The Cosmos and Mrs. Clarke is a Doctor Who audio boxset released by Big Finish Productions and is pretty good for the most part. It’s not quite at the level of a relative masterpiece, but the team of Colin Baker and Miranda Raison as the Doctor and Constance Clarke deliver endearing and compelling performances as usual. The set is directed by Samuel Clemens and contains three stories.
Terry Molloy, usually known as playing Davros, is cast as a different, yet familiar, historical figure. Other cast members include Lara Lemmon, Carly Day, Vivienne Rochester, Anthony Townsend. Katy Manning, who usually portrays companion Jo Grant alongside the Third Doctor, reprises her other role, Iris Wildthyme.
Now that my usual pattern of introduction is done, let’s see how the stories fare under my scrutinous attention.
First off, there is The Story Demon, written by Julian Richards. The Doctor and Constance Clarke arrive on a distant world where the colonists are having to fend off strange attacks from beasts known as the Birnamen. There is some question as to these attacks being what they seem when something known as a Story Demon is in the settlement, and that something is apparently a Dalek.
Nicholas Briggs has returned to the mic, fitting it in among all of his other duties with the company, to voice the Dalek. It’s a pretty successful effort to have a Dalek story in a bit of a different context. The story is interesting enough. Baker and Raison continue to develop their chemistry quite successfully.
Constance Clarke came from the World War II era and was a codebreaker at Bletchley Park. She is quite a no-nonsense sort of lady of her time, but she does have a warmth that makes her a natural friend to the roguish Time Lord. As usual, it remains a treat when Mrs. Clarke is on board the TARDIS.
This is a promising start to this particular collection.
Paul Magrs, the creator of the possible even more roguish Iris Wildthyme, played by Kathy Manning, steps up to the plate with The Key to Many Worlds. This serves as kind of a sequel to the First Doctor era serial entitled Marco Polo.
The Doctor and Mrs. Clarke arrive in thirteenth century Baghdad where the Doctor hopes to catch up with an old friend, Marco Polo, who has apparently lived a much easier life as a merchant. Polo is of course the legendary Italian explorer whose legend and history have that questionable mix that can be quite frustrating to the casual reader.
The Doctor finds there is another old acquaintance present. Iris Wildthyme is once again up to her usual mischief which this time results in the two time travelers switching bodies. Colin Baker and Manning are both pretty skilled comedic actors so there are some typically hysterical moments in which they play each other’s roles.
Anyway, Polo has decided to return to his homeland of Italy and another expedition gets underway with the displaced Doctor and Iris bickering the entire way.
Sadly, Magrs decides to apparently fabricate some kind of apparent homosexual relationship between Polo and some former servant who became a close friend. This episode makes no mention of Polo’s wife and four children he actually had in his real life. It doesn’t quite detract from the clever moments of humor, but it is a bit distracting if one takes a moment to give a cursory read on Polo’s biography.
I will say that it was quite fun to realize that Terry Molloy was portraying Marco Polo and does a fine job. He has played other roles for Big Finish other than the maniacal Davros and remains as gifted a performer as ever.
Anthony Townsend, who apparently died not long after his participation in this production, portrays Polo’s long-time companion, Tonio, who is a likeable presence in spite of some misgivings about how this relationship is presented.
Manning kind of imitating Colin Baker’s Doctor was just funny. Iris Wildthyme is a character that should be used sparingly, but I don’t recall really disliking a story when she pops up.
I have a few objections to this particular story, but it is quite clever and engaging for the most part.
Finally, it is Ian Potter who closes out this set with his script entitled Inconstancy.
On the planet Hoi, the Doctor and Mrs. Clarke find another crazy ruler and strange protean creatures who apparently can replicate other beings or people. Mrs. Clarke finds herself among a swarm that resembles her.
Potter presents this start as being narrated by the Doctor and Constance to two different people. It’s basically a flashback episode, which is not exactly a new literary device, but still effectively employed here.
Out of the three, this one kind of confused me the most. I may need to listen again to get a better grasp on what was going on. I thought it had a nice ending though. Baker and Raison continue to excel as performers. Hopefully, we won’t have to wait long for another pairing of these two characters.
The set as a whole is quite good, but not much really stands out. It sort of relies on what has become tropes of the series overall from both the television series and Big Finish creations. Still, the tropes are those I happen to appreciate. Well, I think the Cybermen still make for a much more interesting opponent for the Time Lord than the Daleks.
Nonetheless, this set is still worthy of being added to the collection and likely enjoyed more than once.
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