Pier Pressure

The conceit of this marathon often throws up some interesting story orders that contrast with the original release order. Already in this marathon we have had two stories by Robert Ross: Medicinal Purposes and Assassin in the Limelight. Both featured Doctor Knox, as played by Leslie Philips and the latter saw him in league with the Indo – a parasitic alien race. In ‘real life’ Assassin in the Limelight was a return for the Indo after their debut appearance in this story, Pier Pressure. For the 6th Doctor and Evelyn it is the first time they have encountered them but for the Indo, unless they have time travel capabilities, this is the second time they have encountered the Doctor.

In Assassin in the Limelight we saw the Indo prolong Doctor Knox’s life through possession and this is exactly what we are presented with here. The ‘villain’ of the piece, Professor Talbot, is in a similar position to Knox: supposedly dead and being kept alive by the Indo. There is the vague suggestion that the Indo are aware of who the Doctor is. They are immediately concerned that he will disrupt their plans and there is definitely a throughline between the two stories which works in either order.

Unfortunately, this may be the most interesting thing about this story because the rest of it, excellent performances aside, is a terribly dull and meandering affair.

Pier Pressure has a lot going for it – possessed humans, a mysterious psychic at the end of the Pier, Brighton as a setting and, most importantly, Roy Hudd giving a brilliant performance as the real life comedian Max Miller.

But all of this is squandered on a four episode story where so little happens its almost embarrassing. Indicative of this is the part of the story where Evelyn and Max spend almost an entire episode sitting in the TARDIS playing I Spy! The script literally takes two of its most interesting characters and puts them in the TARDIS to do nothing while the story – what there is of it – happens outside.

Another problem with the story is the underwhelming adversary. Professor Talbot and the Indo are both played by horror icon Doug Bradley (him of Pinhead from the Hellraiser films fame). Firstly the script doesn’t seem to know what Talbot’s situation is. For the first two episodes he seems completely possessed by the Indo, incapable of acting under his own volition and desperate for their help to achieve his aims – although these are never really explained.  Is it the return of his dead wife?  Is it fame and fortune. Later in the story, though, he is suddenly acting under his own agency and able to do things without the Indo being aware – such as inexplicably helping an incapacitated Doctor back to the TARDIS after both Max and Evelyn get possessed themselves.

As an adversary, Talbot just makes no sense at all and it isn’t helped by Bradley’s terrible performance. His ‘Indo’ voice is a vaguely raspy whisper which contrasts with the weak Talbot but later, the weakness disappears from his voice and it becomes harder to distinguish between the two ‘voices’. Talbot is easliy one of the worst written and worst performed villains in Big Finish Doctor Who.

Alongside an underwhelming adversary is the fact a lot of the story happens ‘off-screen’ and then characters tell us about it later. This happens multiple times and its incredibly frustrating.

There are, however, some positive. First and foremost is the 6th Doctor and Evelyn and how sublime they are. Maggie Stables is peerless as Evelyn and the relationship of mutual intelligence and affection – and the fact that Evelyn is one of those companions who gets to tell the Doctor to stop being an idiot – make for a very happy listen, even in a story that is frustrating on so many other levels.

The guest cast is headed up by Roy Hudd as Max Miller. Hudd is something of an aficionado of Miller, as I understand it, you can feel the admiration shining through his performance. It’s similar to the situation with Simon Callow playing Charles Dickens and having already played him in other productions outside of Doctor Who. Miller – and Hudd – is a wonderful foil for the Doctor and companion to Evelyn and, again, the fact that he hardly does anything plotwise is hugely frustrating. There is so much potential in a story featuring a stand up comedian fighting monsters with the Doctor that it beggars belief that it was wasted on this non-entity of a plot.

The rest of the cast ably support although there is one odd inclusion – a character called Billy. An actor working with Miller, apparently he is supposed to be a young William Hartnell (films he mentions appearing in are indeed films that Hartnell appeared in). However, Billy scarpers at the first sign of the strange, uncanny events and is never seen again in the story. It’s such an obscure inclusion (unless you know the films mentioned – and they aren’t well-known – there would be no reason for realising it was Hartnell) and, like much of this story, completely wasted as an idea.

Something went wrong with the production of Pier Pressure. Either a script editor never looked at it (I can’t believe they would let almost an entire episode go by with two main characters literally sitting in the TARDIS playing I Spy) or the team’s focus was elsewhere and it didn’t get the attention it needed. Baker, Stables and Hudd work with what they’re given and do at least make it a listenable experience even if it is incredibly frustrating as a story that has, on paper, a huge amount going for it.