Start to Finish: 6.01 - Tales from the Vault

Image (c) Big Finish Productions Ltd

We open series 6 of The Companion Chronicles with a bit of an oddity, in Jonathan Morris's Tales from the Vault, starring Daphne Ashbrook and Yee Jee Tso, who played the 'almost' companion Dr Grace Holloway and the 'almost almost' companion Chang Lee in the Paul McGann TV movie.

It's Warrant Officer Charlie Sato's first day at a new job, as assistant curator of the UNIT archives under the supervision of Captain Ruth Matheson. It might also be his last, if he doesn't learn to respect the archive's contents.

Ashbrook and Tso provide the framing narrative for a quartet of short stories, each taking the form of the UNIT archive's record on a particular artefact. Katy Manning, Wendy Padbury, Mary Tamm and Peter Purves voice Jo, Zoe, Romana and Steven, describing the four items which become central to the plot of the arc story, which is itself really a two-handed play which, with its single (locked) room setting is most like Solitaire among the Chronicles.

Matheson and Sato are likable protagonists, and the accents are an interesting change (although a little head-scratching given that the Vault is apparently located under the Angel of the North in this instance). The portmanteau stories are brief snippets compared to the richness of a full chronicle, but the weaving together of the four is done well.

Next up, interstellar piracy with The Rocket Men.