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Review of The Lady of Mercia by sircarolyn
10 June 2024
This review contains spoilers
Despite the fact that the TARDIS is always drawn to the UK for 'some reason', it very rarely seems to travel North (and even less so to the North East, but that's a disappointment for another review. I promise the North East is interesting too... Geordie companion when...?). In recent years, we've been getting more and more North, heading to exciting places such as Sheffield and Liverpool, and this episode takes us to the Chester town of Frodsham, where the gang arrive at a university that is having a rivalry between the Physics and History department.
Here we meet Dr Stone and Bleak of Physics and History respectively, both married and both cheating on each other in secret. Dr Bleak is hosting conference about the Lady of Mercia, Queen Æthelfrid, based on the real Queen Æthelflæd, a historical figure famous for fighting the Danes. Dr Stone, meanwhile, is inventing a time machine in secret.
And you can see immediately how things go wrong. Bleak steals Æthelfrid's sword for the machine and is chased by Tegan, and they both get sent to the past, while Æthelfrid's daughter, Æthelwynn, gets sent forward to the future. Which means, obviously, Tegan must impersonate Æthelwynn and try to stay out of trouble.
Janet Fielding's impersonation of a Mancunian accent is... something, but overall I found the accents to be very decent (something that BF famously can be dodgy for). Generally, this is a very fun episode - it's not particularly difficult to follow, there's a decent amount of action between protesting students and warring figures but not so much that it becomes tiresome to listen to, and Tegan and Turlough get some really good character beats. I particularly enjoyed Turlough being called out for being a posh schoolboy, but some of the comments towards the North being a land of savages were a little uncalled for. We're nice really, I promise.