Big Finish Productions Breaking Bubbles and Other Stories

Written by	LM Myles, Mark Ravenhill, Una McComack, Nev Fountain
Format	Compact Disc
Released	2014

Starring Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant

Synopsis: An anthology of four tales on the theme of perception.

• A Review by Thomas Tiley

A Review by Thomas Tiley 9/2/26

Another review, another anthology themed around perception featuring the sixth Doctor and Peri.

Breaking Bubbles by LM Myles gets the anthology off to a good start. Inspired by Napoleon's escape from his exile, this story sees a deposed empress Safira Valtris, played excellently by Jemma Churchill, attempt to escape from her prison ship, taking Peri as hostage along with her. It's a neat story, your sympathy for Safrira at her plight changing from moment to moment as more of her backstory is revealed and events unfold. Her own actions show her in a darker light, and the story finishes with the listener unsure if she is an innocent who has been wronged as she claims or as bad as she is made out to be by her detractors. The trick with the holograms and her escape is one that has been pulled again and again in science fiction but it is used effectively here. Their is a nice bit where a guard, Allison McKenzie, tries to kill her to avenge her fallen family but can't. A great story that doesn't outstay its welcome.

Of Chaos Time The is, as the title suggests, a confusing story of time muddled up by an experimental weapon. The Doctor ends up shifting backwards and forwards in time so the story plays out out of order and out of sequence, investigating a man who ages from a baby to an adult before looping back again. It's a nice idea, slightly confusing (but a re-listen and paying attention helps) but suited to the short story format (a four parter like this would do your head in). Everyone's acting and performance is all right, especially Mr Baker, but, despite everything, it just isn't that memorable (when writing this review a few weeks after listening to this CD, I could recall the first and last story straight away, the third took me a minute or two, but this was the only story I had to look up again to remind myself what it was about). When it comes to time-twisting stories such as this, just stick to Moffat's output. In the interviews at the end, Colin Baker remarks that he wrote a story with a similar title, Age of Chaos. I suggest you look that up instead of this.

An Eye for Murder by Una McCormack is, as she says, a pastiche of writings of Dorothy L Sayers and 1930s-style murder mystery, this one is set in a woman's college at the eve of the outset of the Second World War. It is an all right story.

The principal Pretherbridge, played by Janet Henfry, who was Miss Hardaker from The Curse of Fenric. She plays the principal beautifully, mistaking Peri for an old alumni and famous author, while the Doctor is mistaken for her secretary and is not allowed around the women, so there are a few moments of humor. The actual story about Nazi spies after an invisibility formula is well formulaic stuff. Basically fluff, but perfectly entertaining for a while.

The last story by Nev Fountain, The Curious Incident of the Doctor in the Night-Time is, as the title suggests (not to mention they got an actor from the play to play the lead), based on the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, the story about an autistic lad investigating the death of a dog. Like the lead of this story, Michael (played well by Johnny Gibbon) is on the autistic spectrum and is investigating the mystery of the garden gnomes. I must admit I don't particularly care for the source material/novel that this story draws from. That being said, this story (and the LM Myles one) are the highlights of the anthology. It's a very Doctor-lite story, with the Doctor and Peri only occasionally popping in, but whenever he does the story gets funny, whether it's them pretending to be social services or getting locked in the shed. The scene where Peri's frustration at the Doctor erupts is well worth a listen. Parallels between Michael and the Doctor are drawn regarding their social behavior. It's a good story with a neat circular resolution (Michael setting off the sprinklers on purpose instead of by accident like at the start and shorting out the gnomes) and some bizarre aliens (robot alien killer gnomes that brainwash people into buying them; after all, as pointed out in the story, who in their right mind would collect them otherwise?). Paul Panting and Anjella Mackintosh play Michael's parents, and their frustration/patience/love of their child comes across very well. The difficulty in raising a child with an autism disorder isn't brushed under the carpet, nor is it used to give Michael some super savant ability to save the day (unless you count his maths/counting skills which let him notice the extra gnome), and he and the Doctor get some good scenes together.

All in all a good release, two excellent stories and two all right/okay stories. 7/10