‘She couldn’t drown a biscuit in a cup of tea”

A light hearted historical.

Earth 1864, and The Doctor is giving singing lessons?

I listened to half of this before I went to back to start again. Historicals aren’t my favourite, but this seemed to be one where, though stuff has taken place, you’re still wondering what the plot is.

Its Europe, and aliens are using salts to beef up the anger in Humans in order top make them fight. I wasn’t engaged in it, its fairly standard plot, Vampires of Venice springs to mind. The aliens are a bit wishy washy and not fleshed out.

This features Bertha Von Stuttner, who won a Nobel Peace prize - to be honest I didn’t know who she was, so at least it taught me something. I think that fact that is more about her than the threat accounts for the flimsy alien plot line. So maybe its more akin to The Unquiet Dead, and maybe if I’d have know this I would have appreciated it more.

There are a number of continuity references - Judoon, the Shadow Proclamation.

It does pick up in the second half, but the end is a little down out. Again I feel if I was more invested in Bertha it would have been more satisfying.

There's a lot to like with Lay Down Your Arms. The historical aspects of Berta Kinsky (who would eventually become Betha von Suttner) was a lot of fun. Writer Lisa McMullin does such a good job at bringing her to life, and I did enjoy many aspects of the writing. The intro of the Doctor as her "opera teacher," and him teaching her Judoon opera, was all just brilliant. The relationship with Berta and her mother was pretty amusing (even if it could get a little biting at times).

Where the story and audio on the whole starts to lose me is when the Tsar is revealed to be Trinity and the whole forcing people to fight each other thing. It's alright enough content but far weaker than the historical aspects and definitely where my interest wanes quite a bit.

I also don't love Berta's actor Kate Sissons. She's just so British that Berta's real history doesn't mesh well with her performance. I don't think there's any good reason that we couldn't have had someone more German or Austrian. Nobody wants a bad fake accent, but you can't tell me there weren't capable performers out there that could have sounded a little more true to the character, or that casting them was out of the scope of Big Finish's resources and abilities. It kept taking me out of the story a bit which is a shame because she is so great with the Doctor. He's pretty fun too, at least up until the point he keeps rudely interrupting Bertha's speech at the end.

Bertha was known for her peace activism and did indeed win the Nobel Peace Prize for it. And they talk about her friendship with Alfred Nobel a bit, which is interesting. But the big irony that I think this audio misses a bit is the prize and this very situation of Bertha eventually winning it, this all exists because Nobel realized he would have otherwise been remembered for inventing dynamite, and ultimately being a sort of war profiteer. I think it would have been interesting to explore that a bit, but I do appreciate this was Bertha' story, and hers is far less known than his.

So, it is good, I am glad I listened, but it was far from perfect, too. Very in line with the more mediocre Who historicals in the revived show, really. But, that's the sort of thing I'll point out could definitely have been improved upon. I did really like the music and sound effects, though. It was well produced in that regard and enhanced scenes like the Judoon opera practice session. Also, that Bohemia joke was very funny.