Dinner
is served, human scum, mutters Tony.
All of what
you’re about to read should be understood through a very clear and singular
prism: I love the Paternoster Gang. Always have, always will, and on audio at
Big Finish, both the characters and their adventures have a chance to grow by virtue
of the characters being, like most of us, the focal point in the stories of
their own lives.
So: Tony loves
Paternosters. Clear?
Now, read on.
Heritage 1 did everything it needed to do with the
Paternoster Gang’s first solo outing on audio – it established them front and
centre of their own narrative, gave them a focus, in terms of alien doohickery
and gittery in Victorian London (as opposed to the frequently macabre and
unexplained shenanigans of Messrs Jago and Litefoot). Heritage 2
massively expands their reach, both in terms of geography and in terms of the
challenges they’re called upon to tackle. The world of Paternoster Row is
getting bigger and more complex.
Dining With
Death, by Dan ‘Dan, Dan
the Sontaran, if he can’t blast it, no-one can’ Starkey, sees the Gang tackle the
impromptu hosting of an interplanetary peace conference between a species
habituated to lying and killing even their own kind, more or less out of
occasional existential boredom, and a race who’d make you measure the
circumference of the dots on your ‘i’s to ensure they conformed to protocol
before they signed anything. The previous peace conference between the two
races in a discrete London restaurant was atomised by person or persons unknown,
there are factions on both sides that don’t want the peace to go ahead, the
races are only coming together to fight a third invasive species who neither of
them have actually set eyes on, and Madame Vastra is determined that the
tensions surrounding the conference will not spread out onto the streets of
London, and into the wider world. It is her duty, she feels, to protect the
Earth from the cosmic idiocy and bloodshed of any failure to communicate
between these races, and so she offers the house on Paternoster Row as the
location for the negotiations, with herself as chair and Strax as butler,
taking care of all the delegates’ many pernickety needs, while Jenny is
despatched to find out who blew the first peace conference to its component
atoms – and whether they might try again.
While it’s
absolutely the case that all three of the Gang have their own storylines here,
and that all three get plenty of chances to shine, Starkey’s closeness to the
way Strax speaks and thinks makes this an extra-special treat for Strax-fans,
from Strax’s decidedly…erm…RentoKillWithMaximumPrejudice approach to plumbing,
to an insistence on the surrender of even ceremonial stabby things while the
conference is in session, to fixing atmospheric conditions for the different
aliens and, when necessary, wrestling the cheese into submission. Because,
y’know…Strax gives a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘lactose intolerant.’
Of the three
stories in the set, Dining With Death is probably the most overtly
comic, and as such, it reminds you of some of the things unique to the
Paternoster Gang and gets you into their particular three-way chemistry, before
things take a darker, screamier tone with the two remaining stories. Maybe it’s
a mark of personal shallowness, but the outright comedy means it’s my strong
nomination for easiest and most regular re-listen on this set.
Guy Adams takes
the writing reins for the second story, The Screaming Ceiling, which
pairs the Gang with young, gadget-addicted ghost-enthusiast, Thomas Carnacki to
investigate…well, a screaming…erm…ceiling, really. The joy about this story is
that it’s told as if related by Carnacki himself (for those not in the know, Carnacki
the Ghost-Finder was a fictional paranormal investigator created by William
Hope Hodgson in the early 20th century). The two investigating teams
are employed independently by the husband and wife owners of Castle Kraighten
in the Highlands of Scotland – cue mists, rain, horrible weather and the
desperate isolation of an old, old castle for atmosphere. Castle Kraighten
has…well, there really is no other way to say this, it has a ceiling with a
mouth, and a mouth that screams.
But other things are weird in the castle too –
people have a history of wandering off down its corridors and never being seen
again.
Bring it on,
Stephen King!
The chemistry
between various members of the Paternoster Gang and the young, self-important
Ghost-Finder propels this story along to good effect, certainly, but there’s a
real sense of creepy gothic ghost stories about the tone of the piece,
especially when it becomes clear that Carnacki himself may not be quite the
reliable narrator he thinks he is. Will they all get out alive? Especially
after the ceiling eats Strax? While Madame Vastra, Jenny and the aggrieved
Sontaran have all the nous and the aptitude to work out the mystery of Castle
Kraighten, it’s just possible that the lives of our heroes – and after them, the
world – might depend on the self-aggrandizing chatterbox before the affair of The
Screaming Ceiling is drawn to a close, because of the crucial difference
between knowing what is happening and being able to stop it. Joe Jameson as
Carnacki is a particular delight in this story, giving him quite the peacock
touch while retaining an essentially good heart, so that, while we sympathise
with Strax’s position, we can’t ultimately agree with him when he pleads that
he should be allowed to kill the arrogant young rodent who attaches himself to
the Madam Vastra…
…At least, not
this time…
And as if
meeting Carnacki the Ghost-Finder wasn’t a big enough humblebrag, the final
story in the set has the Gang engage the infamous Spring-Heeled Jack of
old London town.
The story, by
Gemma Arrowsmith, starts with a giant premise – Spring-Heeled Jack is an actual
London legend, being able to leap tall buildings at a single bound, with
burning eyes and fiery breath – and as it develops, becomes something rather
more emotionally complex. When the sweetheart of one of Jack’s victims turns to
the Gang for help, Madam Vastra takes some convincing to debase herself by
investigating folklore tales. But when the sweetheart starts forgetting her
beloved, his name, his face and the details of his life, it’s clear something
sinister’s going on. It might not be legendary jumping demons, but neither is
it exactly another ordinary day at Paternoster Row. Before you can blink twice,
Strax is jumping into the Thames to follow an aquatic lead, while Madam Vastra
takes to the rooftops to follow a trail, leaving Jenny to investigate drier
sources of information alongside Gwendoline Platt, an over-hungry journalist
with an exploitative turn of mind. When they eventually find the infamous
Spring-Heeled Jack, it would be spoilerific to tell you the ways in which
things get more complicated than anyone imagines, but suffice it to say there’s
unlikely to be a dry eye in the house by the time you’re done.
The
Paternoster Gang: Heritage 2
eases you in with a gag-packed tale of intrigue and diplomacy, takes you into
gothic ghost stories and very nearly traps you there forever, and hits you with
an emotionally rich line on a longstanding London mystery, to make you hug your
loved ones tighter and more often, while imagining the indignities of losing
the memories you swear you’ll never lose and would never willingly surrender.
It’ll make you laugh, and thrill, and cry, all within the setting of a
super intelligent lizard-woman, her wife-cum-maid, and their butler-of-war in
the Victorian world. It’s heartwarming, gorgeous, emotional, fun, and you’d be
ill-advised human scum to miss it.
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