It’s been a long, hot summer in Stockbridge. Longer than the villagers can remember. Summer’s lease is never-ending – and all thanks to the Lord and Lady of the Manor!
One man alone knows that something’s wrong: Maxwell Edison, Stockbridge’s unofficial ambassador to the Universe. Or ‘flying saucer nut’, as the locals have it. He’ll need help proving it: from the local postmistress Miss Nyssa, perhaps; or the village Doctor, the fellow that’s been living at the Green Dragon Inn these last 30 years.
They’d better hope that autumn never comes to Stockbridge. When autumn comes, the world is doomed…
Who Wants to Live Forever?
Doctor Who – The Eternal Summer
Written by Jonathan Morris
Starring Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton
2009 wasn’t a good year for Big Finish in my opinion; an over reliance on returning characters and writers isn’t good for any ongoing franchise and Doctor Who is no exception. By The Eternal Summer we had had two Dalek stories and the returns of the Key to Time, the Black and White Guardians, Romana, the Celestial Toymaker, the Draconians, Stockbridge and the Rutans. And there was still a third Dalek story to come!
This story falls into the middle of the Stockbridge Trilogy and features the return of Maxwell Edison. Both Stockbridge and Max have been featured in the DWM Comic strip several times over the past thirty years and the village made its debut on audio in the quite exceptional audio Circular Time, during the Autumn episode.
To give Big Finish their due, they really pushed the boundaries of the village, literally in some ways! I was expecting a gentle series of plays set in the sleepy little village featuring tea on the lawn, games of cricket and a little bit of mystery, but they weren’t like that. The first featured the Rutans and was a Time Travelling comedy in the style of Black Adder / Monty Python. The third promised to be a dark tale of zombies and evil birds but turned into a generic Dalek runaround.
This story is the closet the trilogy comes to presenting the Stockbridge we are most familiar with. After a nasty explosion from the previous adventure the Doctor and Nyssa find themselves transported to an idyllic Stockbridge where summer never ends. They find the locals, including the aforementioned Max trapped in a never ending cycle of births, marriages and deaths, and embracing the fact. They have been granted life eternal by the Lord and Lady – a mysterious couple with a macabre connection to the Doctor and Nyssa, who in turn have been granted their powers by an even more ancient force.
Morris sets the scene nicely with its warm imagery of summer in Stockbridge. The Doctor is enjoying his stay in the local guest house, Nyssa finds herself working as a post mistress and the locals are all friendly sorts. The plot unfolds quickly as time anomalies begin to appear – one moment the couple who own the guest house are getting married, the next they are dying for instance. There is a phone call sequence which demonstrates the distortion very effectively.
The Doctor is separated from Nyssa early on, teaming up with Max as he tries to break some of the patterns of the local’s history, to no effect. Eventually he is brought before the Lord and Lady and learns the truth behind the town’s longevity. They are trapped within a time bubble, due to a combination of events from the previous story and the presence of an ancient awakening powerful being.
Nyssa meanwhile is transported to the real world via a flaw in the time bubble and a psychic investigative group investing the disappearance of Stockbridge. With their help she is able to rescue the Doctor and Max, but they find that their interference has increased the rate of decay of the time bubble. The play then becomes a race against time to prevent the potential devastation caused by its demise.
Listening to the play for the purpose of reviewing it has brought out more in it for me. The performances are all solid. Davison and Sutton are great, and genuinely chilling in their alternative roles. There’s a wonderful moment where the Doctors propensity to ‘explain things later’ comes back to haunt him! I’m not a massive fan of Pam Ferris as a rule. She always comes across as a ‘look at me!’ kind of performer but here she plays Lizzie totally straight, whereas a lesser actor may have been tempted to overplay her eccentricities. Ferris just plays along, concentrating on making the character real and opts to let the script do the rest.
The only downside for me was Mark Williams as Max. The problem with bringing characters from the books and comic strips to life is they inevitably interfere with the preconceptions you may have about them. It was the same with Robert Jezek as Frobisher, and Jemima Rooper as Izzy – it takes time to get used to another voice in the role other than the one in your head. Williams gives a brilliant performance, and has fine comic timing, but for me Max should be a lot more breathless and wheezier, and possibly be more monotone and downbeat. It’s a minor quibble though. And the ‘flashbacks’ from the comic strips themselves were a lovely touch.
The theme of immortality being a curse crops up many times during this era of Doctor Who, e.g. Mawdryn Undead, Enlightenment, and The Five Doctors. This story reflects that and also that immortality leads to stagnation and the lack of new ideas and evolution. The inhabitants of Stockbridge are trapped within their own hell of untimely deaths, accidents, humiliations and regrets for the paths never taken. But alternatively they get to spend eternity enjoying long, lazy summer days in a quiet, peaceful, beautiful village with their loved ones around them. In the end is the good side worth the price of the bad? It’s a fascinating dilemma and one I’m certain, that will continue to crop up in Doctor Who for decades to come.
3/5
THE ETERNAL SUMMER
Steve Parkhouse’s run of fifth Doctor DWM comic strips was arguably the best of the entire run of Doctor Who comics. It is therefore no surprise that Big Finish would choose to return for a second time to the village of Stockbridge as seen in those strips – following from the third episode of “Circular Time” – in “The Eternal Summer,” the second of a Stockbridge-oriented trilogy of plays. Jonathan Morris contributes a time-bending script, but will it mark an improvement on the crushing disappointment that was “Castle of Fear?” Fortunately, yes, even if some flaws persist.
The first two parts of “The Eternal Summer” compare favorably to anything released by Big Finish around this time. The explosive cliffhanger from “Castle of Fear” is resolved in mystifying fashion: the Doctor wakes up in a bed-and-breakfast in Stockbridge, surrounded by people who know him but who cannot remember anything about him. In many ways, this is a quintessential setting for the fifth Doctor, but he doesn’t accept it for a moment, even after tracking down Nyssa. The mystery of the first part gives way to the tragedy of the second, as we see the various inhabitants of the village forced to relive their happiest and most painful moments over and over again. The play’s most poignant moment sees the Doctor asking Harold Withers (Roger Hammond) why he grieves over the death of his wife Alice (Susan Brown) since he knows she will live again the next day – but Harold responds that it never gets easier. This wonderful thematic material is threaded throughout the script: life is best experienced with a beginning and an end, and nothing should truly be experienced a second time. The masterful second part cliffhanger, revealing an ancient Doctor and Nyssa, reinforces and amplifies this theme.
Unfortunately, the second half of the play seems less interested in working with this material and more interested in resolving relatively simplistic plot issues: there’s a lot of discussion about how to open and close an aperture in time and avoid blowing a hole in the Earth and much less discussion of the characters and their situations. The focus switches to the ancient Doctor and Nyssa, and while Peter Davison just about pulls off the portrayal, Sarah Sutton soars unconvincingly over the top, unwittingly demonstrating why Nyssa’s commonly stoic portrayal is largely a good thing. We see the Withers rejecting their eternal state at the end, but a more consistent buildup to this decision throughout episode 3 would have been welcome. This is not to call “The Eternal Summer” an unrewarding script – I’m just trying to hold the second half to the lofty standards of the first.
This story also marks the first audio appearance of Maxwell Edison (Mark Williams), popular “UFO nut” character from the comics. Williams gives a convincing, sensitive performance – it’s completely dissimilar from what I expected, but by the conclusion I was both convinced by and satisfied with his portrayal. He’s even given a whirlwind romance with paranormal investigator Lizzie Corrigan (Pam Ferris), something which shouldn’t work in the limited time afforded but actually comes across as rather sweet. Best of all, though, is a brief dramatization of a scene with Max from “Stars Fell on Stockbridge,” the best tribute of all to the comics in a story brimming with them.
Barnaby Edwards directs Morris’ script with practiced skill. The story is complicated, with multiple time shifts often occurring in one scene, but Edwards never loses control and the story rarely becomes confusing. The sound design and music by Howard Carter is unobtrusive but effective, a trend that has continued strongly for most of BF’s output previous to this release.
Overall, “The Eternal Summer” is a successful release. While it has some flaws, including a rather inexplicable ending, it has many more notable strengths, including an excellent first two parts. I’m probably being a point too harsh with my score, but this is an improvement over its predecessor in every way and well worth hearing.
7/10