The Depository is a vast store of the literary remains of Earth’s cultural greats: Charles Darwin, Martin Luther, Wilkie Collins, Barbara Cartland. Benny’s heard that there’s a job going, and thinks that it might offer just the kind of stable environment that her son requires. It has friendly bars, a reliable atmosphere shield, a fantastic patisserie run by a robot called Mrs Tishpishti – and no history of alien invasion. But you know where you are with an alien invasion. Or you do, at least, if you’re Bernice Summerfield. And even she has never encountered a monster whose main objective is to tell her that she doesn’t look very good in trousers.
The Diet Of Worms
“Hell… With cakes and buns… Fancy.”
Go on, say it. The blurb for this story doesn’t really excite… Especially disappointing is the fact that this is the finale of the ninth series and many listeners are expecting some resolution to the larger arc of Bernice’s life. Matthew Sweet provides no resolution, barely even recognises that things are not all great in Bernice’s larger life.
The truth is this is, for me, one of the best examples of what the range is capable of. The pre-title sequence had me laughing aloud with the above quote, introducing two of the most original characters/monsters I’ve heard so far, and who seem so perfectly designed for audio. That applies perfectly to the setting as a whole, Matthew Sweet’s fertile imagination has produced something both outlandish and extremely intelligent.
Bernice Summerfield is presented as someone desperate looking for a job, and arrives at the depository looking for a position. Whilst she interviews Peter is left in the care of Mrs. Tishpishti, a robotic cake lady played with great gusto by Beth Chalmers. In fact many of the characters are larger than life yet the whole story feels perfectly natural, the dialogue is simply too intelligent to feel farcical.
It isn’t all light hearted though, it is particularly melancholy in some places, and contains some interesting criticism of Bernice’s ‘single mother’ status from a very unusual source… Hopefully Barbara Cartland would approve of this interesting use of her literature.
But I can’t even complain that the story isn’t longer. It lasts almost exactly the right length, any longer and the joke would start to wear thin.
Although it provides no resolution to Bernice’s life, the Diet of Worms does show it continuing along exactly the right lines, with excellent, intelligent, adventures more than definitely worth the sale price.
But… I just can’t dare to give it perfect marks….
It’s not…. Epic enough for a series finale. If only there had been a fifth, final adventure to round out Bernice’s ninth series.
“We should have put the important stuff in Hull. Aliens never invade Hull.”
9.9 / 10