The Red House

Here in the Red House, there’s no such word as can’t.

Dr. Paignton

Synopsis

The Doctor and Charlotte Pollard arrive on a world that is populated by werewolves.

Review

Of the quartet of stories in this boxset, The Red House is the weakest. It does little to drive the ongoing narrative and I don’t really feel as though all that much happens. I remember listening to The Red House for the first time and being disappointed by it. My attitude has changed a little over the years, but it is still the story that I endure if I re-listen to these stories.

One of my major problems with the story is the werewolves. Werewolves have never massively been my bag and here they feel particularly grating. Whilst Alan Barnes deserves credit for trying to do some novel with the creatures, at least to my mind, by making the wolves the intelligent side and the humans the beasts, the performances rather let this story down. The werewolves, whether the police or the hippies, all feel far too earnest and well spoken to every truly convince. It honestly feels as though it needed stronger direction from Nicholas Briggs, and a clearer steer from Alan Barnes as to what was expected. When the majority of the action feels like it is set to the backdrop of snarls and howls, it’s quite crucial to get that right. The backstory of how these werewolves ended up on this island and the threat they are deemed to pose by the wider world is a good idea. Paignton is trying to use a psychic mechanism  to solve the problem at the Red House by having the lycanthropy cured so that they will be accepted back on the main land. Ugo, on the other hand, wants his werewolves to be able to blend in with humanity and create an uprising.

This is all set amongst the Valeyard’s wider revenge plan against the Sixth Doctor. Not yet ready to reveal himself to the Doctor, he skulks on the fringes, posing as the porter and a Time Lord to Charley when she runs afoul of Paignton. Michael Jayston is superb here, his baritone voice really resonating on audio. I don’t think that it’s possible for him to feel anything less than intimidating. The Valeyard knows the Doctor and his proclivity to interfere, but this situation is one where there it’s not possible to win. As the story shows, when Ugo’s werewolves rise up, the mainland’s default response is with a nuclear weapon. It is rather a bleak outcome that we’re left with, where the werewolf population sail off to find another island to live on. Presumably if they stumble across humanity, they will be wiped out, so it’s not the usual hopeful ending you’d expect from a story like this.

By setting these stories chronologically from his perspective, it allows us to see the Doctor with different companions following the conclusion of the Trial arc. Whilst the companion for the final story is set in stone, this allows for Big Finish to write stories around their original companions, using Constance, Flip and for this story, Charley. This story is written by Alan Barnes, who created the character as a companion to the Eighth Doctor. The Valeyard, of course, knows Charley’s dangerous relationship with the Web of Time, not only as she survived the crash of the R101 but as she also travelled with a younger incarnation of the Doctor following The Girl Who Never Was. As a result, Barnes does need to explain some of this to those audience members who may not be familiar with Charley’s arc through the main range. That being said, Barnes does this with economy, giving the listener the headlines rather than going into excessive detail. The interplay between India Fisher and Jayston is probably the highlight of this story, with him using her as a puppet to try and prevent the Doctor interfering, as to do so would cause a genocide.

I have not listened to a lot of stories with Charley and the Sixth Doctor, but what I’ve heard, it seems like a minor miracle that Charley hasn’t given herself away yet though. She is almost begging the Doctor to ask questions of how she knows about vortisaurs. The Doctor does get rather sidelined in this story, off with the rebel werewolves, as the plot necessitates him not encountering the Valeyard at this point. Colin Baker is on fine form as usual, but the story doesn’t give him enough to really do. He is there to sow the seeds of rebellion, which was already brewing, but ultimately, this story is rather a filler between strong opening and concluding stories.

Verdict: The Red House feels like a filler episode and does take a while to get anywhere. Michael Jayston and India Fisher save this one from being terrible, but there’s not really a role for the Doctor. 6/10

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charley Pollard), Michael Jayston (The Valeyard), Ashley McGuire (Sergeant), Andrée Bernard (Dr Paignton/Constable), Rory Keenan (Ugo), Jessie Buckley (Lina) and Kieran Hodgson (Arin/Dennis).

Writer: Alan Barnes

Director: Nicholas Briggs

Music and Sound Design: Howard Carter

Release Date: 17th August 2015

Cast Notes

• Andrée Bernard played Dolly in The Shakespeare Code. She has also appeared in a number of Big Finish audio plays, including Blue Forgotten Planet, The Feast of Axos and Terror of the Sontarans.
• Rory Keenan has appeared in Signs and Wonders, The Darkness of Glass and Technophobia.
• Jessie Buckley has also appeared in The Wreck of the World and The Eye of the Storm.
• Kieran Hodgson has also appeared in the Big Finish audio plays Last of the Cybermen, The Skin of the Sleek and

Best Quote

I don’t want to go back too mum and dad and the village. I don’t want to be a good little wolf girl who comes out at night.

Lina

Previous Sixth Doctor review: The End of the Line

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