#67 Mervyn Stone podcast #1-#7

Lacking proper authorization from the Temporal Powers, my Randomoid Selectortron arrives unscheduled at...

Mervyn Stone podcast #1-#7

Starring: Uncredited. I believe Nicholas Briggs, Nev Fountain, and Nicola Bryant play all or most parts. John Banks might or might not be playing Mervyn Stone.
Format: Seven podcast episodes of about six minutes each
Silly? Yes
Standalone? Yes; it's intended to promote other Mervyn Stone material for sale, not to supplement it
Recommended? Yes as amusing light entertainment about the world of 80s and early 90s British sci-fi production; no as a murder mystery.


My thoughts on this podcast contain spoilers for it, and possibly for Mervyn Stone novels.

Before listening

When I compiled my list of Big Finish releases to randomly select, I didn't limit myself to my CDs and my Big Finish download account; I also included every complete free Big Finish item I could find. This Mervyn Stone mini-mystery was never released in a more official format than a series of podcast episodes and doesn't show up in the Mervyn Stone section of Big Finish's website, but these six podcast episodes do constitute a dramatized audio production, not a nonfictional information podcast. I don't believe the story they comprise has an official title.
Mervyn Stone is a character created by Nev Fountain. He appears in a trilogy of novels that were released together by Big Finish, an audiodrama that came later, these podcasts (which were created to promote the trilogy), a live-tweeted mystery, and probably other media I'm not aware of. In his universe, a salacious 1980's science-fiction drama called Vixens from the Void aired on British television and he was the script editor for it. Doctor Who also existed in this universe, more or less as it did in the real-world, but some of Doctor Who's fandom culture and lore are instead or additionally Vixens of the Void fandom culture and lore. In the first novel, Mervyn is framed for murder at a science-fiction convention and clears his name; his fame for finding the real killer then results in him being pulled into other fandom-related crime mysteries. 
From what I recall, the cast of this podcast is very small; we hear Mervyn watching a narrated behind-the-scenes Vixens of the Void DVD bonus feature and reacting to it, and in the course of this he solves a cold-case murder. I think I remember the mystery and its solution; the clues are all present, but I wouldn't quite call it a fair-play mystery since Mervyn knows the people involved and recognizes out-of-place behavior in a way the podcast listener can't be expected to.
I've only listened to this podcast story once, and while I think I remember the crime case, there's a lot I don't remember about the audio presentation and the comedy. I'm expecting it to be moderately entertaining.

After listening to part 1 of 7

It's much more gag-oriented than I was expecting. We're primarily listening to the DVD bonus feature Whatever Happened to Babel-J on the Vixens of the Void episode The Terrible Fear, surrounded by some menu navigation (and brief out-of-character podcast intro/outro). In this part we don't hear who's navigating the menus.
Babel-J is a cute robot Mervyn added to the show to boost ratings, played by a comedy drunkard. Basically everything in the podcast is gag material, though from what I remember of the mystery a slight clue is also introduced. At the end of the episode we discover that the actor was murdered at the height of his popularity; this information is itself delivered with comedic timing in a Spinal Tap vein, not in the manner a real DVD commentary about a murdered actor would do it.
The gags are funny and the tone, while not realistic to the DVD feature it pretends to be or immersive for the purpose of mystery-solving, is consistent. The podcast does not present itself as being a solve-along mystery, and indeed until the end of the episode it does not present itself as containing a mystery at all. That's not how I was remembering it.

After listening to part 2 of 7

The mystery elements ramp up: this part is about the murdered actor's enemies and romantic entanglements. It still moves from point to point via comedic timing, but it's setting up a list of suspects.
The lack of podcast credits bothers me. I think Nicola Bryant might be playing all the female parts and Nicholas Briggs might be playing most of the male ones. I couldn't find much information online but it seems plausible Nev Fountain also contributed his own voice, and John Banks, who voiced Mervyn in The Axeman Cometh, might also have done so in this.

After listening to part 3 of 7

In this part, witnesses describe the murder as they witnessed it; the actor was poisoned before going on stage, became disoriented, and subsequently died. There are some gags in this episode but none near the end.
These episodes are just 6 minutes each, so the entire story is half-CD-length. There's not much to react to in any one episode really, but it is an entertaining if strangely-formatted listen. The premise of DVD bonus feature is being used reasonably well, but the serialization into tiny parts doesn't add anything.

After listening to part 4 of 7

This episode has very little comedy in it script-wise, but the acting (mostly Nicola Bryant's) is exaggeratedly melodramatic and clearly being played for comedy. Clues are presented as to the cause of death.

After listening to part 5 of 7

There's a bit more overt scripted comedy in this episode, but it is heavily in murder mystery mode. This is still all events narrated in the retrospective documentary feature on the DVD, not the "present" of the DVD's release; Mervyn had, in 1993 after the murder, helped the police with their investigation somewhat by realizing something important about the particular poison involved.
This part ends in an odd cliffhanger, in which we discover a suspect was exonerated and then the podcast ends before we find out why. Exoneration, rather than implication, is a weird thing to build suspense about.
Overall, this podcast feels light but entertaining so far. We seem to be listening to a specific play-through of the DVD bonus feature, with someone navigating the menus and a DVD error at one point, but as yet the context of that playthrough hasn't been revealed and isn't indicated as relevant.

After listening to part 6 of 7

This part seems to be the end of the Whatever Happened to Babel-J? DVD feature; the murder remains unsolved and Mervyn still wonders what happened. The tone of this part is not particularly comedic, though it is still happening in a comedy setting where BBC production in-jokes are true.

After listening to part 7 of 7

This part is set years later, on a different DVD feature looking back at events that transpired after the release of the earlier one. Mervyn listened to what we heard in the first six episodes and pieced things together. The mystery is arguably fair-play, provided that one is not considering the real-world chemical properties of the poison and is only taking it as described in the audio. In fact, at least three things established in the audio would not work in the real world.
Ignoring this matter of chemistry, the theory of the crime the police were following was incorrect in a completely fair-play manner, and the manner in which evidence was tampered with was basically fair-play; from the facts of the tampering alone one can get to the killer and method, without needing the additional less-fair-play thing Mervyn realizes.
The chemistry is, however, fairly blatant to me; the poison is not an uncommon chemical at all and mischaracterizing it rubs me the wrong way. For that reason alone I have to say I don't recommend this mystery story as a mystery. The comedy is funny enough to be worth the short listening time, however.