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The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve Format Reviewed: CD Review The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve is yet another sadly missing story that is unlikely to be found. It is also one of the renowned early historical adventures, taking place as it does in 16th century Paris. The unusual step was also taken here to have William Hartnell play not only the Doctor, but also the Abbot of Amboise who is the double of the Doctor. The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve starts with the TARDIS landing in Paris, 1572, as the Doctor wishes to visit an apothicary called Charles Preslin. This he does, leaving Steven to get embroiled in local politics involving religious struggles between the protestant Huguenots and the Catholics, headed by the Abbot of Amboise who is the Doctors double. Steven largely allies with the Huguenots, but tries to reach the Abbot believing him to be the Doctor. Anne Chaplet is an escaped servant girl from the Catholic house, who has heard plots of the Catholics against the Huguenots. She and Steven prevent an assassination attempt on the Admiral de Coligny, a leading pretestant, before the Abbot of Amboise is murdered. Believing the Doctor dead, Steven is surprised to meet up again and the Doctor, realising what the date is, whisks Steven off before a riot happens where large proportions of the Parisien population ar ekilled. Landing on Earth, Dodo Chaplet enters tha TARDIS and is whisked away with the Doctor and Steven for more adventures. Well, as always with the missing adventures, it is only really fair and right to consider The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve as an audio only story. In this, the reaction I will give is pretty mixed. The first and last episode do not work on audio, but the middle two kind of do. If the story existed on videotape, it may even mean that the audio is better as representing 16th century France on a shoestring budget with 1960's effects would have been a difficult one to pull off. Therefore the middle two episodes work very well, largely focussing on Steven and Anne Chaplet. The first and last however seem to be largely visual in their representation, certainly concerning the ensuing riots at the end of the story. These do let down the tale as it is very difficult to engage with such scenes through the medium of sound only. For the cast, versatility is shown by William Hartnell as he plays both the Doctor and the Abbot of Amboise. To be honest though, his involvement is fairly limited and he keeps fluffing lines here such as in his monologue at the end. Companion Steven Taylor as played by Peter Purves basically carries this story. Essentially, the action follows him around Paris, and centers on his interaction with the Huguenots, Catholics and Anne Chaplet. To be fair to Purves, he does very well and his narration of the story is pitched well in the context of the CD release. Of the guest cast, none really stood out as being really good or bad. All gave decent honest performances, possibly with Annette Robertson and David Weston as Nicholas coming out with the greatest credit. Where this story falls down for me is that it is a Doctor Who story largely without the Doctor. It is more a Steven Taylor story. Allied to this, a lot of the running about in Paris appears to be padding and the story could have been significantly shorter. With Hartnell effectively having a cameo role here, we are largely left wondering what happenend to him to keep him off-screen. The last problems I have with this story are at the end. I don't like the way the story ended, in that the Doctor just left as if in fear of his own life. I also don't like the Chaplet link with Dodo and Anne, as to allay Stevens fears about having sent Anne to her death in this way seems remakably crass and simplistic. Overall, The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve possibly benefits from and is hindered by the fact that the videotape no longer exists for the story. The location being Paris probably helps the story without having pictures, but there are large sections that are action based and don't translate very well to audio only. The main thing though is that the Doctor plays largely a cameo role, and doesn't really appear leaving the focus on Steven throughout. He does well, but this is supposed to be Doctor Who not Steven Taylors adventures. Rating:  |