Peepshow

The Diary of River Song #6.3

Released: 27 Augus 2019

Listened: 6/25/21

This is a story from the River Song set where she pops up in and around classic stories. In this case, the action is concurrent with “Carnival of Monsters,” with River running around the miniscope at the same time as the Doctor and Jo. River’s trying to steal a battery from inside the miniscope, but ends up having to rescue all the creatures inside the miniscope’s “recycle bin,” which includes a squad of Sontarans, a group of Ogrons, and a 21st century Earth office building containing a security guard and a sabre-tooth tiger, because Vorg never did do his homework. Lots of times in the extras, actors describe a story as a “romp,” but this one really is. It’s just fun from start to finish, and even though there’s a threat of being eaten by Drashigs (because of course there is), nothing happening is very serious. Guy Adams has given River an absurd amount of wonderful dialog, and also gifted her with an excellent companion in the security guard, who has a habit of stating things that are right in front of him, which makes him an excellent audio character. (He’s also played by Clive Wood, who played the Roman commander in “The Pandorica Opens,” so he’s worked with Alex Kingston before.) Dan Starkey plays the Sontarans, which will never be anything short of awesome. He’s deliberately playing them as classic-series Sontarans, but they’re still terribly funny. And Guy Adams himself plays the Ogrons, who are always comedy gold. This is possibly the best story of the boxed set. Plus, it features a lot of running, which was good, because I was running while listening to it.