The Diary of River Song – Series 11: Friend of the Family – Review

The Diary of River Song has been a bit of a Marmite series for me. Some have been brilliant, the recent set which saw River teaming up with the Seventies UNIT team was excellent but then the next series with the Autons wasn’t my cup of tea. When the slightly uninspiring cover was released I feared that this would be another slightly disappointing release. But I’m happy to say I was very pleasantly surprised.

Right off the bat you know you’re in for a different listen. From the beginning of the range, it’s told a series of four-individual episodes with loosely linked themes that build up to a final episode. However with Friend of the Family, author Tim Foley has decided to spend its four-hour runtime telling one long story as opposed to Big Finish’s more traditional storytelling format and it works wonders.

With the long runtime to tell his one story, Foley crafts a very timey-wimey, plot but never lets it slip into gimmick territory as the time-travel elements play a large part of the plot. This is a story where every strange event and comment pays off, coming together in the final episode in a more than satisfying way. In fact, the story is so intricately plotted that I wouldn’t recommend doing anything else while listening to this for fear of missing some of the important plot points! And like all of Foley’s best scripts this is very character driven, asking the listener questions that force you to look inside yourself.

This isn’t time travel for the sake of time travel like so much of Moffat’s era was. The time travel elements are very character-driven, at first its River’s character it builds upon, but as the episodes go on and we get introduced to the rest of our main characters it becomes clear that they are more heavily involved in what’s going on than we might have originally thought.

When River Song finds herself trapped in a house called Hideaway, she finds she can only use her vortex manipulator to travel between the following time periods, 1936, 1962, 1988 and 2014. With her diary running out of space she knows that her story will be over soon, but she must follow a number of cryptic clues littered throughout the empty spaces in her diary to solve what has happened. But standing in her way are the occupants of Hideaway, the Mortimer family, some of whom will help her and some of whom will stand in her way.

Director Ken Bentley has assembled a strong cast to play the Mortimer family, who Foley has so expertly written for. We’ve got talents like Wendy Craig, Tim Bentinck and Isla Blair bringing their characters to life with predictable brilliance. But where the story really shone from a casting standpoint was in its handling of the younger characters, Harry Mortimer and his boyfriend Vinay who find themselves at Hideaway in 2014. The pair share a fantastic chemistry brought to life by actors Jack Holden and Ronak Patani. Even the slightly less developed characters make an impression here, only underdeveloped because they don’t really contribute anything to the story, just really there to give River Song a bit of an adversary to have to get through to as the plot progresses.

River is also joined by a companion here, Hugo – a fussy holographic member of staff from Luna University. Actor Mark Elstob is excellent in the role but given how the character leaves I’m hoping it’s not the absolute end of his character as he was a delight to listen too. And then there’s the leading lady Alex Kingston. She gives a tremendous performance here, effortlessly stepping into the Doctor’s shoes and keeping everything under control, even when things feel like they are falling apart.

River Song is obviously still full of sass and is excellent at being a badass but here her charm shines through. Sometimes the River Song series can go a little bit too dark but here, Kingston and Foley keep things nice and light, it would be brilliant to see this story on television.

Where Friend of the Family really shines and will possibly continue to shine is in its depiction of queerness throughout the four episodes. Foley handles it so well, even the elements set in the past when homosexuality was illegal, his characters who were having to hide who they were and he makes sure they aren’t forgotten. It was powerful stuff, and really still resonates today, when people are still being forced to hide who they are because they are afraid that other people won’t accept them.

Of course there is a positive depiction of present-day homosexuality which forms the main bulk of the story and elements of this relationship are what most of the events of this tale are building towards. Foley also though manages to make sure that we still remember that our freedoms today are built on the struggles and efforts of those who came before us. Foley always packs his stories with incredibly relevant themes and Friend of the Family is no different and proves why he is one of the strongest writers in Big Finish’s arsenal.

Friend of the Family as a finished product is an excellent listen and is possibly the best release to come out in January of this year. It’s tightly plotted and yet it’s a light listen, something easy and not particularly disturbing which is nice as River Song is a range that has the ability to be quite dark at times. It’s just a story that is beautiful, character-driven written and directed by two of Big Finish’s best and a formidable cast. Don’t let the price put you off, definitely find a way of picking this audio up, and you won’t regret it.

You can pick up The Diary of River Song – Series 11: Friend of the Family from Big Finish on CD and/or download now.