The final adventure in the tenth season of Benny adventures.
1 Comment
Tom Swift
on May 9, 2016 at 4:05 AM
Secret Origins
Let’s recap.
Bernice Summerfield and her son Peter are on the run, living a difficult life, trying to make ends meet as a single mother without attracting the attention of Irving Braxiatel, her estranged employer who is responcible for the death of her ex husband amongst other things. Only, at the start of Secret Origins, it appears that may not be the case.
For one story and one story only we get a glimpse of another universe where Bernice is more of a superhero, an immortal archaeologist, a truer representation of the Indiana Jones style hero who has spent centuries battling against the arch-villain Mr. Frost with her sidekick Robyn… Sounds crazy right?
Eddie Robson makes this story work by telling it backwards. In the sense of Bernice and Peter discovering what’s going on this makes good dramatic tension, with every ‘slight’ plot thread giving tantalising hints about Robyn and her motives. However in terms of ‘Mr. Frost’, responsible for the intrusive cliff hanger from the last story, it makes the character something of a damp squib. The all powerful super villain is dead less than ten minutes into the story, with less than a dozen lines of dialogue spoken. Anti climax much?
What follows are a selection of ‘flashbacks’, small short stories presented like episodes from a comic book. In each one Bernice and Robyn are doing ‘something’ and stumble across the nefarious schemes of Mr Frost and foil him. With only a small running time these individual sections flew by leaving me rather bemused and wondering what’s going on. It’s only in the grand finale, featuring Nazis and malformed mutants, that a familiar face appears to explain everything. The downside of this though is that Mr. Frost finally becomes a real, believable, interesting character only in his final scene… As his future machinations and downfall have already happened. Interesting to think about but dramatically flawed.
Secret Origins is an unusual play, but what it is represents perfectly what Eddie Robson has achieved over the last two series. This is the end of two of the best years of short stories that the range has ever had, the culmination of two inventive and always shocking twists that can only happen when writers have the freedom to do what they want with their own cast. By freeing up Bernice and Peter, Eddie seems to have got the best out of the range, and what’s followed feels a natural progression from the preceding series, as opposed to falling back to the original status quo from the range’s first few years.
It’s a shame that very few segments of this short story are actually very interesting. Eddie Robson writers very intelligent witty dialogue very well, crafts Robyn instantly into someone who seems to have had years building dynamic with Bernice, and Donna Berlin plays her with aplomb. In fact the sound design is spot on and I can’t fault a single performance. But in every segment, its all for show, every twist is slight of hand… In short it carries the weakness of the comic book mentality that originally inspired it.
Where it does stand tall though is its conclusion. Miles Richardson’s cameo is delightfully brief and abrupt but it carried with it everything it needs. The plot as laid out by Robyn is tight and believable and worth laid out. In short this play really is worth far more than the sum of its parts.
Secret Origins
Let’s recap.
Bernice Summerfield and her son Peter are on the run, living a difficult life, trying to make ends meet as a single mother without attracting the attention of Irving Braxiatel, her estranged employer who is responcible for the death of her ex husband amongst other things. Only, at the start of Secret Origins, it appears that may not be the case.
For one story and one story only we get a glimpse of another universe where Bernice is more of a superhero, an immortal archaeologist, a truer representation of the Indiana Jones style hero who has spent centuries battling against the arch-villain Mr. Frost with her sidekick Robyn… Sounds crazy right?
Eddie Robson makes this story work by telling it backwards. In the sense of Bernice and Peter discovering what’s going on this makes good dramatic tension, with every ‘slight’ plot thread giving tantalising hints about Robyn and her motives. However in terms of ‘Mr. Frost’, responsible for the intrusive cliff hanger from the last story, it makes the character something of a damp squib. The all powerful super villain is dead less than ten minutes into the story, with less than a dozen lines of dialogue spoken. Anti climax much?
What follows are a selection of ‘flashbacks’, small short stories presented like episodes from a comic book. In each one Bernice and Robyn are doing ‘something’ and stumble across the nefarious schemes of Mr Frost and foil him. With only a small running time these individual sections flew by leaving me rather bemused and wondering what’s going on. It’s only in the grand finale, featuring Nazis and malformed mutants, that a familiar face appears to explain everything. The downside of this though is that Mr. Frost finally becomes a real, believable, interesting character only in his final scene… As his future machinations and downfall have already happened. Interesting to think about but dramatically flawed.
Secret Origins is an unusual play, but what it is represents perfectly what Eddie Robson has achieved over the last two series. This is the end of two of the best years of short stories that the range has ever had, the culmination of two inventive and always shocking twists that can only happen when writers have the freedom to do what they want with their own cast. By freeing up Bernice and Peter, Eddie seems to have got the best out of the range, and what’s followed feels a natural progression from the preceding series, as opposed to falling back to the original status quo from the range’s first few years.
It’s a shame that very few segments of this short story are actually very interesting. Eddie Robson writers very intelligent witty dialogue very well, crafts Robyn instantly into someone who seems to have had years building dynamic with Bernice, and Donna Berlin plays her with aplomb. In fact the sound design is spot on and I can’t fault a single performance. But in every segment, its all for show, every twist is slight of hand… In short it carries the weakness of the comic book mentality that originally inspired it.
Where it does stand tall though is its conclusion. Miles Richardson’s cameo is delightfully brief and abrupt but it carried with it everything it needs. The plot as laid out by Robyn is tight and believable and worth laid out. In short this play really is worth far more than the sum of its parts.
8 / 10