There’s something in the 16th century air…

Put Michelle Gomez, Rufus Hound and Gemma Whelan together and you’ve got a recipe for one of the funniest Big Finish productions of recent time, courtesy of James Kettle. His script is a fine tribute to commedia del’arte, with the title giving away one of the key influences – although Kettle has strained the commedia through a Doctor Who prism, giving us unlikely soliloquies (I’m hard pressed to decide which of them works the best!) and a perfect storm of misunderstandings, misgenderings and Missy at her best.

Ken Bentley directs with the deftness of touch that the script demands, and Joe Kraemer’s score and sound design maintain the slightly unworldly feel of the whole thing, with James Smillie’s Alfredo amalgamating his family history with a certain transatlantic air. (For those with the same sort of obscure knowledge of TV history, he reminds me of Maurice Denham in Return of the Saint’s The Village That Sold Its Soul.)

Hound and Whelan work brilliantly together and I’m really hoping that Graeme Garden can somehow be thrown into the mix at some point down the line. That’s not to detract from Gomez’s Missy (who even has a line about supporting characters getting too much attention), who’s very much at home with scheming and plotting of the most dastardly nature. It all makes for a fine conclusion to this set.

Verdict: Laugh-aloud comedy that proves farce can work on audio, and sends this box set off on a high. 9/10

Paul Simpson

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