The Ingenious Gentleman Adric of Alzarius

"Of course dragons are real!"

Writer: Julian Richards

Format: Audio

Released: November 2017

Series: Short Trips 7.11

Featuring: Fifth Doctor, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan

Synopsis

Sir Keeyoht of la Koura, and his loyal squire Adric, are on a quest. A great and noble quest to stop the most vile of Enchanters, the Doctor, from claiming the greatest treasure in the land. Along with way they intend to battle giants (or possibly windmills), inspire adventurers, rescue and princess and ultimately come face to face with that most terrifying of all monsters, the Dragon.

Except Adric knows there are no such things as Dragons...

Verdict

The Ingenious Gentleman Adric of Alzarius was an absolutely brilliant Short Trips audio adventure! I must admit that I didn't know what quite to expect before listening to this story on the train home after a belting afternoon at the football, and the synopsis really intrigued me, but what we got was so much better than I could have imagined! Now, I'm far from being the biggest Adric fan but I thought the use of his character here was perfect and the narration from Matthew Waterhouse was absolutely superb. It was exactly the right actor for this kind of story and even though it might sound obvious given the focal character of the story, I don't think this would have worked if we had Janet Fielding, Sarah Sutton or even Peter Davison in that narrator role. Waterhouse owned the stage in a big way and he really helped with my enjoyment of the story. We started strong with the Doctor seemingly setting fire to a village which didn't go down too well with Adric and I loved his mentions of the old Doctor, meaning the Fourth Doctor, and how he wouldn't have done such a thing without telling Adric why. But since regenerating, the new Doctor was rash and callous and Adric certainly had his favourites which was fun. Things then certainly took a mystical shift as we heard the roars of a beast which led Adric to get hit in the head with a rock, and from there things got whacky! Adric was suddenly the squire of Sir Keeyohyt and he had no memory of being granted such a position, except it did seem familiar which I thought was amusing. The quest that ensued was just tremendous and the positioning of the TARDIS crew into the events with Nyssa claimed to be the evil sorceress whilst the Doctor was the evil Enchanter who had stolen her from her father, a man that was supposedly a match for the Doctor. That was nice and a nice way to give credit to Tremas. The Doctor and Nyssa supposedly having kidnapped the fair princes Tegan was wonderful and the idea of her being trapped in the blue tower that was the TARDIS was just marvellous. It was such a fun way to bring these characters into a totally different world. The fun romp background music really added a lot to the feel and atmosphere for the story which just became a perfect compliment for the narration. It was just fun. Adric fighting for the honour of Romana was also magnificent and a nice view into his inner thinking and feelings of life before regeneration. Adric running into the real Doctor and us getting the explanation that events were all down to the Sachopan machine was good and despite the terrible Tegan impression, the adventure ended on an impressive not. It was a machine that actualised people's projections into space and literally made anything you wanted real. I'd love one of those myself! But these machines were too good and went as far as recognising subconscious desires which happened here with Adric. The machine had its memory banks erased and wasnt sure what to do so Keeyoht actually became an amalgamation of Adric wanting the Fourth Doctor back and the local villages wanting protection. I thought that was really nice. Overall, a superb audio! 

Rating: 10/10