Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Tom Baker, Lalla Ward, Kate Bracen, Mark Bonnar, Peter Barrett, John Dorney, Anjella Mackintosh.
The key is information, how we translate the data supplied is down to the individual and how it is acted upon could arguably seen as a form of control. Information and secrets, the ingredients to winning a war, without either in your arsenal the battle is surely lost and as the Doctor prepares to fight a foe who makes much of how information is gathered, then the web he finds himself in under the foundations of Buda’s grand castle is enough to bite deep into the resolve of unravelling the facts of The Labyrinth Of Buda Castle.
When The Doctor and Leela, played with effortless delight by Tom Baker and Lalla Ward, find themselves in the twin city of Budapest, the furthest thing from their minds is investigating a murder; when that murder sees the Timelord being tracked and cornered by a Vampire Hunter, the streets of the Hungarian capital suddenly feel a little less welcoming and little less romantic.
Once again Mark Bonnar brings great imagination to a role within a Big Finish story, it is possible to feel the glare of satisfaction that emanates from the eyes as he gives a resounding reading of the charismatic Zoltan Frid, so much so that the disdain the character holds for the trivial, the pointless, is enough to drive a pang of despair for humanity down the stomach. For in the end, and thanks to the writing of Eddie Robson, for whatever secrets we hold as power in our minds, whether they spur us on to greatness or whether they keep us in check, it is the trivial, the seemingly inconsequential that fills our minds and offers us no room to negotiate with each other; everything decent and valuable ends up being a prize to highly demanded.
The mind is a rabbit warren of forgotten memories and the jumble of half-remembered truths, it is ripe for extracting even the basic of reminiscences if the means of production are available but it is in the secrets that lay buried which offer salvation, for they are the brain’s greatest means of escape. Eddie Robson’s script allows that freedom to delve into the inner workings of the person’s thoughts without revealing the horror that can be found there.
The Labyrinth Of Buda Castle is a genuinely pleasing Doctor Who story that has just the right amount of Gothic charm that makes the fourth Doctor stories such an agreeable pastime.
Doctor Who: The Labyrinth Of Buda Castle is available to purchase from Worlds Apart on Lime Street, Liverpool.
Ian D. Hall