The Holy Terror by Robert Shearman

Having attempted an adventure in the style of the New Adventures with ‘The Shadow of the Scourge’, Big Finish’s next side-step took in the realm of the mid-1980s Doctor Who Magazine comic strips- for the most part, atmospheric and occasionally whimsical fantasies which provided the Sixth Doctor with a rather more imaginative milieu than that he faced on screen. That said, in many ways ‘The Holy Terror’ is simply a Doctor Who story with Frobisher replacing a more conventional companion- an entirely visual medium is replaced with the complete absence of visuals, and rather than an expansive and visually striking setting, the action is confined to one castle, whose inhabitants believe it to be the entire universe. If it had been made for television, it would have been the season’s cheap episode- all stock sets and period costumes.

But that’s where the treat that is Robert Shearman’s writing comes in. The very best Doctor Who combines atmosphere, wit and a sense of real menace lurking under the witty rejoinders- and Shearman seems to have bottled the essence first time around. The setting as we initially find it is a hybrid of I Claudius and Shakespeare’s histories, particularly Richard III. Roberta Taylor as Berengaria is clearly taking her cue from Sian Phillips’s Livia and communicates much the same hard-headed understanding of political realities couched in a world-weary composure, while Peter Guinness as the bastard Childeric essentially plays a caricature of Shakespeare’s Richard III, at one point quoting several lines of Richard’s first speech ("but I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks..."). And Shearman’s writing is probably good enough to have sustained the whole story in this style, particularly when combined with the Pythonesque obsession with doing everything- murders, tortures, assassination attempts- according to tradition, offering a disconcerting counterpoint to the unsettling cruelty and violence of the story. People die horribly in ‘The Holy Terror’, often at each others’ hands, and there’s also a great deal of physical and psychological violence committed, from Livilla’s assault on Berengaria, to Livilla and Berengaria both at various times telling Pepin exactly how much they despise him.

That would be enough for most stories, but not for Robert Shearman. As the story progresses, it becomes apparent that something else underlies the insane obsession with tradition and casual cruelty. The characters gradually reveal that they behave as they do because they can’t conceive of any other way to be- as the Doctor tells Clovis, he’s a stereotype, a pre-programmed set of reactions, because the castle isn’t real. The final revelation, when it comes, is deeply unsettling and could have gone horribly wrong if the tabloids had been remotely interested in Doctor Who in 2000- as it is, it relies on undercutting Sam Kelly’s talent for comedy with the revelation that his character is stark staring mad, and by forcing the listener to confront a character of such motiveless insanity, pulls the rug right out from under our feet. Placed with such an unconventional companion as Frobisher, Colin Baker has more work than usual to do as the Doctor but is more than equal to such a wordy script, while the realisation of Frobisher is really not bad at all- although Robert Jezek’s performance is occasionally mildly reminiscent of Dr Zoidberg from Futurama, it’s lively and faithful to the character’s private detective origins. It’d be a shame if the story’s being a Frobisher adventure put anybody off, although to be honest Peri would be too obvious for the story and Evelyn would probably suspect too quickly that this was a historical pastiche rather than the real thing- because it’s definitely something special.

CD Facts

Part 1 - Tracks 1-6

Part 2 - Tracks 7-12

Part 3 - Tracks 1-7

Part 4 - Tracks 8-14