Louise Jameson returns to the role of Leela, the fourth Doctor’s second female companion. They visit Lord Douglas, who turns out to have travelled with a previous incarnation of the Doctor for several years and now has a secret trophy room full of mementos. His reasons for leaving the Tardis play an important role in the story. After initial frostiness, Leela warms up to Lord Douglas’s daughter, Jessica, who likes Rudyard Kipling and speaks with admiring horror of the suffragettes, and they discover that there is yet another secret within the trophy room, a secret with golden hair and wide, glistening eyes… The Doctor has taught Leela not to judge by appearances, but it’s a lesson Jessica may not get the chance to learn. This is the fourth story of the second series of the Companion Chronicles, and after listening to several of these in a row it’s hard not to feel the contrivance behind the various interviews and interrogations each companion must undergo. We’re grown-ups, could we not just agree to accept that Leela is telling us a story without a framing device? It’s also odd to hear a companion doing impressions. Sometimes it works well, but, as Louise Jameson acknowledges in an interview postscript to the story, her approximation of Tom Baker doesn’t quite work, sounding a bit like William Hague with a sore throat. Her Leela, though, is still fantastic, and the story gives her some full-blooded villains to chew on.
Stephen Theaker ***
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