Gallery of Ghouls

Fourth Doctor Adventures #5.5

Released: 10 May 2016

Listened: 6/28/22

This one is set in Brighton, 1833, where two competing exhibitions of waxworks are competing rather aggressively for customers. One of them is a thinly-veiled copy of Mme. Tussaud’s (although they also reference her by name), and the other is slightly more gruesome, but neither is entirely what they appear to be. Apparently the public was fascinated by the French Revolution at the time, particularly beheadings, so there are a lot of figures of Frenchmen hanging around. The guest cast is an impressive list of Big Finish talent: Celia Imrie, Nikolas Grace, Stephen Critchlow, and Helen Goldwyn…not that you can tell, because most of them are doing accents of one sort or another. The Doctor continues being somewhat antic, and Romana, unfortunately, keeps being irritated, although usually at people other than the Doctor, at least this time. I’m sure the actors all had a lovely time, but the story doesn’t really stand out.