Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Tim Chipping, John Banks, Andrew Dickens, Fiona Sheehan, Glynn Sweet.
A year seems far too long to wait for the dulcet, attention-grabbing tones of Colin Baker’s incarnation of The Doctor to play with the listener’s ears in a way that would have cat’s purring contentedly and theatre audience’s gripped. Even in the calmest moments, the time between time, the resonance of his delivery is nothing short of exquisite and somehow it still rankles that the B.B.C. at the time were so short sighted in their appraisal of his era in Doctor Who.
Where the B.B.C. failed miserably, Big Finish have striven to make Colin Baker’s sixth Doctor one of the most eagerly looked forward to releases across their whole incredible range of audio dramas. This far-sighted policy is further enhanced by the return of Nicola Bryant’s much loved character Peri Brown to the adventure cannon in The Widow’s Assassin.
Nicola Bryant has not been a stranger in the world of Big Finish and neither has the American companion Peri, however the world we have seen her in is before the events at the end of The Trial of a Time Lord. The thought of her death, the subsequent last minute saving of her life by King Yrcanos and The Doctor’s acceptance that some companions are perhaps better off without him, all played out across what was an emotional period for the Doctor Who programme.
There have been many companions that have been important to The Doctor, some have been indispensable such as Tegan, Jamie, Clara and Amy, some have been unforgettable, some have been withering, however there are not that many that The Doctor has given his own life for, in which he has himself made the ultimate sacrifice for and for Peri Brown, she sits very fondly in his heart.
Peri Brown, a companion that could never be brought back, that could not be revisited except in stories set between her set time frame…except for when the creativity flows at Big Finish’s head office and a writer of Nev Fountains ability is able to give an explanation so water tight, so magnificent in its delivery that the audience cannot help but wonder just how far in advance this has been planned.
The Widow’s Assassin is not just a return for Peri but a return to form after the languishing end of the previous trilogy of audio plays involving the sixth Doctor. In companions such as Peri, Evelyn Smythe, Charley Pollard and even Jago and Lightfoot the listener cares for the companion, they hold them tight to their hearts and are seen as offering a type of salvation to The Doctor. Whilst Flip Jackson was a pleasant character there just wasn’t enough of her to be a fully formed companion, there wasn’t enough of her to like. In Peri, Nicola Bryant gives something back to the current companion status that has been missing since Charley Pollard departed the Tardis for the final time.
What The Widow’s Assassin’s also offers is some much needed humour in between the drama, something else that had been missing for a while. With a cast that makes the most of Nev Fountain’s great script, the thought of an augmented sheep being in charge of the local force, two guards who really understand the idea of making a prisoner comfortable and a separate aside story happening alongside the return of Peri and with the wonderful Glynn Sweet really revelling in the role of Harcross The Ever-Patient, this was just what the Doctor ordered.
Assassins require payoffs, they need to be regimented and they seek nothing other than cold, clinical finishes; for the The Widow’s Assassin, it is hot as a day out on the beach in Comino, as warm a finish as the fan could hope for and as for the pay-off…welcome back Peri Brown.
Ian D. Hall