Farewell, Great Macedon
Written by Maris Farhi adapted by Nigel Robinson
Directed by Lisa Bowerman
Starring:
William Russel as Ian Chesterton
Carole Ann Ford as Susan Forman
John Dorney as Alexander the Great
Long
car rides seem to take up a lot of my life. Hours spent on the road driving or
in the passenger seat as scenery that’s I’ve seen countless times goes by.
Visiting relatives, going to work, or going to and from adventures, most people
hate the time they spend driving such distances, especially with long hours of
traffic ahead of them. I for one love it, though, as it gives me time to listen
to some good old Doctor Who audio stories. And what better way to jump into a
particularly long three and a half hour drama than with a nice long car drive with
little hope of escaping the confines of the car if this particularly lengthy
adventure starts to make my ears bleed?
Few Big Finish audios are over two
hours long, and for good reason: long epics such as Zagerus generally start to drag during that last hour or so. Three
and a half hours can be a daunting amount of time to spend on an audio adventure
regardless of its good points (assuming, of course, it has any). Farewell, Great Macedon is a Lost Story and
Lost Stories can be much hit and miss, so a three and a half hour one caused me
to be a bit concerned for my mental health, but hearing others praising it gave
me a bit of hope. This hope I had was to be well rewarded, as I found out during
my three hour journey through this First Doctor Lost Story in the form of a First
Doctor Companion Chronicle. I have yet to have a first Doctor audio story let
me down and this endeavor has only strengthened the truth of that statement.
Companion
Chronicles are a Doctor Who line of audio adventures using only two or three
actors to tell a story, as opposed to the full casts of the appropriately named
“full cast audios.” As William Hartnell, the actor who portrayed the first
Doctor, is sadly no longer with us, Farewell,
Great Macedon has to be told like a Companion Chronicle, making it the
first of its kind in the Lost Stories run. Lost Stories up until this were
generally full cast audios of stories that had been written to be part of the
original run of television Doctor Who but never quite made it into production,
which is why these are “Lost Stories.” As is normal in Companion Chronicle
adventures, the speaking actors also do their best to portray the Doctor’s
lines as if he’s never left us. It is my pleasure to say I feel they do such a
great job that it almost feels like William Hartnell himself is delivering the
lines at times.
Within
the first few minutes of our story, we learn the TARDIS has stopped moving due
to a fuel leak, causing them to be stranded wherever the TARDIS has landed them
until the leak can be fixed. The Doctor’s companion crew at the time consists
of his granddaughter Susan; Ian Chesterton, a science teacher; and Barbara
Wright, a history teacher. Where they have landed is a beautiful garden full of
music; in fact, it is none other but the revered ancient Wonder of the World,
the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Soon after landing they encounter someone of
great importance to history: Alexander the Great, the King of Macedon. Queue
musical trumpets of grandeur. (Yes, that’s right, this is a historic adventure
void of monsters and robots, as was par for the course with some of the first
Doctor’s adventures.) Barbara is perhaps
the most excited of all of them to meet Alexander. History itself is right in
front of her; any historian of the ancient world would drop dead at the chance.
Unfortunately for the crew of the TARDIS, though, there are conspirators in the
shadows plotting Alexander’s death. The crew haven’t just met Alexander, but
have arrived right before his death. Queue dramatic, shocking music! With the
TARDIS broken, they have no choice but to become entwined in horrible events
that are about to unfold.
Normally,
I’d think this adventure is far too long at three and a half hours in length,
but it actually is a wholly enjoyable ride. This Lost Story doesn’t drop the
ball at all along the way. It is a shame this never made it into broadcast production;
it most certainly would have been a gem. Thankfully not only do we have Big Finish
to finally bring this adventure to us, but we also have the actress and actor
for Susan and Ian’s characters—William Russell and Carole Ann Ford—to tell us
the adventure. As anyone who is familiar with the Companion Chronicles stories
featuring Carole or William can tell you, they do a beautiful job bringing the
story to life. Carole’s description of the Gardens of Babylon allows me to
really place myself in her shoes. She so vividly and beautifully describes her
experience stepping out into and exploring the garden that if I close my eyes,
I can believe I’m there. Both actors are able to slip between their descriptive
voices and their character voices with such ease it is as if they never left
their roles.
There
is one more voice actor featured in Farewell,
Great Macedon: John Dorney, who plays Alexander the Great. While not
playing a descriptive role in the audio, he does all of Alexander’s lines. Upon
first hearing him, I wasn’t sure what to make of him; frankly I wasn’t
immediately won over in admiration. Alexander is a very temperamental character,
and in the heated moments, the actor flourishes. John Dorney’s portrayal of Alexander
during these displays of anger, wallowing, and irrationality are top-notch. It
takes a truly exceptional actor like John Dorney to make me both empathize with
Alexander during these times of great emotion, but still become annoyed with
some of his foolish emotional choices. At
times he can be a great leader, but other times he’s more melodramatic than a
vampire from Twilight. This is
actually my only minor complaint about this adventure: Alexander can get really
irritating sometimes, especially when his senselessness leads to some serious
problems for the crew of the TARDIS.
Speaking
of throttling characters, it is with great pleasure I tell you just how much I
hated the villains of this tale. The villains are a group of four conspirators,
headed by a man named Antipater. The other heinous perpetrators are Selecus,
Glaucias, and—perhaps the only one of them I hate as much as their leader—Iolla
the prophet. Iolla is quite fiendish in his attempts to set up a prophecy of
doom for Alexander and his generals that will come true. Even though Alexander
ignores him as much as possible, the bothersome prophet can’t take “no” for an
answer when it comes to preaching to Alexander about his sham of a prophecy. With
a fiendish goal in mind and a long list of people to murder, the villains do
more than their part in extending this adventure to its long length without it
getting boring. The end of the fourth act is especially juicy with exciting
wrong-doings; let’s just say I was at the edge of my seat during a certain
scene that takes us back to the landing point of the TARDIS, where things come
to a “point.”
Farewell, Great Macedon is an amazing
piece of work, one that I am greatly disappointed never made it onto the
television screen. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fantastic audio story, but
because it’s so astounding, I really want to see it fully acted out on the
television screen. Still, we are very fortunate to be able to enjoy it as an
audio story rather than as nothing at all. The hard work that went into
bringing this story to life can really be seen in the heartfelt portrayal given
to us by its three actors and the director, Lisa Bowerman, of Bernice
Summerfield fame. It clocks in at exactly 3 hours, 39 minutes, and 59 seconds,
and frankly, I wouldn’t have it a second shorter; such a beautiful world
painted by the voices of these actors needs to be enjoyed for as long as
possible. Farewell, Great Macedon is,
if nothing else, an enjoyment and a wonderful homage after all these years to a
story that should have been on our television screens.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Farewell, Great Macedon can be bought from Big Finish: http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/doctor-who-the-first-doctor-box-set-429
Farewell, Great Macedon can be bought from Big Finish: http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/doctor-who-the-first-doctor-box-set-429
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