I don't often get on with pure historicals but this one surely did the trick. Full of thrills and actions to keep you engaged and great cliffhangers, especially the first one. Solidly sells the TARDIS team of 5, Pei and Erimem.

A wonderful 5/5 story for me, a real treat that I highly recommend! A minor spoiler in the second paragraph.

I felt I learned a lot about the era. The dialogue felt natural, and I was able to follow what was going on perfectly well, both in terms of the clarity of the plot and the quality of the sound of the voices. I also enjoyed the characters' sniping at each other, and how many were not very likeable. There was definitely a sense of, "he was an idiot, but he was my idiot" that was right up my alley.

Everyone being captured and then escaping and the confusion about who needed to be rescued and all that felt very Classic Who (stares pointedly at The War Games), and the tone just really felt right. The whole thing just worked very well.

One minor thing is that there was a historical innacuracy - Villiers was never the prime minister! That role did not exist at that time! Also, the Château de Brou was not built by 1626 (when the audio took place), but at least a couple decades later. Furthermore, "Richelieu" was apparently being mispronounced - my dad made me put this in. I did not know any of this while I was listening and so did not care; even in hindsight, knowing all this now, it really does not affect my view of the story much, if it all.

Finally, just something I found funny - everyone had very English accents, but then talked about Buckingham sounding foreign for being English😂

A really solid historical that was fun all the way through, and that I highly recommend!

📝8/10 = MORE ENJOYABLE!

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

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: “THE CHURCH AND THE CROWN”

This story instantly transports you to 17th-century France and the time of King Louis and Queen Anne and growing unrest between the church and the crown, in what is essentially a pure historical take on The Three Musketeers.

It’s been a while since I listened to The Eye of the Scorpion, so I forgot that Erimem joined the TARDIS at the end of that story and makes her first trip with Peri and the Doctor in this one. But I love how she immediately hits it off with Peri and shows great fascination for this new time.

Part 1 is pretty busy with setting the scene and throwing in a lot of characters who discuss the current political situation. The standouts from the beginning are the historically accurate depiction of Cardinal Richelieu, who’s portrayed well by Michael Shallard, and King Louis XIII as played by Andrew Mackay.

I’ve always enjoyed dopperlgänger stories in Doctor Who (such as The Androids of Tara), and here we have another one: Peri looks exactly like Queen Anne, leading to plenty of confusion when the former gets entangled in an assassination plot against the latter. This allows for more time for Erimem to find her role as a companion as she joins the Doctor in his attempts to save Peri, while Nicola Bryant gets to pull an impressive double duty as both Peri and Queen Anne; she truly keeps both characters separate while recognisably voicing both of them.

Caroline Morris is a force to be reckoned with, and the energy and fierceness she gives Erimem brings to mind Louise Jameson and Leela. I quite enjoy how she often takes charge of a situation, much to the Doctor’s chagrin, and how well she interacts with the other characters.

Peter Davison is also in top form and sounds like he's enjoying himself.

The music, performances, and setting give The Church and the Crown a feel akin to Phantasmagoria mixed with The Marian Conspiracy, and I’m all for it.

Part 2 continues to twist and turn the political intrigue while feeding the tension between the King and the Cardinal; all the while Erimem tries to ease tensions, and the Doctor is being brutally interrogated. Part 2 is much the same, but the performances and the great dialogue keep it all going even if the story hardly moves forward.

The chaos and battle scenes are played out surprisingly effectively, and Part 4 brings the story to an exciting close, with a few final twists to boot and consistently strong performances and music.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS:

• The Doctor says that his “arms are a bit longer," and I was thinking: are his arms too long (see: Wild Blue Yonder)?

The Church and the Crown is an enormously fun, fast paced romp.

I love it when Doctor Who wears its influences on its sleeve.  This adventure is 100% Doctor Who and the Three Musketeers.  Although it leans to a slightly more historically accurate account, particularly with the depiction of Cardinal Richelieu, it still revels in the trappings of swashbuckling romps, particularly, to my mind, the two film versions of The Three Musketeers – the Michael York/Oliver Reed one and the Charlie Sheen/Rebecca de Mornay one.  It’s a shame, though, that there doesn’t seem to even be a subtle reference to the greatest of Musketeer adaptations: Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds!

The TARDIS team of the Fifth Doctor, Peri and Erimem return for yet another adventure.  The regulars are all on top form and this is a very strong story for both Peri and Erimem.  Caroline Morris, in only her second story as Erimem, gets to show her leadership in battle and has a lot of fun playing up her royal background at King Louis’court.  The story, however, belongs to Nicola Bryant playing both Peri and her double, Queen Anne.  Doctor Who has a long tradition of doubles but it’s usually the Doctor rather than his companions.  Although this is audio, a strange medium to base a sizeable chunk of plot around physical appearance, it works brilliantly.  This is mainly due, I believe, to our familiarity nowadays with Nicola Bryant’s real accent.  Therefore we can easily imagine her in both roles even though her performances are quite different.

The plot actually boils down to some fairly basic politicial intrigue: the English Duke of Buckingham is planning to invade France.  But the focus of this story isn’t an intricate plot, it’s the Musketeer stylings.  The two Musketeers that hook up with the Doctor, and then Peri, are enormous fun as as are the brief scenes with Blind Maurice.  King Louis (portrayed by the same actor as Blind Maurice!) is also great.  In sharp contrast is Michael Shallard as Richelieu.  It could be argued that he, and Nicola Bryant as Anne to some extent, doesn’t fit into the play’s more humorous leanings.  However, the fact the play is historically more believable than something like Castle of Fear or The Kingmaker but not as serious as something like Son of the Dragon or The Council of Nicaea means it balances the two sides of its nature quite well.

Historically we have as mentioned, King Louis XIII, Queen Anne, Cardinal Richelieu, George Villiers (the 1st Duke of Buckingham) and Madame de Chevreuse (a Lady in Waiting to Queen Anne).  Buckingham’s plot to invade France, however, seems to be complete fiction – more akin to the film inspired stylings I have mentioned.

I haven’t a huge amount more to say about this story.  It’s fun and amusing.  It has some great scenes of tension, particularly any involving Richelieu and it has the regulars and guest cast all on top form.  Had I not waited nearly two weeks since listening to this to write the review I may have had a few more things to say.