The Secret of Cassandra
A Benny Audio Adventure
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Big Finish The Secret of Cassandra A Benny Audio Adventure |
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| Author | David Bailey |  |
| Released | 2000 | |
| Cover | Adrian Salmon |
| Synopsis: A vicious war between two nations is coming to a head and the final movements are centred on the sailing ship Cassandra. Along with a very strange cargo, Cassandra carries Captain Colley, a man with his own sad burden, and the paranoid General Brennan, a woman convinced that her actions will end the war once and for all. Their grim mission goes entirely to plan, until the Cassandra gains an extra passenger: a shipwrecked archaeology professor by the name of Bernice Summerfield. Sensing something is very wrong aboard the ship, Bernice's snooping brings her close to a terrible truth. Soon, Bernice doesn't know who to trust and she can no longer be sure if anyone is who they claim to be. . . |
"A Fork in the Road" by Stephen Maslin 29/1/14
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth. . .
- Robert Frost (1874-1963)
The Secret of Cassandra would appear to be an exercise in duality. It has TWO covers: a rather odd original and a replacement by Adrian Salmon (part of the standardization that was to last the Benny range for the best part of a decade). It has, in a way, TWO signature tunes: the original Alastair Lock ditty from Season One, which they should have used, and the dreadful pop dirge that they actually did use. (Purely for my own future use, I once prepared an edit without this foul pestilence, so I have TWO different versions in my possession.) It has a duality of tone too, not knowing whether to carry on the breezy, girl's-own-adventure style of Season One or kick off the pared-down grimness of Season TWO, as underlined by Benny's opening monologue: one minute jokey, the next bemoaning the prospect of her own death. (This odd little intro, Benny dictating some final thoughts to the world into a malfunctioning digital dataphone, is a splendid framing device.) As the second original Benny audio offering, there is a conscious attempt to differentiate it from the parent show: so that we have TWO franchises, not one.
Now I've heard very few compliments passed the way of The Secret of Cassandra but I think a lot of this has to do with some poor choices in terms of framing, rather than the content of the story itself. If one picks up something with an ill-judged cover and then the first thing you hear is an excruciating back-bedroom wailing for a theme tune, you have already marked your overall assessment down. Perhaps even stopped listening altogether. First (and second) impressions are lasting impressions.
Truth is that, as an audio tale, this ain't half bad. Benny is at her facetious best ("What is a yardarm anyway?") and the warm tones of Lennox Greaves (heard elsewhere as Shaughessy in the peerless Chimes of Midnight) are safe, comforting and easy on the ear. As an audio experience, the seaborne setting helps no end, with lapping waves, the sound designer's friend, delicately counterpointing the slowly encroaching darkness.
It's sad that this clever little story will never escape the surface limitations imposed upon it. One cannot do anything about, say, the rat in Weng-Chiang's sewer or the Taran Wood Beast (though in respect of those two stories, someone might one day try). Yet The Secret of Cassandra receiving a couple of simple edits would have, in the words of Robert Frost, "made all the difference".
4/10 with the theme tune
8/10 without it