Start to Finish: 7.01 - The Time Museum

Image (c) Big Finish Productions Ltd

Way back in the summer of 2014, I set out to review the entire series of Big Finish Companion Chronicles, a task at which I singularly failed. In part, this was because my finances hit a point where I could no longer justify the cost of Big Finish CDs, leaving me without the last six plays to review. Thanks to a recent sale, I now have those last six plays, so let's take a punt at the final two seasons of The Companion Chronicles, beginning with the not-actually-a-First Doctor adventure, The Time Museum.

Ian Chesterton, one of the Doctor's very first human companions, wakes in a replica of his bedroom which connects to a replica of his old classroom, and so on through a series of tableaux of scenes from his experiences as a time traveler. He is met by Pendolin, the museum's curator, who explains that this is the Chesterton Exhibit, and that he was 'collected' to be a part of it, but now the exhibit and Ian himself are threatened by the approach of a whispering horde of 'them'; beings that feed on memory itself.

Less a stroll than a headlong flight along Memory Lane, The Time Museum eschews both framing narrative and recollection of a past adventure. Instead, the play is purely the story of Ian and his mysterious companion as they try to escape from the Museum, punctuated by brief recollections from earlier stories, including 'An Unearthly Child', the Companion Chronicle 'The Rocket Men' and that weird one where they got shrunk. It's a chance for Ian to be the hero one more time, and to show what he's learned from the Doctor; as well as what the Doctor learned from him.

William Russell is not only one of the oldest readers in the Chronicles, but audibly so, capturing the First Doctor better than he ever does his younger self. Despite that, he maintains the sense of pace and physicality needed for this story, and despite the nature of the story being all about memory and memorial, it's one of the less melancholic entries, because the action of the piece is now. It's kind of like a clip show, but a good clip show, rather than 'Shades of Gray'.

Next, we'll pick up the story of Zoe Herriot, in The Uncertainty Principle.