Enlightenment
The Heart's Desire
A Benny Audio Adventure
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Enlightenment |
Big Finish The Heart's Desire A Benny Audio Adventure |
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| Authors | David Bailey and Neil Corry |  |
| Released | 2005 | |
| Cover | Adrian Salmon |
| Synopsis: Christmas is a time for family, for feeling a bit sick after you've stuffed your face full of food and for forcing a smile at the musical socks that Braxiatel thought would amuse you. It's not a time for zipping halfway across the galaxy with the wafer-thin hope that you can save your home from being destroyed by a previously uncharted pulsar that's heading your way. |
Make a wish... by Joe Ford 14/11/05
It is a testament to the Bernice series that I was extremely upset at how bad The Heart's Desire was. Unless I order it online and wait a ridiculous amount of time for Big Finish to post the damn things I have to take a trip to one of the least salubrious locations in UK (that's St Leonard's Warrior Square on the south coast for anyone who cares) to pick the Bernice CDs up. It's quite trek and I usually sit on the train on the way back and listen and marvel at how good (once again) the range is. Listening to this, it was the only time the journey has been waste of my time.
The cover illustration is great and has no obvious Doctor Who connections and whets the appetite perfectly (that Adrian Salmon is a God). But that is about as far as quality goes for this release, an overwritten, overdirected and overacted adventure. It starts off on the wrong foot and gradually gets worse and worse...
I can see the appeal, Bernice getting caught up in the machinations of the Eternals and their search for the Enlightenment. But it is handled in such a cack-handed manner, especially the first half which tricks you into thinking this is going to be some kind of gangster tale. No, that's not right, it starts you off thinking it will be a disaster tale, then a gangster tale, then a raging zombie tale, then a raging animal tale... it stumbles from one crazy idea to the next, awkwardly switching styles without (at that point) a reason. Worse the clichés are cringe-worthy, either the Eternals are totally without imagination or they are big on parody... cheap sounding gangsters, dizzy blondes, moody detectives... it's all pretty dreary. Worse still, the music fails to match any of genres used, it's the regular bouncy score David Darlington utilises a lot in these Bernice adventures. A decent sax score could have enhanced the gangster plot and something sinister for the scenes with the thoughtless, aggressive crowds might have mad things a bit more exciting.
Halfway through the tale you get the revelation that the entire situation has been contrived by the Eternals, which explains just why the whole story to that point has felt so artificial. Which leads to what I feel the entire story should have been about, an accidental slip of tongue leading to an It's a Wonderful Life curse where Benny wishes for a normal life. It could have been great, had the writers (and director) had a bit more restraint (and imagination) we could have been treated to a horrific look at Bernice who never met the Doctor, never experienced love with Jason, never had Peter... who lived a boring, unfulfilling life. But no, instead we get scenes of Benny baking buns and enjoying girly company. How boring. How totally boring! Such a fantastic idea, to see just how wonderful Bernice's life was, thrown in the rubbish bin. Instead she gets involved in the power games between the deadly dull Eternals, playing sneaky games on them with their own prizes. Admittedly the way she trumps the Eternals is rather clever but the pretentious dialogue and underwhelming performances leave even these possibly enthralling moments in the gutter.
Have you ever given cotton wool a miss and stuck barbed wire in your ears to clean them out instead? No? Well then you obviously haven't listened to Lucy Beresford's unique interpretation of Topsy Turve as that is the nearest comparison I can make. Her relentless squeaky voice is aural torture and every time she screams I winced, as a dog would to a whistle. Worse still her character is hopelessly cliched and irritating and I fail to see the purpose of her inclusion. Every line of dialogue she has is hideous, I'm certain it is supposed to be hilarious but delivered with such high-pitched monotony she is only matched by Katriona from The Rapture as Most Annoying Character To Appear In An AudioTM.
This is the least effective Gary Russell-directed story is a long while. Usually his efforts match the quality of the scripts (look at his superb treatment of the Gallifrey series) or he achieves a certain level of technical competence (Three's a Crowd for example, while uninspired, the direction is adequate). However, the direction here is just plain wrong. The first half is a noisy nightmare with lots of loud sound effects competing each other for dramatic importance and a pace so rapid I was left behind wondering what the hell was going on. Beresford's sickly Turve should have been toned down (she is somewhere up in the stratosphere when she should be down in the muck instead) but instead he seems to encourage her sugary pestilence. The second half could have been a dramatic turn of events but treating Bernice's wish as nothing more than a bland soap renders any drama or reflection on events null and void. And finally the showdown between Benny and the Eternals feels like a silly playground squabble when it could have (and should have) felt like a epic confrontation between superpowers and a mortal... it would certainly make her triumph a bit more spectacular.
A shame to open the sixth series on such a disappointing note. The only Bernice audio that has dared to make Lisa Bowerman's performance close to mundane. Unthinkable!