Big Finish Productions The Middle

Written by	Chris Chapman
Format	Compact Disc
Released	2017

Starring Colin Baker

Synopsis: It's Mrs Constance Clarke's birthday - and Flip is determined to make it an anniversary to remember. The futuristic colony of Formicia, where the pampered populace pass their days in endless leisure, seems the perfect place for a 'Wren Party'. But all is not as it seems. Looking down from the Middle, the skyscraping tower that ascends as far as the colony ceiling, Formicia's overseers can see that the Doctor doesn't fit in - and it's not just his coat that makes him conspicuous...

• A Review by Thomas Tiley

A Review by Thomas Tiley 1/9/26

It is Constance Clarke's birthday, so fellow companion Flip insists she celebrate it, so the Sixth Doctor and the TARDIS crew end up on an underground colony world, Formicia, where the young party all the time and do no work, the middle-aged do all the office work/paperwork to make the society run and the elderly are all packed off to the mysterious End, which is apparently also the Beginning.... and a man called The Middle Man runs things (as the Doctor puts it, it doesn't usually work that way around).

This is a good story, taking what appear to be a Solyent Green/Logan's Run story about population control and euthanasia but giving it a neat twist (spoiler: they are sent to form an army encased in stylish battle exosuit like the Doctor sports on the cover). There is some fun to be had, with the machine used to tell peoples age having trouble with him, various characters at the beginning finding going out and about with someone the Doctor's age outrageous and that he should be ashamed of himself, leading to him seeming like he is getting euthanized. Likewise with the various joking-around scenes later on with the old soldiers Janaiya and Roman, and then Constance has to spend her birthday working in an office. As you can tell in a story about age, there are a lot of age-related jokes; some land, some don't.

It is a fun story, although the main characters are a little slow on the uptake, taking ages to notice that they aren't many old folk around. Its also slightly sterotypical in some parts (faked alien armies, the Middle Man is just some henchman for the true baddies, humans used as experiments, etc). Of course they also run into the local resistance (whose father happens to have a position in the Middle that proves helpful), and naturally with a three-person TARDIS team they all get split up and helpfully get the bits and pieces of the plot they need to conclude the story. There are some nice touches like Constance using the one message per birthday rule to get a message out to her friends and the baddy's own army getting used against them in the end.

Mark heap plays the Middle Man as a nasty office sort, officious and a stickler for the rules. A villain you love to hate. Shelia Reid --- of Vengeance on Varos and Clara's grandmother in new Who fame --- plays Janaiay well, a tough old woman the Doctor befriends at the End. Her playful banter is well done, and later she carries the play's more emotional moments (her husband's death, her fear at being used against her family and later her anger at the people who have used her).

Colin Baker is excellent (he always is), and Lisa Greenwood as Flip does well, although she does grate in some scenes (the one where she has to overcome her exosuit's controls takes an age and is the primary offender) and while Miranda Raison plays Constance well enough, I found her to be a bit bland and boring (even if she is instrumental in the plot). A good release, I would rate it at about a 7/10.