In the few years I’ve been collecting Big Finish and scouring through the back catalogue, Memory Lane is a title I’ve been aware of but not reached, until now. Written by Eddie Robson and released in October 2006 it is an Eighth Doctor story with Charley and C’rizz as companions. Having been seduced by the trailer long ago would I like the story? Find out…

The story

You can get a sense of the plot from the product page:

No summer can ever quite be as glorious as the ones you remember from when you were young, when a sunny afternoon seemed to last forever and all there was to do was ride your bike, eat ice-lollies and play with Lego. Tom Braudy is enjoying just such an afternoon when the TARDIS lands in his Nan’s living room and interrupts her in the middle of the snooker.

After they’ve apologised, the Doctor and his friends soon discover matters of far greater concern than the fact that their time machine is blocking Mrs Braudy’s view of a thrilling century break. The street which Tom happily cycles up and down appears to have no beginning or end, and every single house on it is identical.

Is this the future of suburbia, or something even more sinister? Why doesn’t Tom look as young as he behaves? And can anybody remember which house the TARDIS is in?

To sum this story up as Groundhog Day meets The Truman Show does it a disservice and is also lazy reviewing; there is some truth to it though. Tom Braudy is a man in his thirties who thinks he is ten and perpetually living a summer with his nan. Only a mysterious ice cream van signifies anything unique about the world where every house is the same and each contains a Mrs Braudy. This is until C’rizz finds a stranded woman - spacewoman Kim Kronotska. Meanwhile the world is revealed as an illusion and apparently a prison. The truth is more obscure and equally threatening - Tom is held in a perpetually repeating tribute to his arrival on an alien world.

The story is more than this and ends well after some torture and a chance for Charley to spend time with a fantasy version of her mother (Lady Louise Pollard played by Anneke Wills).

The story telling

This story manages the wonderful trick of taking the mundane and making it mysterious. The ice cream van is a master piece and I really like the fact that the scope of the story isn’t saving civilisations just sorting out the lives of a couple of human beings.

Although the fact that the story is clearly built on illusion I did feel that it revealed most of its hand too early. That aside the aliens were alien rather than threatening and underneath is a love story and a very human tale. C’rizz also gets to be alien himself and has great chemistry with Kim (Sara Carver).

A good story recommended to anyone.

Tony Jones on Google+