Iris Wildthyme: The Devil in Ms Wildthyme
Starring: Katy Manning as Iris Wildthyme, Ortis Deley as Tom, and David Benson as Panda
Format: one full-cast CD with no episode breaks
Silly? Yes, as with all Iris Wildthyme audios, but there are also an above-average number of reflective character-driven moments within the silliness.
Standalone? The ending of the previous episode establishes Iris's situation going into this one, but conversations in this episode state everything relevant about it and hearing the previous episode isn't essential.
Recommended? Not at full price.
My reactions to this story contain spoilers for it, and possibly to other early Iris Wildthyme stories.
Before listening
This is, coincidentally, another CD-only audio. Iris, like Bernice Summerfield, is a character who appeared in Doctor Who novels and whose license is distinct from the license from the BBC to produce official Doctor Who content. She was initially presented as a Time Lord, but was shortly thereafter established to be from "the Clockworks", Time Lord analogues from a universe called the "Obverse", meaning she's effectively a Time Lord but doesn't share any personal history with Time Lords from our universe and doesn't have to follow established rules for how Time Lords work. Her time machine is in the form of a London bus, number 22 to Putney Common, and people occasionally remark that it is slightly smaller on the inside. She is much less concerned about the sanctity of the timeline than the Doctor, and her conscience sometimes takes a lot of prodding before she decides to do the right thing, but she generally ends up saving the day in a manner not too unlike what the Doctor would do.Iris Wildthyme stories tend to be metafictional in structure, sometimes to the degree of not bothering to actually resolve their main plot at all. They're especially prone to doing that when written by her creator, Paul Magrs, but this particular one isn't one of his, and from what I recall it stays coherent and doesn't try to do anything unsatisfyingly pretentious.
Iris Wildthyme audios are mostly or entirely about one incarnation of her, played by Katy Manning. Manning played Jo Grant opposite the third Doctor and often reprises that role for Big Finish. While I can suspend disbelief very easily when Nicola Bryant or Carole Ann Ford reprise their younger selves, I find Manning's voice entirely unconvincing when she's trying to play 1970's Jo, and I much prefer her performance as Iris (or as decades-later Jo, which she's done occasionally).
When I was talking about The Extinction Event, I mentioned an issue about shipping charges that wasn't true of that audio. It actually does apply to this story and its predecessor Wildthyme at Large; there's no way to avoid the international surcharge in this case unless you buy a large, expensive bundle of almost every Iris Wildthyme audio release. This, plus the rather high price for the CD in the first place, makes it an unappealing prospect for non-UK listeners. I believe that when I got it, it was on sale for a large percentage off in addition to Big Finish not having yet instituted the shipping surcharge.
I believe I've only listened to this audio once. I think I remember liking it, but I don't remember much of it clearly, and of the things I do remember clearly some might actually be from Wildthyme at Large. I am looking forward to relistening.
After listening
This is the second Iris Wildthyme audio story, and it picks up where the first one left off. Jumping on here works fine, as there are plenty of conversations about the relevant parts of the preceding episode, but a thread that started in the previous episode continues here.Iris had stored many of her memories of past adventures in a crystal, and at the end of the previous episode she'd had her new companion Panda destroy that crystal to protect her secrets from an enemy. Iris now has amnesia, with moments of her earlier life flashing to memory occasionally and fading, and the details of some of her memories now reside in Panda. Meanwhile, Iris is afflicted with crippling cowardice, Tom's head is somehow filled with straw, Panda now has a beating heart and an excess of emotion, and the topic of sheep keeps arising unexpectedly. There is an explanation for how these things are connected, and as with most explanations for things in Iris Wildthyme's life it is not serious science fiction by any means.
While this audio is full-cast in format, with no narrator and no doubling-up of actors, it has an oddly minimal cast. Aside from Iris and her two companions, we only hear from the villain and a single important bystander. This lack of cast is made more obvious by the introduction of a mute sixth character whose disability is in no way relevant to the plot. Near the end, there is a scene that narratively has many other people present, and the lack of voices for any of them is immersion-breaking. The sound design is otherwise fine if a bit sparse.
I enjoyed this audioplay despite the casting. I knew going in that the mystery wasn't going to click together in a meticulous way, and it did come together in a thematically satisfying way that worked well with the characters. It was definitely a comedy, but it explored the characters and their relationship to each other in a way that wasn't just there for low comedy's sake.
Most Iris Wildthyme audios are downloadable, but The Devil in Ms Wildthyme is not. With that in mind, and the CD listed at an unusually high price even before shipping, I don't really recommend getting this unless you can get it at a significant discount. The next Iris audio, The Sound of Fear, is available for download. There is a significant gap between the end of this one and the start of that one, during which Tom leaves the team, so hearing this one isn't particularly useful as a lead-in.
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