BF: Excelis Decays

[Anthony Williams]

Excelis Decays
Starring Sylvester McCoy, Anthony Stewart Head and Yee Jee Tso

I've always been amazed at how badly this story has been looked down on by fandom. Ever since I first heard the Excelis stories eight years ago, this was the only one that I really listened to again before this year. Several times, in fact. So, perhaps I'm somewhat biased when it comes to this play. But I love it. I did at the time, and I still really feel that this was the strongest of the three Doctor Who Excelis plays.

Perhaps it's because I'm a huge fan of the Seventh Doctor, but I adore Sylvester McCoy's performance in this. I know that he can be a bit hit-and-miss at times, but I feel that he's absolutely dead on here - his tendancy to go over-the-top is well under control here. Likewise, I feel that in this play, Anthony Stewart Head finally finds his feet as Grayvorn/Maupassant/Lord Sutton, infusing the character with a wonderful combination of menace and psychosis.

The other thing that I love about this story is how Craig Hinton re-created the City of Excelis, just as David A. McIntee did before him. While the previous play saw Excelis as being in the midst of an Enlightenment-era-esque phase, here we hear Hinton's vision of that society being subverted into a totalitarian war-machine, filled with grimey factories and a drugged underclass, where philosophers were hanged and churches burnt. Hinton turned Excelis into the worst nightmare of the 20th Century. The parallels of this society to than in Orwell's 1984 are extreme.

Beyond this, we are witness to the final showdown between the Doctor and Grayvorn, with plenty of revelations along the way. I absolutely love what's revealed here - that everyone on Arturis' soul is contained in the Relic. And because the Doctor has touched the relic, part of his soul is there too. And Grayvorn, having learnt how to manipulate the relic, has learnt more about the Doctor. Likewise, the idea of using part of someone's soul to animate gollums known as "meat puppets" is a wonderfully abhorrent idea that shocks to the core.

And then there's that ending. It's rare in Doctor Who that the Doctor doesn't win. Certainly, he defeats Grayvorn/Sutton and escapes with his life, but at what cost? The whole of Arturis has been nuked by a psychotic Grayvorn who refuses to allow anything to happen outside of his control.

A less important thing that love is that this play is so clearly set towards the end of the Seventh Doctor's life. Here, we hear the Doctor just after he's upgraded the TARDIS to the interior best known as that from the TV, with its weird pulsating sounds. Lovely. We also get one of the earliest examples of the Doctor talking to his TARDIS as if it's a sentient being - before the New Series did any of that.

There's only one thing I thoroughly dislike about this play. Back in 2002, when news got round that Yee Jee Tso had been cast in it, I remember a huge excitement about it. However, his performance is nothing short of utterly wooden. It's clear that he's just not an audio actor. Which is a shame, really - particularly since he returns this year in the Companion Chronicle Tales from the Vault.

Frankly, I love this play. I don't really care what anyone else says about it - I love it! I give it a solid 8/10!

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

It's a shame about Yee Jee in this play as he did a fairly creditable job in the webcast Sixth and Evelyn outing Real Time. Also from the clips I've heard of Tales from the Vault he seems to respond quite well to being paired up with Daphne Ashbrook again (such a shame Big Finish aren't allowed to use Grace and Chang Lee!).
Leaving that aside I think this is still one of the best performances Sylv has recorded for Big Finish and it probably is the most consistent of the performances from Anthony Head. I can remember being in the Tavern quite a few years ago now hearing the play's much missed author, the late Craig Hinton saying that he'd written it in three days flat. I really must get around to reading his novels as I've collected almost all of them.