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Publisher's Details |
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Writer: Robert Shearman | Director: Barnaby Edwards
CD Details (Buy the CD from Big Finish) Published: Feb 2002 | ISBN: 1-903654 850 | RRP: £13.99 (UK) |
| The Cast | |||
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The Doctor:
Charley: Edith: Mr Shaughnessy: |
Paul McGann
India Fisher Louise Rolfe Lennox Greaves |
Mrs Baddeley:
Frederick: Mary: |
Sue Wallace
Robert Curbishley Juliet Warner |
| The Story |
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The Doctor and Charley arrive in an Edwardian house in the dark. Soon afterwards, Charley starts to hear singing and voices that the Doctor can’t. The voices come from a maid named Edith, who tells Charley that she is going to die.
Things get worse when the Doctor realises that whatever extraterrestrial power had tried to prevent their interference on the household has instead decided to trap them in.
Edith has been drowned and everyone seems to know the Doctor and Charley as amateur detectives. An hour later, Mrs Baddeley is murdered by being stuffed with her own Plum pudding. Neither murder makes sense. Worse still, the staff can’t ever remember an Edith. The clock is about to chime midnight!... Events are getting stranger and stranger. Time is caught in a loop as the Doctor and Charley once again appear in the Pantry to see Edith lying dead. This time, she has died by being suffocated with a sink plunger. The Doctor discovers that it is the house that is causing all these weird things to occur just as Charley becomes part of the time loop… In their escape, the Doctor and Charley trap the TARDIS in the time loop causing ‘Edward Grove’ (the House) to inhabit the body of Shaughnessy, who speaks to the Doctor. Charley is transported to greet Edith, who turns out to be her cook from 1930. The loop has been created by her last despairing moments before she kills herself after hearing of Charley’s death aboard the R101. Edward Grove’s ambitions of sustaining life for a few looped seconds have to be overcome if the time loop is going to end... |
| Editor's Review |
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The Chimes of Midnight is a really good story with episode four being the best. There is a high level of mystery throughout and the mystery deepens with each episode that passes. It’s also a perfect audio drama with its use of sound effects.
One thing that bugs me though is the constant repetition of “Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without your Plum Pudding Mrs. B”, which becomes rather tiresome after a while. Apart from that, I can find no faults in what is the best of the Big Finish that I’ve heard thus far. Well done to Robert Shearman – I’m considering buying the CD! (Dan Ludlow) |