Voyage to the New World

Firstly, a couple of thoughts about the previous adventure for Jago and Litefoot, Voyage to Venus, which begins their brief travels with the 6th Doctor in two special releases from Big Finish which were released alongside Jago and Litefoot’s own spin-off series .  Whilst set in the far, far future, Voyage to Venus owes a huge debt to Victorian literature with clear influences of HG Wells and Jules Verne; think Journey to the Centre of the Earth.  The whole idea of a tribe of female warriors on Venus screams Victorian ‘science fiction’.  I really enjoyed it.

And then we reach the colony of Roanoke and the New World.  I often stick these stories on my phone to listen to without looking at cast lists or writer’s credits.  As I’m listening to them I’m often pondering as to who the actors are as I recognise voices and sometimes, when I go online to check the cast list I’m surprised.  I hadn’t taken much notice of the credits for this story before listening to it and as the story wore on found myself wishing I had the cast list to hand – not to know the actors, but to know the characters.  There are a plethora of male voices in this story and they all sound almost identical.  I was lost for huge portions of the story as I had no idea who was talking to who.  It made it very difficult to follow what was going on and what the motivations of people were.

The story sees the Doctor, Jago and Litefoot taken prisoner by some European settlers who are fighting the native Americans.  A colony’s inhabitants have disappeared and a strange affliction is affecting people, including Jago.  Mysterious, ghostly children are visible to the sick and eventually both the Doctor and Litefoot succumb to what is revealed to be an alien parasitic species.

There is also some stuff with Sir Walter Raleigh travelling in the TARDIS and ending up a 500 year old man but I didn’t really understand how any of that happened!

I got to the end of this audio and didn’t quite know what I’d listened to.  The confusion of voices; the ethereal atmosphere; the timey-wimey Raleigh/TARDIS stuff.  It was all very unsatisfying, despite excellent performances from Colin Baker, Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter who continue to delight in their respective roles.  The rest of the cast do their best and the atmosphere is suitably doom-laden.  But I couldn’t shake the feeling that this just didn’t work for me.

And then I went online and found the reason.  Matthew Sweet.

I hadn’t realised this script was the work of Matthew Sweet.  I’m not a fan of Matthew Sweet.  His audios for Big Finish have been some of least favourite.  Far too clever for their own good, they leave me cold.  The Year of the Pig, his debut, is one of the most horrendously smug audios I’ve had the misfortune to listen to.  A couple of other have been better, The Magic Mousetrap is okay and one of his Jago and Litefoot stories, The Man at the End of the Garden, isn’t bad.  Overall, however, I find the ideas in his stories far more interesting than the actual execution.  But Voyage to the New World is a prime example of why I don’t like his writing.  It’s just too dense.  I come to Doctor Who for adventure, escapism, fun.  Yes, I have enjoyed many a historical story where it’s all doom and gloom.  Yes, I’ve enjoyed many an introspective story that isn’t about romping through time and space.  I just don’t like the way Matthew Sweet does it.  His style grates on me (his documentary for the 50th anniversary year was my least favourite offering from that cavalcade of celebratory content – it, like his audios, was arrogant and reminded me of the way Elizabeth Sandifer writes about Doctor Who.  It’s this attempt to make Doctor Who ‘intellectual’ and ‘about something’ which I just can’t abide.  It might not be intentional on Sweet’s part, but I can’t help but feel like that about his writing.

Historically, the lost colony of Roanoke is a recorded event.  There was indeed a colony set up by Sir Walter Raleigh.  John White (who also features in the story) had been appointed Governor of the colony by Raleigh and, in 1590, he did indeed, after a trip back to England, arrive back to find Roanoke deserted with no trace of the colonists and the word Croatoan carved into a fence post.  Eleanor Dare, the daughter of John White, also features in the story – initially falling victim to the mysterious children, but eventually being saved by the restoration of the timelines (although in the real history, she did disappear).

Somewhere within Voyage to the New World is a great story based around a real historical mystery – the kind of story Doctor Who does so well.  However, obfuscated as it is by the style of Sweet, I found it difficult to enjoy.  Part of me wants to relisten and try to concentrate on the story (part of my confusion – the similarity of the voices – isn’t really Sweet’s fault) but mustering up the will to do so may take a while.