polly’s story is a standard runaround that basically serves to introduce the supporting characters, while Brewster’s story takes on more of an action format – but why on earth have your climax fail to involve any of your principal characters? It makes the story less interesting by definition – if we cared about watching two aliens fight, we’d have followed the two aliens for two hours instead of the characters we did follow. The Brigadier’s story, on the other hand, is generally fantastic, with a captivating setting and a rather unique (for audio) portrayal of the Brigadier traveling in the TARDIS. Platt’s story is also quite atmospheric, with a definite sense of decay seeping into every minute.
“The Three Companions” is most significant because it features Nicholas Courtney’s final performance as the Brigadier. Here he’s off in the TARDIS with the third Doctor to an unusual version of Earth, and Courtney’s wonderful narration easily keeps the interest. His voice has changed significantly with age, and his impression of Pertwee is barely noticeable, but from time to time he drops back into character as his younger self, barking out orders like it’s 35 years ago. It’s odd at first to hear him with Anneke Wills and John Pickard, but really, why shouldn’t the most ubiquitous supporting character in Doctor Who history co-star with a couple more companions in his final bow? It’s not a tribute, of course, but it’s still a fine reminder of how lucky we were as fans to have his performances for so long. Anneke Wills, meanwhile, gives a sensitive performance as the older Polly – it’s clear from this and other stories that she’s given thought to how her character would have aged. And John Pickard is admirable as usual as Brewster, though the usual questions like “why hasn’t anyone locked him up?” still apply.
The production is quite good, Lisa Bowerman’s direction keeping the pace from slacking too much and the piano-themed score from Richard Fox and Lauren Yason particularly haunting. Overall, “The Three Companions” is largely unmemorable. It’s great to hear the Brigadier one last time, and there’s a great attempt made to build up the atmosphere, but ultimately this just isn’t very interesting Doctor Who. Still, if you’re here for the acting and the production, there’s a lot to appreciate.
Not bad.
6/10