Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: India Fisher, James Joyce, Rachel Atkins, Ben Crowe, Helen Goldwyn, Pippa Haywood, Karen Henson, Kieran Hodgson, Ashley Kumar, Glen McCreedy, Colin McFarlane, Deisre Mullins, Dan Starky, Gary Turner.
The world will pass us by in a whimper, the slow but steady decay of our species is assured at some point in the future, we may believe it is a flash that has taken our lives but nature is not that kind, and it will be, if anyone is left to observe such an ending, one bought upon our heads by our own arrogance; our need to prove we are masters of our own destiny.
Earth is changing rapidly, and whilst we may not quite notice on the surface from our own lifetime’s point of view, for someone born at the end of the Edwardian era, who saw the destruction of millions of people during the first world war whilst perhaps content in their own lives in sheltered pastoral Britain, the decades since would seem like a blur, a fast paced world on the edge of perpetual insanity.
It is to this that the appeal of Charlotte Pollard, arguably the finest companion of the Doctor created by the Big Finish audio drama team, has weaved herself into the textbooks of imagined history of our planet, and that of several others. And whilst being perhaps more noted for her time alongside the eighth and sixth doctors, Paul McGann, and Colin Baker respectively, she more than carried her own story, thanks to the indefatigable performances of India Fisher, across a four-part drama in 2014.
It would be three years though before the character would return for a second four-part series, but as ever, with Nicholas Briggs at the helm, a writer and producer who understands the character as much as anyone, those three years would, like life, go by in a flash of an eye.
Across the four episodes that make up the second series, Embankment Station, Ruffling, Seeds of Chaos and The Destructive Quality of Life, Charlotte Pollard deals with the issue of how the human race has changed, the small ways that makes us compassionate, caring, creatures of sentiment, have all slowly been dissolved, and instead a plague of uncaring, indifferent and selfish people walk in our shoes.
The premise is not far-fetched, and perhaps in the time we live in now, where we deal with the enormity of the rising numbers of deaths and cases of the Coronavirus that have struck every nation, it seems that we are not so kind, compassionate and with empathy as we might have believed. It only takes a series of misfortunes to make the human race callous, indifferent, and cold to the suffering and distress of others.
With tremendous support from the likes of Deidre Mullins as Naomi Davies, Dan Starkey as the Rogue Viyran, James Joyce as Robert Buchan and Pippa Heywood as the Prime Minister, the second series of Charlotte Pollard’s life is one of exceptional foresight, dramatised with the incisive observation of Nicholas Briggs and held perfectly by the natural talent of India Fisher.
We are held in check by Time, and proved often to be sailing close to the edge of heartlessness and disavowing our humanity, it is up to us to heed such warnings and step back behind the yellow line that separates us from the tracks of a future we might not come back from.
Ian D. Hall