Will Tony
go gaga for the Lady?
Of all
the potential audio spin-offs from New Who, Lady Christina looks at first
glance to be among the most obvious, the most right, the most likely to take
off in a big way. Just as, for instance, the character-actor combination of
Jago & Litefoot gave Big Finish a runaway success based on one-shot TV
characters from Classic Who, you could pretty much describe Lady Christina de
Souza, the aristocratic cat burglar from Planet of the Dead, played by Michelle
Ryan, and think ‘Oh yeah, that’s gonna work.’
This
(presumably first) set of four stories is notable for almost hitting the potential of Lady Christina, but surprisingly,
not quite getting there – at least
not compared to the likes of Jenny, which established itself as a source of
delight to fans by its singular lack of emotional baggage and the way in which
it took the character forward.
This Lady
Christina set tries to do the same sort of thing, but ultimately feels like
it’s a series with its training wheels still unexpectedly attached. Lady
Christina’s double-decker bus may fly, but this series feels like it pedals
awfully hard, but never quite gets the air under its wheels it needs.
Part of
that may be down to the anthology, episodic style of the first four stories,
with Lady Christina getting three ‘companions’ over the course of the four
stories – that’s undoubtedly right for the nature of her character, but it
gives the listener surprisingly little by way of consistent dynamic to latch
onto.
That’s by
no means to say there’s not lots of great stuff here, because there is – the
first story, It Takes A Thief by John Dorney is exactly what it sounds like; a
tale of fast cars, steady nerves, jewel thievery and chic people on the French
Riviera, some of whom are less, and more, than they seem. Big Finish takes Lady
Christina forward in the aftermath of her encounter with the Doctor, so that
she’s now one of the people of whom both UNIT and Torchwood probably have lists
– hunters with a particular interest in alien artefacts, either for their own
use or for sale for truly scandalous sums of money. When an old woman turns up
dead in a terribly chic Riviera hotel, Christina joins in the hunt for both the
killer, and the thief who stole her jewels – which might well have a history
beyond the stars. Of all the stories in the set, this is the one that seems
most coherent in its set-up, with Christina having a faithful, and faithfully
devious, servant to help her in her cons and her thievery, Carla played
somewhere between Sancho Panza and Jeeves by Holly Jackson Walters, of whom it
would hurt not at all to hear more in any future sets. The Riviera setting
makes sense for Christina, allowing her to exercise both her derring-do, her
brain and her arch wit, with help from Ivo Fraser-Cannon (Matt Barber), half Bertie
Wooster, half…something else, but what? Hot on the trail of the thief and
murderer too is Flavia Santos of Interpol, played by Cristina Barreiro. The
story unfolds in a way that’s part chess game, part square dance, and while
you’ll probably guess the inevitable resolution ahead of its reveal, you’ll
still get a buzz of satisfaction from the slickness of the story and the
familiar Christina energy which Ryan pours into the role.
Skin Deep
by James Goss is a strong story that feels like it needed two episodes to
really deliver on its potential, but is delivered in one, to the detriment of
some elements. Firstly, it pairs Lady Christina with everyone’s favourite
sourpuss, Sylvia Noble. This could be believable, especially given what we
eventually learn about the underlying reasons behind their alliance, but here
it feels too quickly and simply done, too ‘Hoorah, let’s be friends, moving
on,’ because while Sylvia’s snobbish and desperate to matter, she’s not by any means stupid, and the speed of the story
feels like she has to be, simply to get all its players in the right place
quickly enough to deliver its creepy alien beats.
The
creepy alien beats – a new spa treatment that seems to make people look much
younger, but bring them out in suicidal self-hatred – feel like they’re crammed
in here too, meaning a couple of the spa-goop’s strongest advocates,
Christina’s friends, go full zombie fairly early on, leaving little to the
curiosity. Although for those who were curious, which is all of you, we do get
to meet Christina’s dad in this episode. Bit of a git, to be fair, just ripe
for a classic Sylvia Noble tongue-lashing.
Which he
gets. So – yay.
Portrait
Of A Lady by Tim Dawson is where we start getting into proper storytelling
trouble though, with a story of a painting that shows you the darkness of your
soul, a somewhat enigmatic network of dodgy international dealers, a henchman
with a tame Sontaran, and an ultra-villain with their own brain-chipped pet sharks.
It’s Lady Christina as James Bond, and while that could be made to work, it
feels cluttered with characters the point of which you lose track of quickly, the
central MacGuffin is ultimately underwhelming, and Christina struggles to
remain front and centre of the action when paired with audio-UNIT’s hardman du
jour, Sam Bishop, played by Warren Brown. For regular listeners, it feels like
an unhelpful blurring of the lines between UNIT and Lady Christina, and for
those who haven’t heard the UNIT box sets, it feels like a slightly unhelpful
rope-in of a hard man to be Christina’s equal (or at least, near-equal) so soon
into her potential audio life. That means you might well struggle to recall,
even relatively shortly after listening what the point of Portrait Of A Lady
was, and why x, y or z happened.
Death On
The Mile by Donald McLeary takes Christina to Edinburgh on a subsidised hunt
for historical treasure. There follows a tale in which a wife is worried by her
husband’s perpetual niceness, there are volcanoes aplenty, Christina’s flying
double-decker comes into its own, appalling damage is done to Edinburgh castle,
and the lines between Christina and UNIT are further blurred by more Sam Bishop
and extra Jacqui McGee, nosy reporter from the UNIT series, played by Tracy
Wiles. The structure of this story is more focused though, allowing Christina
to take more of a central role and, when almost everyone turns out to be more
than they seem, while it can be a challenge to remember who’s who and why things
are happening the way they are, you can fix your attention on Christina in this
story, leading you to a solidly researched and somewhat ‘jazz hands’
conclusion, Christina’s skills and motivations shining through among a roster
of competing interests.
Overall,
Lady Christina 1 is a set that feels like it has some idea of where it’s trying to go, and how it’s trying to
establish a world around the classy cat burglar. If it gets a second set,
there’s little doubt on the basis of this one that it will iron out its kinks
and that she’ll go on to earn several more return engagements. It’s worth
hoping that happens because there’s real potential in Lady Christina. It just
needs to establish exactly what the world looks like that underpins her
stories. For our money, that would be more Carla, less UNIT, allowing Christina
to be more distinctively the lead and the driver of the action all the way
through.
