Start to Finish: 3.12 - The Stealers from Saiph

Image (c) Big Finish Productions Ltd

We wrap up the third (and first full) series of The Companion Chronicles with a Fourth Doctor story set in an interlude of the Key to Time arc, featuring Mary Tamm as the First Romana. The story is Nigel Robinson's The Stealers from Saiph.

In an exclusive riviera hotel, Madame Arcana says that the stars are not shining as they should. Petty thefts and uncharacteristic behaviour are just the start of a mystery which could spell disaster on a planetary scale.

Tamm recaptures the First Romana effortlessly; glamorous, superior and poised. The script contains some gems, including Romana's references to a thesis on 'the Doctor's favourite species' and the two Time Lords' impish attempts to set each other up, the Doctor with the elderly astrologer Arcana and Romana with eager bright young thing Tommy. With a slightly deeper voice, Tamm captures Tome Baker's Doctor a little better than Lalla Ward in The Beautiful People, and it is notable that the absence of a second voice (for the first time in the Chronicles' run) is hardly noticeable.

The story is a staple of the Baker era, as an alien operating within and practicing on an elite social group threatens to unleash armageddon. The Saiph are a particularly unpleasant bunch who could never have been done justice on TV, but work well as a cthuloid monstrosity in audio, and Mary Tamm's performance lends emotional resonance to the play. In all honesty, this is a story I had all but forgotten, but I'm glad to have rediscovered it now.

So, that's series 3 of The Companion Chronicles, and only one pay so far that has proven a let down to me (The Great Space Elevator), and one which was disappointingly, but unsurprisingly, short of my relatives. Next time, we launch into Series 4 with The Drowned World.