Audio Drama Review — ‘Rani Takes On The World: The Revenge Of Wormwood’
by Rachel Bellwoar
Rani Takes on the World: “The Revenge of Wormwood”
Directed by Helen Goldwyn
Starring Anjli Mohindra (Rani Chandra), Daniel Anthony (Clyde Langer), Tommy Knight (Luke Smith) and Samantha Bond (Mrs. Wormwood)
What do Napoleon, the Bane, and time travel have in common? They all come up over the course of this box set from Big Finish.
“Time Schisms!“
For all that Rani keeps telling herself that fan-of-the-pod, Anna (Norah Lopez Holden), is wrong about her postman being a time traveler, there must be a reason that verdict isn’t sitting well with her. Therefore — despite protesting all the while that she isn’t convinced — Rani decides to meet Anna in-person and winds up running into Luke in the process.
Given that none of the characters on The Sarah Jane Adventures possess a TARDIS, the series always had to be more clever when it comes to telling time travel stories and re-configuring popular Doctor Who formats to fit the program. With “Time Schism!”, writer Lizbeth Myles has come up with a way to tell a historical episode where the historical figures have been brought to the present instead of Rani having to go to their time periods. Instead of avoiding paradoxes, Myles seems to deliberately walk into them which makes it even more interesting to find out if, and how, she’ll be able to write herself out again. The other interesting aspect of this episode is Rani’s relationship with Luke. As a result of Luke working for UNIT now, their dynamic feels very reminiscent of the Third Doctor and the Brigadier’s. Maybe Luke isn’t as military as Lethbridge-Stewart, but he does follow orders — putting him at odds with Rani throughout the box set.
One piece of advice for Sarah Jane fans who haven’t watched the show in a while – given the title of this box set I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that the Bane are involved, but I forgot Luke’s origin story was connected to the Bane, and it probably wouldn’t be ill-advised to rewatch the pilot, “Invasion of the Bane,” before this.
“The Star-Crossed Diversion“
Phone games are addictive, but they’re not usually as all-consuming as the one that seems to have enraptured most of Earth in this story by writer Alison Winter. On the good news side, Earth is three years away from this game taking over. On the bad news side, Rani and Clyde aren’t currently in the present day – they’ve been transported to the future, which means instead of getting to enact preventive measures they have to stop the game while it’s at the height of its popularity.
The full explanation for how, and why, Rani and Clyde have ended up in the future doesn’t really come out into the third and final story in this box set, but while the main alien antagonist in this story is very deliberate about only seeing things in black-and-white so he can take the moral high ground, his assessment of humans (while harsh) isn’t entirely off-base. Maddison Bulleyment does a good job as a character caught in the middle.
“The Ghost of Bannerman Road“
When you want someone to work for you, barring them from entering their own house is probably not the best tactic to take but — as teased at the end of “The Star-Crossed Diversion” — UNIT have seized 13 Bannerman Road (Sarah Jane’s old place), but are still counting on Rani and Clyde to help them look into why the employees from various scientific centers have taken to stealing alien artifacts from their own jobs. Since those same employees keep disappearing afterwards, the only people they can ask are their families, making this the perfect case to have a reporter assist. Written by Jonathan Morris, the reason this story is called “The Ghost of Bannerman Road” has to do with the way the thieves keep appearing on the CCTV footage. It’s the kind of visual effect that would’ve been cool to see implemented on the TV show, were it still airing. As for the Clani content Big Finish teased, this is the story where that plays out, but with no future Rani Takes On The World box sets announced yet (if there were, I might feel differently) this isn’t a satisfying conclusion (far too noncommittal).
The Revenge of Wormwood is available to purchase from Big Finish.
