Mary Tudor has attracted the interest of a number of historians in recent years, at least in part because her rule and personality are particularly open to psychological interpretation. Her religious fervour and infertility led, or so the historians would have us believe, to an increasing bitterness and depression as she realised that she would never have the Catholic heir she craved, and thus to a violent and bloody suppression of Protestantism. It’s this received wisdom which Evelyn relates at the beginning of the story, and at which Rayner picks away, encouraging the listener to question their assumptions. The story takes place at a pivotal point in Mary’s reign, shortly before the first Protestant martyrdoms of 1555, and asks the question- what could have caused Mary to turn so pitilessly against English Protestants? Like many of the ‘historical’ Doctor Who stories, the plot of ‘The Marian Conspiracy’ is deceptively simple- the Doctor and his companion find themselves split up and on opposite sides, from which follows both much of the incident of the story and the opportunity for musings on the nature of humanity and our development as a race. The Doctor encounters Mary and finds her committed both to her Catholic faith and to the spiritual welfare of her subjects, while Evelyn is thrown in with a group of Protestant conspirators, inadvertently providing them with the raw material for an attempt on the Queen’s life. Where Rayner breaks this up is by providing an introductory segment for Evelyn and a conclusion where the Protestant conspirators are removed to safety by TARDIS to await the accession of Elizabeth.

If the story has a flaw, it’s in the casting- with Big Finish, the absence of guest stars and the presence of one Gary Russell in the cast are a dead giveaway that this particular release was designed to balance a few budgets. This is not to disparage anybody’s performance- although Russell’s contribution rather shows why he’s a writer-producer first and an actor second if at all- but with a small cast, everybody has to work that little bit harder. As Mary, Anah Ruddin brings out the character’s convictions but sounds a little young for the part (the historical Mary was nearing forty at the time when the play is set), while the supporting cast is full of that curse of Big Finish productions, middle-class Home Counties actors who are sometimes difficult to tell apart in an audio production. One absolutely perfect piece of casting, however, is Maggie Stables as Evelyn; the concept of an older companion is a brave one and possibly one more easily attempted when there isn’t a television audience to be wooed with legs and cleavage. It’s refreshing to have a Doctor-companion dynamic which is closer to that of a middle-aged couple rather than a grandparent-grandchild or uncle-niece relationship, and in making Evelyn a slightly eccentric academic we have a companion who is less immediately vulnerable or out of her depth but also brings a certain confidence in her own opinions which is dispelled by events. It’s Evelyn who sings the praises of Elizabeth but is forced to face up to the fact that the bigotry of the Protestants who would see Catholics burn in their place and murder to put Elizabeth on the throne is at least equal to that of the Catholics themselves, and Evelyn who walks into the story’s most direct reference to John Lucarotti’s story when, in a scene almost identical to the one in which Steven meets up with the Protestant conspirators, she toasts Good Queen Bess only to find that she’s in a tavern full of loyal Catholics- among whom she later finds her own group of Protestant conspirators. It’s a clever homage and tribute to the earlier story which wrong-foots the listener just enough to add to the experience.

And I haven’t even mentioned Colin Baker, here with a note of melancholy to his performance as, playing a post-Trial Doctor, he reflects on the lives lost and the people enslaved because of what he has and hasn’t done. It’s a moment Baker’s Doctor, with all his tendency to bombast and melodrama, needs to show a sensitivity not often developed on screen, and it’s no mean feat on Baker’s part to find that note after the best part of fifteen years. If anything, it’s a sign that Baker’s Doctor would be allowed to develop on CD in ways that he was never allowed to do on television, and for that reason alone the story is a positive step forward as well as a sign that in the audio medium, a wordy character story could work as well as, if not better than, a conventional monster story.