Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Alex Kingston, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Sam Alexander, Justin Avoth, Ann Bell, Jessie Buckley, Alan Cox, Barnaby Edwards, Salome Haertel, Robert Hands, Paul Keating, Anna Maxwell Martin, Aaron Neil, Sara Powell, Robert Pugh, Gemma Saunders, Dan Starkey.
Short of Time and a world to save, as all good adventures are, the story is one that is complicated, that requires bravery, and the sadness of sacrifice; and yet with two doctors to play with, the eminent archaeologist and former psychopath, River Song, has The Unknown to deal with, and it is to be thanked she is able to find the Time.
Series Two of The Diary Of River Song is the type of audio drama that the listener often prays to the heavens for, a four-part serial that is unafraid to go beyond the boundaries imposed upon it by convention, that uses continuality to the point where you become embroiled in the time rather than counting down the minutes to the end of the episode, and one that finds a way to bring much loved characters without spoiling the possibilities open in the future.
The injection of pace, pathos and the grandiose magnificence provided by Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy is enough to have old fans of the classic series chomping at the bit to hear what Big Finish have achieved in this second audio outing for Alex Kingston’s insightful River Song.
The four tales, written by Guy Adams, John Dorney, James Goss and Matt Fitton, can be seen as being unabashed, forthright, perfect companions in themselves to the parent series of Doctor Who, and with all the best will in the world to other spin offs that have been captured on audio, it is arguably the most fun to listen to.
Whether it is the episode of The Unknown, Five Twenty-Nine, World Enough and Time or The Eye of the Storm, the pleasure of the overall arc of the adventure is given extra bite by the addition of one the bright young talents of the modern age in Jessie Buckley providing the voice for the characters Sarah Dean and the Speravore Queen, highly delightful as one, fiendishly portrayed in the other, and alongside Robert Hands as Daniel Defoe, the gracious Robert Pugh in perfect melancholic mood as the father of a synthetic human, series two of this magnificent spin off has all the hall marks of being a classic of its genre, a presentation of how to produce immense and daring quality drama away from television and film.
If we had but world enough and time, but then it might all become too coy and timid, instead the nature of the beast is that we have but the single second to frame perfection; and The Diary Of River Song offers us a taste of such precision.
Ian D. Hall