My Own Private Wolfgang

"I can't even kill myself properly."

Writer: Robert Shearman
Format: Audio
Released: September 2007
Series: Main Range 100b

Featuring: Sixth Doctor, Evelyn

Synopsis

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Born in 1756, a veritable wunderkind - playing music for the crowned heads of Europe as an infant, composing by the time he was five years old. But it's tempting to wonder whether his amazing longevity has overshadowed his creative genius - would Mozart's music be better respected, maybe, if he'd died as a young man? Would he be a legend of music, rather than of scientific curiosity, if he'd never lived to compose the film score for the remake of The Italian Job?

Verdict

My Own Private Wolfgang was a decent but flawed story to continue the one-hundredth release from Big Finish's Main Range. I can now clearly see that the theme of this anthology of short stories is themed on the centenary number itself and whilst I thought that worked wonderfully well with the setting in 100 BC, I didn't think it was much good here. I like the idea of doing a Doctor Who story with Mozart but one thing I was very confused by was that the Doctor inexplicably altered the course of history. If one was listening to the release without breaks, it would only have been half an hour earlier that he was preventing Evelyn from doing the very same thing! The character of Mozart is an intriguing one with all he did for music and it's only right that the Doctor would meet him at one point but the conversations about him still being around in Evelyn's time and now celebrating his 100th birthday seemed a little far-fetched and just, well, wrong. I was fascinated by the idea of Mozart trying to kill himself during a performance and I thought the butler's attempt at covering it up was some great comic value. I was even more intrigued by the notion that Mozart had made a bargain with a masked guest that he could live forever as long as he kept composing music annually. Sadly, after that the story went a bit silly for my liking and we learned that the masked figure was actually a clone of Mozart from the far future. It was certainly bonkers and I usually am a fan of a mad script but this bordered too much on silliness for me to thoroughly enjoy it. Now, I'm sounding negative but it really wasn't all bad - it became a little repetitive once more and more past/future versions of Mozart arrived to when he made the bargain to live forever. Evelyn didn't have much to do in this story other than wash dishes which was a shame but I liked how interested she was in meeting another historical figure. The Doctor aiming to prevent Mozart slavery in the future by cutting his Requiem short a dozen pages was intriguing but the abrupt end gag was awful. I really didn't like it and I actually lowered a mark of my rating immediately. Overall, some interesting ideas and a good start, but it faltered as it went on/

Rating: 6/10