Excelis Dawns

First time I've listened to anything with Iris (though know about her as a character from being in fandom spaces and watching things that talk about her). Katy Manning is a delight, and you can just tell from the performance how much fun she's having playing Iris.

All the cast in this are incredible to be fair, Antony Stewart Head plays Greyvorn spectacularly, especially in the scene where he sees the future of the planet, and of course Peter Davidson always knocks it out of the park with the scene of him and Iris talking about Adric's death being a highlight.

It's also interesting some ideas that it brings up that then get used by the new series, especially curious to me is what The Doctor says about being in the death zone with older versions of himself. I think the implication is meant to be that he's just talking about the events of The Five Doctors, but the fact he mentions that he was with himself "four, five, six times over" (where he'd only be with himself three times over in The Five Doctors), him talking about how they all looked older than him as if they'd kept on going, and him mentioning it after talking about the fourth doctor's regeneration leads me to my own personal headcanon. That being that he's talking about the Fourth/Fifth Doctor's versions of the Guardians of the Edge, and that when The Fourth Doctor regenerated, the version of the edge he saw took on the form of The Death Zone and he saw his previous regenerations as if they'd kept going (possibly including pre-hartnell ones given how many times over he mentioned seeing them).

Not sure if that headcanon really works, but hey, it's a fun one.

Overall though, the story itself was enjoyable and while i like the character stuff a lot, I don't think anything really leapt out as ***really*** good to me.

7/10

4️⃣🔼 = UNENJOYABLE!

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time!

"REFURBISHED DEMONS"

In 2002, Big Finish released a trilogy of connected stories known as the Excelis Trilogy. This is the first release, Excelis Dawns, written by Paul Magrs and featuring the 5th Doctor with Anthony Stewart Head and Katy Manning.

Paul Magrs sets the tone immediately with the opening scenes, one of which introduces the nuns discussing what to do about their latest visitor, and the other which sees Grayvorn (awesome name) narrate this mission to travel to the mountain of Excelis looking for an artefact, teaming up with the Doctor on the way.

I absolutely adore Anthony Stewart Head’s pompously funny take on warlord Grayvorn. His performance is the best of the story, but I don't quite get the point of his character.

This is the first time I come across Iris Wildthyme in any medium. Katy Manning certainly put a lot of colour in the performance, perhaps a bit too much, even grating at times. Her constantly dropping references to other adventures grows a bit old (though she calls Zarbi a rubbish monster, so she gets an extra for that).

Patricia Leventon is wonderful as the Mother Superior of the nunnery. She emits similar vibes to Julie Andrews in Sister Act.

Then we get these cutaway scenes with this strange Zombie King character, who sounds like the demon from Minuet in Hell.

The colourful characters take centre stage here, and most of the early parts of this story revolve around Iris and Grayvorn, with even the Doctor taking a backseat. What we get here is Iris and Grayvorn bickering and Iris trying to win the Doctor’s affection.

They also hang around in the TARDIS talking but not doing much. This is the main problem I have with the story: it’s simple and not much happens.

Peter Davison seems very bored by the entire thing, as if he didn’t put his heart into the performance.

Part 1 doesn’t even end on a cliffhanger. It just ends, and then Part 2 begins immediately thereafter. Part 2 is much shorter and builds up to a nonexistent finale, leaving a pretty sour taste in my mouth.

This entire story is simply three or four characters talking about stuff, but none of that carries much tension, and the strange soundtrack feels very haphazardly plastered on top of everything.

Excelis Dawns was the first of three adventures which saw the 5th, 6th and 7th Doctors visiting the planet through its development from primitive medieval backwater to decaying industrialism. (There is also a Bernice Summerfield adventure set post-apocalypse). Their adventures centred on the city of Excelis and here, in Excelis Dawns, Excelis is a small village clinging to the side of a Mount Excelis, with a convent of decidedly single-minded nuns looming over it from the peak.

This medieval flavoured story is full of the requisite tropes and clichés.

There is a warlord (Grayvorn, played with relish by Anthony Head), ramshackle villages and peasants, religious relics, markets, festivals, a convent full of nuns, harsh environments (a mountain, a swamp and a dense forest) and, central to the plot, a quest. All this lends the tale a familiar air.

Apart from the specific Excelis aspects, this story could very well have happened on Earth, as clichéd as many of its aspects are. The vague back story that civilisation on Artaris has already risen and fallen many times before our first visit separates it a little from the history of our Earth, but very little of this idea is explained or explored.

Thrown into this world is the Doctor (on his way back from dropping the Gravis off on an uninhabited planet – meaning this adventure happens partway through Part 4 of Frontios with Tegan sulking in the TARDIS and Turlough stranded at the edge of time until they return for him). Alongside him he has the questionable presence of one Iris Wildthyme – transtemporal adventuress and cabaret singer.

I love Iris and, in particular, Katy Manning’s version of the old soak. The Big Finish mini series of Iris Wildthyme adventures are hilarious and it’s a shame this story is so early in her Big Finish career as we don’t have the benefit of David Benson’s sublime Panda. I can only imagine what this story would have been like with Panda’s dry wit accompanying the Doctor, Iris, Grayvorn and Sister Jolene on the quest for the relic of Artaris. His reaction alone that the relic is Iris’ lost gold lame handbag would be priceless.

I am aware that Iris as a character is one of the more ‘marmite’ aspects of Doctor Who outside of the television series, but I think she is a fun foil for the Doctor and throws his attitude to time and space travel in to sharp relief. In this adventure, specifically, her lackadaisical approach to time travel draws out of the Doctor the fact he has lost the frivolous attitude of his previous incarnation, due to the death of Adric.

But it is Iris’s twisted versions of the Doctor’s own adventures which always bring a smile – in this adventure we hear of the time seven of her incarnations were dragged to the Death Zone on Gallifrey by Morbius and forced to fight Mechonoids, Voord and Zarbi. As Iris puts it – all the rubbish monsters!

The rest of the cast are entertaining and Anthony Head seems to be having fun as the gruff, but surprisingly accepting, Lord Grayvorn. Posy Miller’s Sister Jolene is an oddly modern sounding nun who ends the play with her motives and ultimate fate left hanging (her story is followed up in the Bernice Summerfield section of the ‘trilogy in four parts’). Indeed, the end of the story sees the Mother Superior and Grayvorn merged – a thread which is followed up on in the later Excelis audios.

The only aspect which falls a bit flat for me are the zombies guarding the relic. The Zombie King with his ‘beloved’ schtick reminds me too much of Gollum and his precious and the fact that the zombies are never really explained is unsatisfying in a series which usually doesn’t embrace supernatural elements at least without explaining them away with a little bit of cod science – whether it be vampires, ghosts or werewolves.

I do however, look forward to our next trip back to Excelis.

I had a lot of fun with this audio, even if it is a little rough around the edges. Anthony Stewart Head is great to listen to as a Buffy fan. It's not the most remarkable story but is certainly elevated by stellar performances by the cast all around. Katy Manning really impressed me here. Overall definitely worth checking out and something that left me curious about the rest of Excelis.