Audio
Adventures in Time and Space #30:
The Barnacled
Baby
written by
Anthony Keetch
Its back to
the world of unlicensed Doctor Who spin-offs for another adventure
featuring a well-known one-off monster from the show. This time its
the shapeshifting fetus people the Zygons and... well...
Okay, to put
it mildly there are times when BBV landed on the wrong wide of good
taste. There was Only Human
that took a hard swerve into trigger warning territory in the middle
of what felt like a lightweight Doctor Who adventure and some
seriously insensitive material about child loss in The Rani
Reaps The Whirlwind. By
comparison inflicting the mental image of a Zygon beastfeeding is
mild by comparison but still not entirely pleasant (due to it being a
Zygon, not the act of breastfeeding itself, you understand). The idea
is that the Zygon is weak because he doesn't have a Skarasen to drink
the milk from and this woman has offered to sub in.
Anyway,
the situation is this: the Zygon is alone and cut off from his
spaceship and because he landed in Victorian England he's ended up in
a freakshow. The owner sees “the Barnacled Baby of the Sea” as
his meal ticket, a wonder that Queen Victoria wants to view and PT
Barnum wants to exhibit. There's also a wealthy doctor, Sir Frederick
Maltravers (played by Clive Merrison, to my great surprise) who wants
to purchase the Zygon in the name of science.
Talking of
surprising voices, this is the first time I've heard Deborah Watling
perform since her death. Its always a funny feeling, that voice from
the past you know is no longer around. I sort of dread listening to
the final Jago & Litefoot
box set for this very reason. Watling appears only briefly but gets
in a corker of the final scene where she gets to deliver the twist
punchline I'm starting to get used to from these monster-led audios.
Bizarre
breastfeeding scenes aside, this is actually a good take on one of
the classic science-fiction situations. Bobby the Zygon (who has an
alien name but one the internet refuses to tell me how to spell) is
in a weak position and proceeds to manipulate or murder whoever he
needs to in an attempt to locate his ship. Running alongside the
Zygon's story is tale of typically squalid Victorian family drama
with the freakshow owner Jethro and his much abused daughter Doris,
her former lover Toby and the financial problems and opportunities of
all three. Its actually a lot better written and performed than the
last couple of these monster audio I listened to. Quality-wise its
much more like The Quality of Mercy
was: well-acted and atmospheric with a well-realised historical
setting.
Sadly,
TARDIS Wikia credits Anthony Keetch with only three other pieces of
Doctor Who fiction, all of them prose Short Trips and he;s mainly an
actor. In fact, he's Coordinator Vansell from the early Gallifrey-set
Big Finish audios which I didn't realise under the thick jolly
Cockney accent. Pity, I would rather have enjoyed hearing some more
full-length audios from him.
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