Benny’s Story

I can’t even lose a key without it turning into an epic adventure!

The Eighth Doctor

Synopsis

Deep in the mines of Epsilon Minima, Professor Bernice Summerfield is up to her neck in it – as usual. The Countess Venhella has hired her to recover a lost Time Lord artefa: A TARDIS key, it turns out. Guess whose?

Review

Benny’s Story kicks off an anthology of stories that sees the Eighth Doctor meet a series of companions from Doctor Who’s expanded media, including books and comics. From the time of writing, Bernice Summerfield feels like an audio fixture, but she did debut in the Virgin New Adventures before being brought to life by Lisa Bowerman for Big Finish. Having never seriously delved into the books and comics, Bernice’s presence in this set is almost like a warm embrace. After all, Bernice has met the majority of the Doctors, including the Ninth, War and Fugitive incarnations in recent years.

Oh, what, you think our lives just stop and start depending on whether the Doctor’s around?

Bernice Summerfield

Half an hour seems like a short space of time to tell a complete Doctor Who story, but writer Lance Parkin rises to the challenge with applomb. This is helped by having a small guest cast joining Bowerman and Paul McGann. The time constraints do not allow a lot of nuance for these characters but Parkin does enough to make them interesting and compelling. He also plays around with an interesting concept, that some people in the universe believe that the Time Lords have enslaved TARDISes. Venhella aims to free the soul of a TARDIS, and of course, the one that turns up is the Doctor’s. It’s logical to see how some may come to that conclusion, given that they are alive and are travelling through the universe at the behest of flawed Time Lords. There are some interesting and horrific concepts here too, like the TARDIS’ defence capabilities and it being able to turn Klarner’s hand to that of a child shows the power of the TARDIS. We also see that the TARDIS is able to create time bubbles, temporarily transporting the Doctor and Benny to the forests of the planet’s past from the coal mines of it’s past.

Su Douglas is clearly having a whale of a time playing the rich Venhella, who is determined to right a perceived injustice by freeing the soul of the Doctor’s TARDIS. She has been taken in by this conspiracy theory. Venhella plots to use a manumatters to sever the link between the Doctor and his TARDIS, but does not know that the correct way to use this is for the TARDIS to be powered down. To do so otherwise is akin to removing the pilot of a plane mid-flight. Klarner, played by Richard Earl, is a great lackey and has a horrendous fate, whilst Venhella is let off relatively lightly for opening portals to other dimensions. She is left wandering the tunnels in the coal mine to be found.

Paul McGann and Lisa Bowerman have great chemistry as the Eighth Doctor and Bernice, and Benny’s Story left me wanting more stories between the two of them. The Eighth Doctor feels light and breezy here, despite the disastrous consequences on the universe that Venhella’s schemes could have. Bernice, on the other hand, does act as a grounding force for the Doctor and keeping his head in the here and now, which he definitely needs at some point in this story.

Verdict: Benny’s Story is a really solid start to this anthology, with a well-judged story and good performances from main and guest cast alike. 9/10

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), Lisa Bowerman (Bernice Summerfield), Richard Earl (Klarner) & Su Douglas (Venhella).

Writer: Lance Parkin

Director: Nicholas Briggs

Music and Sound: Thea Cochrane

Release Date: 28 July 2009

Main Range Release Number: 123a

Behind the Scenes

• This was the first performed meeting of the Eighth Doctor and Bernice. They had previously appeared in the novel The Dying Days, also written by Lance Parkin.

Cast Notes

• Richard Earl has appeared in a number of Big Finish stories, including The Hidden Realm, City of Spires and The Bride of Peladon.

Best Quote

Grab? i really don’t feel there’s any need for grabbing!

The Eighth Doctor

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