My dislike of Westerns is well-known to anyone reading my reviews, even though a couple of the Doctor Who versions have actually entertained me more than I expected – A Town Called Mercy, being the front-runner for my ‘favourite’ Doctor Who western.  The similarly titled, A Town Called Fortune, has just about pipped it to the post, though, as it was really, rather good.

The main reason for this is the narrator – the marvellous, and sadly departed, Maggie Stables.  Evelyn Smythe has been a revelation since her first appearance way, way back in The Marian Conspiracy.  The perfect companion for the 6^th Doctor and one of the first occasions where Big Finish proved what they could do with their licence.  Since Evelyn, they have created a number of original companions: Erimem, Hex, Charley; but I think Evelyn is arguably the best of the bunch.  And this is in no small part to do with Maggie.

This Companion Chronicle, the only one to feature Maggie as Evelyn, sees the 6^th Doctor and Evelyn arrive in the American West and almost immediately become entangled in an unsolved murder, a gold mine’s rights and a town in the grip of a corrupt mayor.

Paul Sutton’s script paints a vivid picture of the Wild West and its stock characters – the slimy mayor, the troubled sheriff, the stoic owner of the saloon, the wronged girl searching for the truth.  All the stock settings are present and correct: the saloon, the mine, the railway, the sheriff’s office.  And whilst many of these may seem like clichés they are done well and helped enormously by the narration.

Historically, the whole production is rather vague.  Lance Parkin has difficulty placing it chronologically as the story doesn’t really give any dating clues.  He places it a little while after the height of the Gold Rush, but the story is rather vague and doesn’t include any specific historical characters or events which could help date it (unlike A Town Called Mercy, which at least had some references to ‘the war’).  In a way, rather like The Talons of Weng-Chiang’s wallowing in literary Victoriana, it seems as if Sutton had a list of Western tropes (the saloon, a gold mine, a slimy mayor, a tangled love story etc) and ticked them off as and when he had included them.  Luckily, though, he weaves an entertaining story out of these.  Also, whilst A Town Called Mercy focussed more on the ‘High Noon gunfight’ cliché, this story pays a bit more attention to double-crossing and back-stabbing that might be associated with the quest for gold which isn’t an aspect of the American West which any of the Doctor Who westerns have really looked at before.  The tangled love story at the centre of the story is also intriguing and doesn’t seem hugely clichéd or contrived.

Although Maggie’s voices for the different characters are not particularly distinguishable from each other, they are different enough to make it an easy listen.  Her 6^th Doctor seems mostly based on his arrogance, which is enough of a hook to bring to mind Mr Baker.  However, her narration is helped enormously by a brilliant second voice – the sheriff, provided by Richard Cordery.  I sometimes find the second voices on the CCs to be a bit hit and miss.  Some leave an impression, some are pretty forgettable.  Cordery’s Sam is great though.  Grizzled, downbeat and defeated, his interaction with Maggie is wonderful and intermittently lifts the story giving it an extra push every now and then to keep the action moving along.  The reveal about Sam at the close of the story is seeded throughout without it being obvious and Evelyn’s reaction to it feels utterly in keeping with the way she reacts to all sorts of characters throughout her appearances in the main range.

Also helping the production is a rather good soundscape.  It’s something I haven’t commented on much in recent audio reviews, although I used to give over a paragraph to mentioning it for a lot of my earlier reviews for Big Finish work.  The soundscape for this story is very immersive.  Of particular note are the scenes set in the saloon which involve so many background noises, particularly of people talking and singing, that it draws you into the story and really brought to mind the classic Western setting.  Coupling my dislike for Westerns with the difficulty my mind sometimes has focussing on single-reader audio, I was fully expecting to work really hard on maintaining my concentration on the story.  However, this wasn’t to be.  The full-blooded soundscape (which also recreated thundering trains; mining operations and blazing fires) combined with Maggie’s glorious narration (her voice is a natural for audio) and Corduroy’s solid support produce an audio that was an absolute pleasure to listen to.

No one is more surprised than me when I say this is an audio I hadn’t expected to enjoy but have found one I will happily return to in future.  It is possibly one of my favourite Companion Chronicles of the range.

This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: Industrial Evolution

A decent little pure historical and the final 6/Evelyn story I'll listen to until I get to Thicker than Water with 6/Mel. I love the Wild West setting, it's shocking how little it's done in Doctor Who because I think it's one of the more interesting historical setting that Doctor Who can go to. Maggie Stables' performance here is solid and it's always fun hearing a companion actor's impression of their respective Doctor. Not the most groundbreaking story but it was at the very least interesting to listen to.

Next Story: The Wrong Doctors