The Monthly Adventures #006 - "The Marian Conspiracy" by Jacqueline Raynor

Over the course of however many years it’ll take me to complete the Monthly Adventures, we’re going to be talking a lot about its collection of original companions. If I had to level one praise with Big Finish’s take on the Doctor’s friends, it would be how unique they are. Starved of any companion other than a twenty something from a low income family in contemporary London, I gloriously embraced the pharaohs and the engineers from the far flung future that Big Finish offered me, all beginning here, with the esteemed Evelyn Smythe flung into Tudor London for a rare pure historical that, personally, I find to be a little too highly praised.

Following the interruption of one of Sheffield University history professor Evelyn Smythe’s lectures by a mysterious man called the Doctor, the teacher finds herself flung into her own timestream to iron out a wrinkle in time, whilst avoiding a conspiracy to commit regicide.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Obviously, the best and most well known aspect of The Marian Conspiracy is the aforementioned introduction of Evelyn, who is just a delight. Maggie Stables performs her magnificently, instantly making her not only incredibly likeable but a great foil to the brash Sixth Doctor, who has now been recharacterised by Big Finish when they released it wasn’t fun to have a brazen asshole as our lead. As for the story itself, whilst I certainly do have problems with it, it’s great for the fact that it offers an incredibly interesting peek into history. A lot of historicals, especially non-pure ones, tend to simplify events and details to suit the narrative but The Marian Conspiracy instead opts to have a fascinating portrayal of factual history that distinctly grounds itself in reality and uses that to explore incredibly complex themes with incredible nuance. Mainly, the historical figures present are absolutely brilliantly written; it’s very common to see their portrayal in historical stories as either wholly evil or wholly good but, of course, that’s not how it really is. History is complicated and Raynor wants you to know it, never outright villainising the antagonists or glorifying our allies, everybody’s a real person and it’s great. Through this we also get a fantastic exploration of the religious persecution common at the time, getting to see the mentality of both sides of the argument and the utter injustice on display, it’s a truly fascinating listen purely for the conversations between Mary and the Doctor. As for other details of the plot, we have a great third act reveal, which seems to be a commonality in the audios so far, here discovering Mary’s handmaid Sarah to be conspiring in her assassination, a twist I really didn’t see coming the first time around.

However, I still can’t bring myself to love this audio, and I can’t really tell why since I have so many good things to say about it. It’s incredibly fun, that’s for sure, but the story’s just too generic for me, there’s a lot of sitting around and bloated time that I feel work to make the whole thing incredibly empty and lacking in substance. I also have this pet peeve when it comes to scripts that use coincidence and luck to write their way out of problems, though it’s less deus-ex-machinas and more having the only reason the story doesn’t end be some insane chance, like Evelyn just happening to walk into a bar where the resistance against Mary is, then just so happening to talk to them, then just so happening to accidentally get brought into the plot, that the Doctor just so happens to be a part of after attending to Queen Mary, posing as her physician, with absolutely no detail on how he managed to get into the Queen’s living quarters despite whatever security she surely had. They do eventually get found out however, and are locked in the Tower of London, before escaping. They just… escape and we don’t really see how. They knock out one guard, sure, but only 2% of prisoners ever escaped the Tower of London and we have no idea how the man in the technicolour dream coat and the 60 year old history professor managed it. It’s not bad but the script just doesn’t grab me and I find myself overall unimpressed with the narrative.

An unflinching look back at a dark period of history written with some brilliant tact, some great characters and a fantastic, reasonable stand point surrounding the atrocities depicted. It’s a lot too generic in places, and so I don’t think it’s as perfect as some people make it out to be, but Evelyn’s wonderful, Six is entering his best era and Big Finish is just getting started.

8/10

Pros:

+ Evelyn hits out of the park in her first audio, instantly showing her status as all time great companion

+ Offers a very grounded, realistic take on history

+ Deals excellently with themes of religious persecution and the use of religion in manmade atrocity

+ I adore the portrayal of historical figures as morally grey

+ The third act twist of Sarah being Smith’s accomplice was a nice, final reveal

Cons:

- The plot has too much convenience for my liking

- The narrative is far too generic and vacuous