The Randomiser brings the travellers to the future site of Brighton Pavilion, where a travelling waxworks has set up a show. But what horrors does Madame Tissot’s Exposition hold? And what does it have to do with Marie Antoinette?
The Randomiser brings the travellers to the future site of Brighton Pavilion, where a travelling waxworks has set up a show. But what horrors does Madame Tissot’s Exposition hold? And what does it have to do with Marie Antoinette?
GALLERY OF GHOULS
After the Fourth Doctor Adventures finally hit a home run with the superlative “Paradox Planet” two-parter, we’re back to the standard format with Alan Barnes’ “Gallery of Ghouls.” And while it’s not a patch on its predecessor, it makes up for its lack of incident with some entertaining humor.
The biggest problem with “Gallery of Ghouls,” and the reason why this will once again be a shorter review, is that there isn’t a great deal that actually happens in the story. The Doctor and Romana take a vacation in Brighton in the early 1830s and eventually become embroiled in alien affairs involving waxworks. This Doctor, you see, is a big fan of wax museums – presumably this is a winking nod at “Tom Baker’s” publicity appearances for “The Five Doctors” – and so he attends Madame Tissot’s (Celia Imrie) display. But when the head of a rival gallery steals a wax head of Marie Antoinette, and that gallery owner melts into a storm drain, a mystery is afoot. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t really go anywhere from that point. Goole (Nickolas Grace) is part of an alien race that cannot experience physical sensations, so he craves emotions, and uses his wax gallery and his android Marie Antoinette to draw emotions from his customers. Some capture-and-escape drama happens for a while, until finally the Doctor lures Goole into the TARDIS and turns down the temperature, thus saving the day. Basically everything that happens with Tissot and her son Noni (Stephen Critchlow) is disposable, and unfortunately the characters aren’t interesting enough to make up for it. There’s a brief, intriguing glimpse at who Tissot actually is, but it goes nowhere.
Fortunately, Barnes has taken the season 17 briefing to heart, and packs the story with the silliness that era is known for. This is easily the most flippant Tom Baker has been for Big Finish, and it’s delightful. He knows the humor is over the top, and he goes right over with it – even simple lines like his incredulous “Romana! Have you been EAVESDROPPING?!” made me giggle. Lalla Ward embraces the tone as well, taking the straight role, exasperated with the Doctor’s unserious tone and actually trying to get things done. There are even lots of references to K-9 constantly being just “off camera” and unable to participate.
But that’s about it, really. Ken Bentley directs and Jamie Robertson handles the sound design, so no issues to be found there. “Gallery of Ghouls” is lightweight, disposable Doctor Who. It has a great sense of humor, so it’s fun to listen to, but I’m already struggling to find much more to say about it and I can’t imagine it’ll be much different for anyone else. Still, I had a smile on my face, and that hasn’t always been true of other stories in this range.
Unmemorable but fun.
6/10