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“MAKING MYTHS: A COMEDY ROMP THAT MISSES MORE THAN IT HITS”

Making Myths kicks off the Buried Treasures anthology, serving as Big Finish’s first entirely original Bernice Summerfield story following their adaptations of the Time Ring Trilogy. Penned by Jacqueline Rayner and marking Jason Haigh-Ellery’s directorial debut, this half-hour comedic two-hander attempts to forge a fresh path for Benny outside the Doctor Who universe.

Lisa Bowerman returns once more as Benny, joined here by Sarah Mowat – familiar to Big Finish fans as Suz from Dalek Empire – playing Keri, an investigative journalist keen on capturing Benny’s archaeological adventures for a radio show. The set-up is charmingly simple: two women on an archaeological dig, one reluctantly giving an interview, the other trying to maintain professional polish while chaos ensues.

STRIPPED-DOWN SOUND, STRIPPED-DOWN STORY

This story is about as minimalist as Big Finish gets. Sound effects are sparse, the music is minimal, and the setting – a dusty alien archaeological site – never quite comes alive. The concept of Making Myths rests heavily on dialogue and performance, and while Bowerman and Mowat give lively turns, the material doesn’t always meet them halfway.

The early back-and-forth banter is intended as light-hearted comedy, but the humour often feels strained. Benny constantly veers off-topic, exasperating Keri, and the jokes, though clearly aiming for witty and dry, rarely land with much punch. Instead, what starts off as a breezy interview quickly spirals into bickering and passive-aggressive commentary – amusing in theory, but only sporadically in execution.

WHERE TENSION BUILDS, AND THEN... NOT MUCH

As the story progresses, the tension escalates nicely. The realisation that they’re stranded, with no idea how to leave the planet, introduces a sense of mild peril. The pair become increasingly frazzled, sniping at each other and then awkwardly trying to stay professional by starting every sentence with “for the benefit of the listeners” – a running gag that becomes genuinely endearing the more stressed they get.

This growing camaraderie, forged through adversity, is easily the story’s strongest point. Benny and Keri eventually manage to patch things up and work together, stumbling onto a solution to escape. Their final scenes, filled with genuine warmth and easy banter, feel earned and provide a satisfying end to the slight tale.

However, despite the nice character beats, Making Myths struggles to justify its existence. The plot is wafer-thin, and the “archaeological discovery” angle barely goes anywhere. It feels less like a fully-fledged story and more like a light sketch padded to half an hour. There's little sense of adventure, mystery, or even proper comedy – it all just breezes by, pleasant enough but forgettable.

A PROMISING START THAT DOESN'T DIG VERY DEEP

As an experiment in tone – shifting Benny’s adventures into a breezier, radio comedy style – Making Myths is an interesting curiosity. It shows that Big Finish could do more than just straight Doctor Who-adjacent drama, and it gives Bowerman a chance to flex her comedic timing. Yet for all its charm, the story lacks narrative meat, memorable jokes, or a strong hook to make it a must-listen.

This isn’t a terrible start for Big Finish’s original Benny stories – but it’s clear they had better things to come.

📝VERDICT: 4.8/10

Making Myths tries to be a light and quirky comedy, but despite strong performances from Lisa Bowerman and Sarah Mowat, it never finds enough story or humour to justify a revisit. The growing bond between Benny and Keri is sweet, but the weak plot, strained jokes, and flat atmosphere make this a forgettable outing. A harmless but slight beginning to Big Finish’s original Benny adventures.

Making Myths is quite the audio short. It is purely a comedy bit, and I find the music reflects the wacky tone of the writing quite nicely. The music is a bit of an earworm, really.

However, the comedy relies heavily on repetition, using the phrase "for the benefit of the listeners -" a lot. As in, way, way too much. It's funny only in the delivery of Lisa Bowerman and Sarah Mowat, who are both great here and could easily have carried and serviced a better written story. As it stands, Jacqueline Rayner's writing is barely worth the short amount of time it takes up, which is a bit of a shame. Making Myths is definitely a weak part of an already questionable bonus track.

29.10.2022

Harmless. Comedy was mostly not to my liking, but tolerable. Nothing else of note. 2.5/5. It's cute, I guess.

For the benefit of the listeners, don't bother. The plot is OK, but the dialogue is repetitive and not funny.