Other Lives

Have you seen the bloody monumental column in Trafalgar Square? Horatio’s taller than the rest of us!

The Duke of Wellington

Synopsis

London, 1851.

Scene of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations. Scene also of a plot to un-seat the government, de-throne the monarch and start a republic. If the Duke of Wellington himself is to be believed…

While the Doctor and Charley are drawn into the murky world of nineteenth-century politics, C’rizz struggles to maintain his dignity against growing odds. What begins as an attempt to prevent murder quickly becomes a desperate race to avert revolution. Separated from the TARDIS, the travellers are left to wonder if they’ll get their own lives back or be forever entangled with the lives of others.

And who is Mrs Georgina Marlow? What need does she feel the Doctor can satisfy?

Review

Other Lives stands out as the sole Eighth Doctor story in Big Finish’s canon to date that falls into the category of being a pure historical.

Miss Pollard, you and your Doctor friend are partly to blame for the situation we find ourselves in, the least you can do is help us get out of it.

The Duke of Wellington

Other Lives is a story in which Gary Hopkins really delves into providing the characters with some development rather than plot. The plot in itself is really rather simple and can be summarised as being the Doctor and his companions doing what they have to survive when the TARDIS disappears. Whilst little happens by way of plot and the stakes are seemingly relatively small when considered alongside some other Doctor Who stories which put the fate of the universe in the balance, Other Lives does manage to make you care about the three storylines which all ultimately intersect at the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace. The biggest one is the one involving the de Roches, played by India Fisher and Conrad Westmaas, displaying that despite other talents, a French accent may be beyond them, and the Duke of Wellington, which has the possibility of changing history. The other sub-plots are rather smaller and, at times, the Doctor and C’rizz feel sidelined in comparison to Charley. The story benefits from great sound design from Gary Russell, which makes the Exhibition feel full of people and bustling, making it all the more believable that the Doctor and his companions would become separated.

Doesn’t the Crystal Palace look magnificent from this distance? Like a million polished diamonds glittering in the sunlight. A magnificient example of Victorian engineering concealing a thousand others.

The Eighth Doctor

The guest cast are strong here. Ron Moody’s elderly Duke of Wellington perhaps rightly steals every scene he is in. The Duke is 82 years old and starting to become obsessed with how he will be remembered, a question which he has answered by Charley on learning that she is a time traveller. Moody is warm and charismatic, fizzling with warmth and chemistry, and despite his character’s age, undoubtedly one of the heroes. Another member of the guest cast who stands out is Francesca Hunt as Georgina Marlow, the wife of the Doctor’s doppleganger, Edward, who had disappeared following going travelling in Africa. Hunt makes Georgina’s desperation for the Doctor to be her husband and the father to her children utterly believable, because she has been placed in a near impossible situation by her husband and his uncle, the improbably named Rufus Dimplesqueeze, who mistakes Charley for a prostitute early in the story. The scene in which Georgina finally realises that the Doctor is not her husband because he doesn’t need glasses to read the newspaper is truly heartbreaking.

I think that it is really easy to forget in the audio medium that C’rizz looks like an alien, and I think that Other Lives does a really good job of reminding the audience that his appearance isn’t humanoid, unlike previous alien companions like Romana, Adric or Turlough. The Victorian audience react with revulsion and terror on the sight of him in Crackle’s show, and that brings home a visceral sense of what it would be like an Eutermesan on stage, a chameleon creature. C’rizz is treated horribly by Crackles, but shows a more disturbing side to his nature which we have previously seen at the end of Terror Firma, this idea of saving people by killing them and, whilst the audience is not supposed to like Jacob Crackles, the way C’rizz deals with him at the end of this story sounds viscerally horrifying. I think Westmaas brings C’rizz to life effectively here and the character does benefit massively from having some time away from the Doctor and Charley, even if he is kept in captivity for most of the story.

This story feels as though both Paul McGann and India Fisher are really engaged and it bleeds through into their performances. McGann really sells the conflicted state of the Doctor as he continues to attempt to justify to himself leaving Georgina to fend for herself, and whilst this story does give Georgina and the real Edward a happy ending, there are moments where the Doctor genuinely seems to be considering staying. Fisher gets a lot of the comedy scenes with the Duke of Wellington and her horror when she realises that she has asked him to hold her shoes is great. Charley ultimately gives Wellington a limited view of what will happen in the future, but shows great caution to avoid damaging the future, which feels like new found responsibility for this character.

Verdict: Other Lives is a good character study, and entertaining. Ron Moody steals the show as the Duke of Wellington. 8/10

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor/Edward Marlow), India Fisher (Charley Pollard/Madame de Roche), Conrad Westmaas (C’rizz/Monsieur de Roche), Gary Bakewell (Christian Bakewell), Ron Moody (The Duke of Wellington), Michael Hobbs (Mr. Fazackerly), Mike Holoway (Jacob Crackles), Peter Howe (Maxi), Francesca Hunt (Georgina Marlow) & Maitland Chandler (Rufus Dimplesqueeze).

Writer: Gary Hopkins

Director: Gary Russell

Producers: Gary Russell and Jason Haigh-Ellery

Composer: David Darlington

Parts: 4

Main Range Release Number: 77

Release Date: 13th December 2005

Behind the Scenes

• At the time of writing, this is the only pure historical featuring the Eighth Doctor.
• This is one of two stories in the Big Finish Main Range to feature the Duke of Wellington, the other being The Curse of Davros. In that story, the Duke is played by Granville Saxton.

Cast Notes

• Ron Moody was considered to play the Third Doctor, an opportunity which he turned down. He would later describe this as one of his greatest regrets.
• Michael Hobbs would go on to play Arcantis in Time in Office, as well as playing Francis Currie in UNIT.
• Francesca Hunt played Fifth Doctor companion Hannah Bartholomew in Moonflesh, Tomb Ship and Masquerade. She has also appeared in The Perfect Prisoners (The Fourth Doctor Adventures).

Best Quote

Doesn’t the Crystal Palace look magnificient from this distance? Like a million polished diamonds glittering in the sunlight. A magnificient example of Victorian engineering concealing a thousand others.

The Eighth Doctor

Previous Eighth Doctor review: Scaredy Cat.

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