I’m not prone to following fan consensus.  I have issues with received fan wisdom about which are good, worthy stories and which are mud upon our shoes to be derided and mocked.  It’s the old Genesis of the Daleks vs Delta and the Bannermen divide.

But every now and again I do agree with the majority and The Chimes of Midnight is one where I simply cannot disagree with the general opinion.  The Chimes of Midnight is one of Big Finish’s most celebrated releases – it topped their best 200 poll; it’s one of only two releases (the other being Spare Parts) to get a special, limited edition re-release; and it’s written by the peerless Rob Shearman.

In the past, I have talked about how wonderful this story was and how it felt like its own distinct entity, in terms of Big Finish releases.  It wasn’t trying to ape a past era of the show (as with ‘It’s teatime 1977 all over again’) or trying to fit in with the dynamic of the modern series (as the 8th Doctor adventures started to veer towards with the introduction of Lucie Miller and 50 minute stories).  It was this run of 8th Doctor adventures that felt like a proper, new era.  This was long before the series was revived and it was a huge deal that Big Finish had managed to convince Paul McGann to return to the role.  Whilst the first season of 8th Doctor audios may have been a little shakey, the second season is much more confident and builds a defined tone for the 8th Doctor audios.  There was an dark atmosphere threaded through the stories and, long before the modern series ‘shipped’ the 10th Doctor and Rose, the 8th Doctor and Charley ventured into relationship areas the series had been reluctant to touch on before.

The Chimes of Midnight is, accurately, compared to Sapphire and Steel.  This is a story about time and objects becoming sentient through mysterious powers which are never quite explained – magic, if you like.  This is Doctor Who as ‘fantasy’ rather than hard science fiction.  This is also character drama.  The central tragedy of Edith Thompson, the scullery maid, manages to impact on the listener, particularly when her true history and association with Charley is revealed in the climax to the play.  But this is also the dark comedy that Rob Shearman seems rather fond of.  Characters are murdered in bizarre, sometimes comical, ways and the characters slip from silly to sinister on the flip of a coin.

The Doctor and Charley are thrown into this bizarre world (brilliantly evoked through sound design and music) and Paul McGann and India Fisher are simply superb.  Their interplay is effortless and it’s one of the best Doctor/companion pairings in the series long history.  The guest cast are wonderful too, particularly Lennox Greaves and Sue Wallace as Mr Shaughnessy, the butler and Mrs Baddeley, the cook.

One of Rob Shearman’s trademarks in his writing is the use of repetition.  It’s a device threaded through The Holy Terror and his BBV audio Punchline.  In The Chimes of Midnight it is used to great effect.  The characters repeat lines, actions and whole scenes but with the occasional changes which add layers to the mystery, or give clues to the solution, or twist things in darker and more sinister ways – but often with a comedic edge (such as the Chrysler/Bentley confusion or their insistence that the deaths are a result of suicide – even when one of them involves the chauffeur, Frederick, being run down in the kitchen by his own car).

The upstairs/downstairs world of the aristocracy and their servants isn’t something which has appeared a huge amount in Doctor Who which is surprising considering how many stories are set in the 19th Century and the Victorian era.  Ghost Light touches upon it and there are characters from both sides of the divide in stories such as The Evil of the Daleks and The Talons of Weng-Chiang, but it isn’t something which has been the focus of a story such as it is in The Chimes of Midnight.

The idea of servants being of little importance to their Lords and Ladies is drummed home over and over again.  Edith is ‘nobody’ and when Edith is gone and Mary slips into her role as a scullery maid, she too is ‘no-one’.   The servants obey their masters without question – that is their role.  But even within the servants there is a hierarchy.  Mary, the ladies’ maid, looks down on Edith, the scullery maid.  In one part of the time loop she is having an affair with Frederick, the chauffeur but when she assumes Edith’s role after her death (literally becoming the scullery maid, with Edith being forgotten by the characters) Frederick reacts contemptuously at the idea of him having an affair with the scullery maid.

There are obvious echoes of the relationships as characterised in Upstairs Downstairs, the popular drama invented, in part, by Jean Marsh.  That too had a hierarchy of servants such as Mrs Bridges, the cook, and Rose the maid.  It isn’t difficult to see the parallels between that series and this story (even with the fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen a whole episode of the series).

There are also some historical details dropped into the script as the Doctor begins to work out that all is not right with the situation – when the first Chrysler appeared or when Agatha Christie published her first novel.  It all ties in beautifully with the fact that the time loop is a mish-mash of Edith’s real life and whilst this story is, ostensibly set in 1906, it’s actually more ‘early 20th century’ linking in closely with the chronological setting of 1930 of Storm Warning, the first story to feature Charley.

Sometimes it’s easy to write a negative review but difficult to write something positive.  Here, though, we have a story which is brimming with dialogue, performance, production, direction, atmosphere and a damn good plot, which is so easy to write about.  Everything in this story works.    Yes, it’s a bit Christmassy but – a bit like the Doctor Who TV Christmas specials of late, the Christmas aspect is minor and merely window-dressing for a spooky, darkly comedic tale of macabre murder, time paradoxes and a personal tragedy.

Sublime.