Doctor Who review: The Twelfth Doctor Chronicles: The Charge of the Night Brigade
By James Aggas
The first story of this month’s Doctor Who box set The Twelfth Doctor Chronicles, The Charge of the Night Brigade is a surprisingly light tale set in the Crimean War.
The Charge of the Night Brigade opens up the latest volume of Big Finish’s series of The Doctor Chronicles audios. Unlike most of their other Doctor Who ranges, The Doctor Chronicles isn’t a full-cast series. Instead, it features two voices: a narrator and a guest star.
For the narrator of The Twelfth Doctor Chronicles we have Jacob Dudman, who also narrated for the Tenth and Eleventh Doctor’s own volumes in the series. A fantastic impressionist himself, his renditions of both David Tennant’s and Matt Smith’s Doctors are absolutely amazing to hear.
His rendition of Peter Capaldi’s Doctor? It has to be said that it isn’t quite as convincing. But then, it was never going to be. Jacob Dudman is a very young man with a young man’s voice, and that suits Tennant’s and Smith’s Doctors extremely well. Capaldi, on the other hand, is not only older, but has more of a rougher quality to his voice. Dudman was never going to capture that, not entirely.
Having said that, Dudman does an excellent job of getting his voice as close to Capaldi’s as possible. While he may not capture the rugged quality of Capaldi’s voice, he gets his mannerisms and speech patterns down to a tee. So it doesn’t take too long to imagine Capaldi reading the same lines. It doesn’t capture the same effect as hearing Capaldi himself play Twelve once more, but it’s still pretty impressive.
Mandi Symonds and Jacob Dudman feature in this opening story.
Image Courtesy Big Finish Productions
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Night brigade, light story
As for the opening story itself, The Charge of the Night Brigade feels extremely light. Despite the Crimean War setting, it hardly feels used at all. This isn’t a story about the horrors or the futility of war.
Instead, the setting is used to mainly introduce us to Mary Seacole, a key figure from the Crimean War who helps the Doctor during this adventure. I must admit, it’s always enjoyable to learn about the less famous figures from history, and I knew little of Seacole before listening to this story. Mandi Symonds also does a great job voicing the role, too.
However, while the main alien threat has elements of horror, particularly in terms of possession, I can’t help but think this story could have been more interesting as a pure historical. Something that focused more on both the war and Seacole herself could’ve stood up well as a story in its own right. As it is, while The Charge of the Night Brigade is a passable listen, especially with Dudman doing a fantastic job both narrating and voicing a lot of characters, it’s not exactly a great one.
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What’s your favorite Doctor Who story that features a historical war? Is there a war that you think could be explored in a future Doctor Who story? Let us know in the comments below.