The Chimes of Midnight

29.06.2022

Proper spooky. Creative as hell as well. AND a solid story? What more could you possibly wish for?

Clinging to life despite having no reason to do so, because life is worth living in and of itself. That's a beautiful message. Except it's also a little funky "Wouldn't it be f**ked up?" story as well. And I love it.

The setting is phenomenal, the development is well-paced leaving you wondering what's next. I would be on the edge of my seat if I weren't mostly walking while listening to this.

The only downside I can find is that it's either a sequel to an underwhelming story or part of an arc of an underwhelming season, depending how you look at it. Other than that, great stuff. 4.5/5

relistened 14/9/24

yayyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Monthly Adventures #029 - "The Chimes of Midnight" by Robert Shearman

It's hard to introduce a story like The Chimes of Midnight. How do you discuss a story with such reverence and adoration, how do you accurately review what is commonly cited as a top contender for the greatest Doctor Who story ever, how do you convey the absolute magnificence of such a tightly written and complex piece of fiction? I've already written my review and I don't know. But, I'm more than up for giving it a shot. Listening to The Chimes of Midnight for the first time was the moment I think I went from being a fan of the audios to somebody who'll sink their entire bank account into them and would probably sell their soul for Robert Shearman to come back to Doctor Who. A story that I could never get bored of, that I would recommend to probably anyone, that is very likely my favourite Doctor Who story ever, it's needless to state how utterly perfect The Chimes of Midnight is.

Once again overshooting their destination of Singapore, the Doctor and Charley find themselves in the cellar of an Edwardian manor house, where a murder most foul has taken place, and everybody, including time itself, is a suspect.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

God, where do I start? Well I suppose with the utterly sublime script, which may just be one of my favourite things ever written. Robert Shearman is a genius through and through but I don’t think he’s ever written anything quite like this. From the opening scene to the very final moments, you are utterly enthralled. The dark, unnatural cellars of a manor house on Christmas Eve become the setting of an expertly constructed mystery where a cast of incredible complex and developed characters all act progressively stranger; it’s maddeningly confusing but not infuriating, you are overjoyed by not know what is happening or what is going on. Doctor Who can very often struggle with mysteries but this is definitely one of, if not, the best. Not to mention the atmosphere, which you could probably cut with a knife if you wanted to. Created by the incredible, ghostly sound design and discordant, music box score, this whole audio is a claustrophobic nightmare of surreal dreamlike episodes through which we see a terrifying vision of an intelligent paradox. And despite this tense and unnerving atmosphere, The Chimes of Midnight is also an excellent comedy outing, Robert Shearman is the king of black comedy and some of the lines in The Chimes of Midnight are genuinely laugh out loud funny, whilst still being absurd enough to not destroy the tone and tension. Leading our audio is the always dynamic duo of Eight and Charley, who are likely in their best outing here. The way they bounce off each other, especially in the magnificent part one, is glorious and it’s very clear when McGann is really jiving with a script; he easily becomes one of the Doctor’s best actors when he’s actually bothered with the story. And foil to our heroes is Edward Grove, the house itself which has become intelligent through the paradox of Charley’s death, and how it led to the suicide of the house’s scullery maid. Not only is this a morbid and utterly disturbing twist that nobody could see coming, it also gives way to the final part and third act, which is an incredibly tense extreme of talking somebody off a roof ledge, with Charley trying to convince Edith to not end her own life whilst the Doctor faces off against the sinister and masterfully acted Edward Grove. And I think that’s it, I think I’ve managed to quickly and concisely list off all the things I love about The Chimes of Midnight, that or it was an incoherent ramble that was indecipherable, I really can’t tell anymore.

As for cons, I just can’t do it. Maybe a line doesn’t land every now and again or a performance is overplayed, but it feels like a cardinal sin criticising a story that is as close to perfection as you can get in Doctor Who.

There is no story like Chimes, and I doubt there ever will be again. It is a scary, surreal and dreamlike tale of murder and plum pudding. But then again, Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a bit of Mrs’ Baddeley’s plum pudding, is it?

10/10

Pros:

+ Enthralling, genius and expertly constructed script

+ Incredibly funny and allows Shearman’s black comedy to shine beautifully

+ Absolutely dripping in maddening atmosphere

+ A cast of distinct and memorable characters that stick with you well after the final part

+ McGann and Fisher are joyously bouncing off each other and their energy is infectious

+ Brilliant part one that expertly sets the tone

+ Great twist you truly don’t see coming

+ Edward Grove is an incredibly sinister and effective antagonist

+ Emotional and exciting climax

+ Top tier sound design that forms the audio’s distinct moodiness

+ Incredible, disorientating and unique score

Cons:

~ It feels wrong giving this audio any cons, so I’m not going to

MR 029: The Chimes of Midnight

TW: discussion of suicide

It's a damn classic for good reason right? Rob Shearman can cook. The Holy Terror was already the best audio so far and now Rob has surpassed himself with this all time classic. This is incredibly nostalgic for me. I remember at the time, years and years ago, thinking that Shearman was my favorite Doctor Who writer... EVER, and being disappointed that he hadn't done any Doctor Who in a long time and probably won't ever again. Sad.

Anyway, this audio is well loved so everyone knows what happens. But for the sake of it:

The Doctor and Charley land downstairs in an old Victorian manor. It seems to be frozen in time and there's some excellent scenes of things unhappening after the Doctor and Charley cause them to happen. As Charley says, something seems to be preventing them from making any impression. That is, until the chime of 10 PM when they get drawn into the world. This is where things go insane.

The staff of the house are people you'd expect: the cook, the chauffer, the butler, and the lady's maid. But they're all particularly mean towards one person in particular: the scullary maid: Edith Thompson. They way they're mean to her in particular is strange. The cook disapproves of her saying something that everyone else and she herself says. The meme line! Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without my plum pudding!

The staff behave very oddly in general. They seem to be in their own little story and, without missing a beat, they adapt the Doctor and Charley into their story.
This is where Rob Shearman's interest in deconstructing tropes and narrative comes into play, as he did with The Holy Terror. The story plays out like a little murder mystery. First Edith gets murdered and then the cook. The other people see the Doctor and Charley as detectives here to solve the murders, but their answers to basic questions are bizarre. The butler continues to insist the murders are suicide as well. Their answers seem almost like talking to an AI. It's eager to get back on script and to repeat the same lines over and over again in different formats in ways that don't seem quite human. It's amazing that Shearman captures that feeling of talking to an AI decades before that technology existed. It makes everything seem bizarre and dream like. They're doing this strange story over and over again, sinking into their roles as it goes on. The chauffer and lady's maid killed the cook to get her out of the way because she plans to turn them in for their love affair. No actually they're not in love because the lady's maid is now the scullery maid since Edith doesn't exist and a chauffer can't be in love with a scullery maid. Now it's the chauffer who's been killed, and the lady's maid is crying over it but just kidding she's just a scullery maid so obviously they were never in love to begin with.

The murders are always bizzare, as the Doctor says, parodies of death. The cook is stuffed with her own plum pudding. Edith drowns in the dish water and then suffocates from a plunger on her face. The chauffer gets run over by a car in the middle of the parlor. Always something to do with their job.
Some force is running this little farce over and over and over again killing them one at a time, each time the clock resetting at the chime of midnight and starting over again at 10PM with someone being killed and then someone else being killed at 11 PM. The mysterious force works Charley into it as well, making her into a lady of the house and the Doctor into a detective. It prevents the Doctor from leaving the house, going outside or going upstairs. In a particularly funny bit, the Doctor tries to go upstairs and talks to the mysterious force, saying he's going upstairs and that it needs to stop him, waiting for someone to come along until the butler comes along with a gun on him.

In the meantime, as Charley is being integrated into the story as a member of the upstairs household, she's been getting bizarre visions from Edith talking about how she's died. The Doctor even gets scared and tries to run away, but he can't. The TARDIS interior changes dramatically back into the scullery, the force integrating the TARDIS into the story too. It all culminates when they realize the house is alive. It's been controlling everyone and killing them over and over again, becoming more alive with each death. It's going to maintain that thread of life that it has as much as it can.
It was given life by, as it turns out, Charley. Edith Thompson was cook in Charley's house when she was a little girl. Charley doesn't really remember her, but Edith remembers Charley as her best friend, which is so sad. Nobody was ever kind to Edith, not when she was a scullery maid and not when she was a cook, so when Charley apparently died in the R101 crash, she took her own life, overwhelmed with grief that the one person who had ever been nice to her died. It's so depressing that this person was never shown kindness at all except from one child who smiled at her. And that was it. When the Doctor and Charley landed in this house and saw Edith before she was a cook, they created a paradox. Charley is now in this timeline alive and dead. And so Edith is now alive and dead. She both did and didn't take her own life. This paradox gives the house life and allows it to create this little time and space loop for itself, giving itself life.

Charley can feel her death. She can feel the flames and hear the screams as the R101 crashes with no escape. But she also is still alive. Edith encourages Charley to die with her, as they should have. But Charley and Edith both choose life, which destroys the entire loop and the house's attempt at life.

That whole sequence: the Doctor appealing to Charley that he needs her and she needs him, that they're a team, literally had me in tears. It's the reason we watch Doctor Who. I live vicariously through Doctor Who and so it meant a lot to me as someone who doesn't really have any friends, this is just what I do, I listen to and watch Doctor Who. The Doctor is my friend and I go on adventures with him. It's saved me from killing myself multiple times. So hearing him appeal to that made me ugly cry.

Not to mention the very end when the loop is destroyed and they see Edith as a scullery maid. Charley tells her that she's not nobody and not no-one. She's special as she is.
This story truly is something special and it's deeply nostalgic for me. It takes me right back to that time when I was in college listening to Doctor Who for the first time and being entranced by the possibility of what these stories could be. It's crafted with care by someone who deeply understands and loves Doctor Who. It also really shows Shearman's love for exploring narrative and tropes. Like The Holy Terror, it starts out comic in its explorations of the absurd nature of these narratives and then turns out extremely dark and tragic. Like I said, his dialogue when he's still in comic mode feels like an AI repeating the same phrases and trying to get the listener on track with the story. And then the shift into dark tragedy feels so natural and so real. The house's voice seems like it could be silly in any other story, but it actually does feel threatening here juxtaposed with Edith talking about killing herself.

And who else could have pulled off a story like this but the Eighth Doctor and Charley? Charley is intimately involved with this story in a way that most companions in classic aren't. This woman whose death sparked the story killed herself BECAUSE of Charley. It's this darkly gothic feeling, of the clock ticking over, of the death that caused all this, of the bizzare way the staff talk and act, all of it feels very Eighth Doctor in his romantic period. Like a weird dream that you can't quite escape. A dream that pulls you into it and makes you part of it.
There's so many fantastic visuals in this story. From the very beginning when time rewinds and things unhappen, Charley being pulled to talk to Edith in another weird reality, the house itself, the weird deaths, the TARDIS changing into the scullery the second hand on the clock whirring forwards, the resets. This would make a really fantastic filmed story, of all audio stories. I don't know if it would ever be as good as the version we all have in our heads, but it would be interesting to see how it would get adapted to screen.

This is the peak of what Doctor Who audio can be as far as I'm concerned. I love audio dramas quite a lot. I'm more of a Doctor Who audio fan than tv show fan. I enjoy most audio stories I've heard. But I don't think any of them have ever surpassed Chimes of Midnight, and I don't think any ever will. This is not only the greatest Doctor Who audio drama, this might be the greatest Doctor Who story ever made. All from one of the most talented writers we've ever seen.

I’m not prone to following fan consensus.  I have issues with received fan wisdom about which are good, worthy stories and which are mud upon our shoes to be derided and mocked.  It’s the old Genesis of the Daleks vs Delta and the Bannermen divide.

But every now and again I do agree with the majority and The Chimes of Midnight is one where I simply cannot disagree with the general opinion.  The Chimes of Midnight is one of Big Finish’s most celebrated releases – it topped their best 200 poll; it’s one of only two releases (the other being Spare Parts) to get a special, limited edition re-release; and it’s written by the peerless Rob Shearman.

In the past, I have talked about how wonderful this story was and how it felt like its own distinct entity, in terms of Big Finish releases.  It wasn’t trying to ape a past era of the show (as with ‘It’s teatime 1977 all over again’) or trying to fit in with the dynamic of the modern series (as the 8th Doctor adventures started to veer towards with the introduction of Lucie Miller and 50 minute stories).  It was this run of 8th Doctor adventures that felt like a proper, new era.  This was long before the series was revived and it was a huge deal that Big Finish had managed to convince Paul McGann to return to the role.  Whilst the first season of 8th Doctor audios may have been a little shakey, the second season is much more confident and builds a defined tone for the 8th Doctor audios.  There was an dark atmosphere threaded through the stories and, long before the modern series ‘shipped’ the 10th Doctor and Rose, the 8th Doctor and Charley ventured into relationship areas the series had been reluctant to touch on before.

The Chimes of Midnight is, accurately, compared to Sapphire and Steel.  This is a story about time and objects becoming sentient through mysterious powers which are never quite explained – magic, if you like.  This is Doctor Who as ‘fantasy’ rather than hard science fiction.  This is also character drama.  The central tragedy of Edith Thompson, the scullery maid, manages to impact on the listener, particularly when her true history and association with Charley is revealed in the climax to the play.  But this is also the dark comedy that Rob Shearman seems rather fond of.  Characters are murdered in bizarre, sometimes comical, ways and the characters slip from silly to sinister on the flip of a coin.

The Doctor and Charley are thrown into this bizarre world (brilliantly evoked through sound design and music) and Paul McGann and India Fisher are simply superb.  Their interplay is effortless and it’s one of the best Doctor/companion pairings in the series long history.  The guest cast are wonderful too, particularly Lennox Greaves and Sue Wallace as Mr Shaughnessy, the butler and Mrs Baddeley, the cook.

One of Rob Shearman’s trademarks in his writing is the use of repetition.  It’s a device threaded through The Holy Terror and his BBV audio Punchline.  In The Chimes of Midnight it is used to great effect.  The characters repeat lines, actions and whole scenes but with the occasional changes which add layers to the mystery, or give clues to the solution, or twist things in darker and more sinister ways – but often with a comedic edge (such as the Chrysler/Bentley confusion or their insistence that the deaths are a result of suicide – even when one of them involves the chauffeur, Frederick, being run down in the kitchen by his own car).

The upstairs/downstairs world of the aristocracy and their servants isn’t something which has appeared a huge amount in Doctor Who which is surprising considering how many stories are set in the 19th Century and the Victorian era.  Ghost Light touches upon it and there are characters from both sides of the divide in stories such as The Evil of the Daleks and The Talons of Weng-Chiang, but it isn’t something which has been the focus of a story such as it is in The Chimes of Midnight.

The idea of servants being of little importance to their Lords and Ladies is drummed home over and over again.  Edith is ‘nobody’ and when Edith is gone and Mary slips into her role as a scullery maid, she too is ‘no-one’.   The servants obey their masters without question – that is their role.  But even within the servants there is a hierarchy.  Mary, the ladies’ maid, looks down on Edith, the scullery maid.  In one part of the time loop she is having an affair with Frederick, the chauffeur but when she assumes Edith’s role after her death (literally becoming the scullery maid, with Edith being forgotten by the characters) Frederick reacts contemptuously at the idea of him having an affair with the scullery maid.

There are obvious echoes of the relationships as characterised in Upstairs Downstairs, the popular drama invented, in part, by Jean Marsh.  That too had a hierarchy of servants such as Mrs Bridges, the cook, and Rose the maid.  It isn’t difficult to see the parallels between that series and this story (even with the fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen a whole episode of the series).

There are also some historical details dropped into the script as the Doctor begins to work out that all is not right with the situation – when the first Chrysler appeared or when Agatha Christie published her first novel.  It all ties in beautifully with the fact that the time loop is a mish-mash of Edith’s real life and whilst this story is, ostensibly set in 1906, it’s actually more ‘early 20th century’ linking in closely with the chronological setting of 1930 of Storm Warning, the first story to feature Charley.

Sometimes it’s easy to write a negative review but difficult to write something positive.  Here, though, we have a story which is brimming with dialogue, performance, production, direction, atmosphere and a damn good plot, which is so easy to write about.  Everything in this story works.    Yes, it’s a bit Christmassy but – a bit like the Doctor Who TV Christmas specials of late, the Christmas aspect is minor and merely window-dressing for a spooky, darkly comedic tale of macabre murder, time paradoxes and a personal tragedy.

Sublime.

Wow, that was excellent! After Storm Warning and Sword of Orion, I wasn't expecting much, but this story is excellent in almost every way.

Very creepy atmosphere, but very intriguing and I love the arc that's developing for Charlie

She wasn't lying, those chimes really CAN midnight

This is the first review I make, and it's the 6th audio I listen to. I was kind of losing interest in Big Finish. Really enjoyed Storm Warning, but the next 4 were just okay. Then I chose to listen to this on the bus, and yeah, I loved it. Time-loop stories are probably one of my favorite sci-fi trope, and I love me some Sherlock crime-solving stories too, so this is just perfect.

The first 3 parts and a half are thrilling, and easily one of the best Who has to offer. Then it kinda lost me a bit with the conversation between the Doctor and the house, but I absolutely loved that Edith not killing herself and choosing life is what solves everything. So yeah, 10/10, will be checking everything 8th Doctor and Charley related.

It's a masterpiece. Top 10 big finish stories of all time.

I really do not understand all the hype surrounding this story, I listened to this in the run up to Christmas last year because it just wouldn't be Christmas without it and because it was recommended to me to do this . The performances are good as I've come to expect from a McGann story but it has to be said that the twist is very easily predictable. This was the second Shearman audio that I've listened to after Scherzo and I feel like Scherzo is the stronger audio. I think that this is a good example of why you don't buy into the hype surrounding a story as I was very excited to listen to it and was just let down a bit when I eventually did.

Overall, this is a fairly decent story with some very good performances by the cast but ultimately it just goes to show you as to why you shouldn't buy into hype