Subterfuge

World War Two is over and Churchill is running for re-election. The 7th Doctor arrives to visit his old friend and discovers an old enemy is meddling in Churchill’s election campaign. And German spies are still at large in London.

It’s the Meddling Monk up to his old meddling tricks and superbly played by Big Finish’s current Monk of choice, Rufus Hound. The rather fun conceit of this story is that the Monk is attempting to get Churchill re-elected so, as far as Churchill is concerned, his new campaign advisor is an absolute boon. Only the Doctor knows that Churchill is destined to lose the election and that history must continue on its correct path.

To add to this problem, a German spy is using a stranded alien brother and sister to his own ends.

Subterfuge’s success rests almost entirely on the shoulders of Rufus Hound. His Monk is a marvellous creation and leans into elements of the character just like the different actors do with the Doctor. Whereas Peter Butterworth leant into the more gentle comedy, and Graeme Garden into a more ‘Cambridge’ humour, Hound takes the ‘Carry On’ association of Butterworth and gives the Monk more than an edge of Sid James and a far more ‘saucy’ humour. It’s not the ‘material’ that is saucy, but more an element of ‘oo-er’ in how Hound performs it and it really works.

Ian McNiece returns as Churchill and is as solid as always but he didn’t make as much as an impact as he has in other stories. It is interesting to see a Churchill who must convince the British public to re-elect him, but that is pretty much the only thing that involves him here. The irony of knowing that he must lose adds a bit more interest and there is some good stuff at the end where he loses his belief in the Doctor because of the latter’s determination to keep history on track.

McCoy is good in this story as is Brian Capron as the spy cum art thief and there is convincing support from the the sibling stranded aliens.

The pace of the story is good and there is enough incident to keep the listener engaged, with a couple of good cliffhangers but, overall, this is a story which is easy to forget a few weeks later.