Romana experiences a make-over that she’ll never forget. A new adventure for the Fourth Doctor as told by his companion Romana.
Romana experiences a make-over that she’ll never forget. A new adventure for the Fourth Doctor as told by his companion Romana.
THE COMPANION CHRONICLES: THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE
The fourth Companion Chronicle, and the last in the range’s first series, is Jonathan Morris’s “The Beautiful People,” a faithful recreation of Doctor Who’s seventeenth season. Morris, who rose to fan prominence with his Adams-era novel “Festival of Death,” shoots for that same nostalgic feeling here, succeeding in almost every respect.
Unlike its three predecessors, “The Beautiful People” dispenses entirely with the idea of a framing device. While Lalla Ward does narrate in first person, it’s very much in the style of a true audiobook, right down to Ward reading the chapter titles at the start of each episode. Ward herself is no stranger to the character of Romana by this time, having returned to the role in multiple Doctor Who audios and the Gallifrey spinoff series, but she throws herself into the role of narrator with enthusiasm. It almost gets to be too much at the conclusion of each episode – her voice grows so breathy and troubled it sounds as though she’s being attacked in the studio! Her Tom Baker impression is fun, of course, and she’s just the right degree of smarmy when recapturing K9.
The star of the show, though, is Morris’ prose. The actual theme is obvious: too much vanity is a bad thing, and there’s no subtlety employed in presenting it. I do like the subversive twist Morris puts on it at the conclusion, seeming to endorse boundless gluttony as an alternative! But it’s the tone that delights: this is a note-perfect impression of season 17, right down to the witty dialogue and the lunatic Doctor at the center of it all. If his ravings about donuts at the beginning are a bit much to take, his abandonment of the plot for two episodes to shop in the gift store is entirely in character. It’s also fun to hear Romana’s persistently exasperated view of the Doctor. Best of all is K9, though – he’s not in the story too much, but Morris’s description of K9 viewing himself as the star and the Doctor and Romana as his companions perfectly sums up the robot dog.
Unfortunately, there’s absolutely nothing to the plot. It’s very standard capture-recapture, run-up-the-corridor stuff, and it’s free of the higher-concept material that so often captured the imagination around season 17’s frivolity. For the most part, this is tolerable, because it allows the focus to be upon the wit and the tone – but it hardly makes you eager to find out what happens next. Another mistake is the division of the story into four episodes: they’re unnecessary, they require the insertion of three increasingly unbelievable cliffhangers, and they break up the drama for no justifiable reason. The fourth episode is 11 minutes long, for heaven sakes.
The production is quite similar to the other three releases in this series. Mark J. Thompson directs his performers well, and the sound design by Robert Oakley and Robert Dunlop is unobtrusively effective. Oakley’s score is unmemorable. Overall, there’s not much more to say about “The Beautiful People.” The theme is obvious and the plot is nonexistent, but the tone is wonderful, the writing is fantastically witty, and the characterization is ideal. If you like season 17, this is a must-buy. Otherwise, it’s entertaining but ultimately optional.
Recommended.
7/10