With the fiftieth anniversary upon us and with many fans calling for a return of Doctors past, it’s fitting that I find myself listening to an audio made in the show’s fortieth anniversary. Writers Cavan Scott and Mark Wright come up with an interesting new way of bringing Doctor’s together while still giving us an entertaining sequel to their previous play Project: Twilight with a return for The Forge and its nefarious leader Nimrod.
The play is cleverly split over two discs with the first featuring The Sixth Doctor and Evelyn (Colin Baker and Maggie Stables) while the second follows the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) travelling alone towards the end of his days. The audios are starting to work out what they can do that the TV show can’t, in this case giving us one story that occurs over two of the show’s eras (The Excelis series attempted this but were more loose sequels than direct continuation). It’s a novel conceit and one that could well happen more often. The first half has the Doctor and Evelyn coming back to Norway to rescue Cassie (Rosie Cavaliero), the unfortunate barmaid from the nightclub that got turned into a vampire at the end of Project: Twilight. They arrive later than expected, with Cassie two years alone in the wilderness and bitter and resentful. Worse, the travellers realise too late that Cassie has been turned by Nimrod and now works for The Forge in its task of capturing and exploiting aliens and alien technology. The Doctor is subjected to torture in an attempt to force him to regenerate, Nimrod wanting to be able to replicate the process to create super soldiers. Evelyn manages to appeal to Cassie’s better nature and the young vampire comes to the Doctor’s aid, at the expense of her own life.
It’s an amazingly downbeat ending, not just because she dies, but because the play shows us Evelyn’s inconsolable grief and the Doctor’s inability to comfort her. Stables is superb here and the partnership between her and Baker is one of the strongest the series has had in any media. Stephen Chance makes a good fist at Nimrod but unfortunately sounds more like a librarian than a super villain â€" a shame Stephen Thorne couldn’t have been enticed instead. The Forge may be a complete rip off of The Initiative from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and bears a striking resemblance to a dark Torchwood) but is still an interesting addition to the show’s mythology.
The second disc joins the Seventh Doctor who arrives at The Forge to investigate fluctuations in the Time Vortex originating from the complex. It turns out the Forge scientists have been experimenting with alien tech from aliens featured in the first half of the story. The Doctor is shocked to find that his Sixth self seems to be acting as their scientific adviser. It’s not that hard to work out that this Doctor is a clone but it still allows some great interplay between the two Doctors and their meeting is very entertaining and not just a rehash of Doctor Pat meeting Doctor Jon. Both Doctors principal traits are brought to the fore, in the case of the Sixth, his compassion and sense of justice (often lacking from his TV version)and for the Seventh his ingenuity, effectively bringing this version of the Forge crashing around Nimrod’s ears (although, mindful of the need for future employment, the writers give him a get out clause). Like Project: Twilight, Lazarus is a more gruesome slice of Who, as influenced by horror movies and American shows such as Buffy and Supernatural as it is from the parent show but that’s no bad thing. A very enjoyable release.
GK Rating: ****
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