Friend of the Family (audio story)

Friend of the Family was a full cast audio story released on 12 January 2023 by Big Finish Productions. It comprised the eleventh series of The Diary of River Song. It was written by Tim Foley and featured Alex Kingston as River Song.

Spread over four parts, it saw River investigating a multi-decade mystery surrounding the Mortimer family.

Publisher's summary
River Song decides to investigate a temporal anomaly after a Luna University expedition makes some odd discoveries in an old Earth house - pages of her own diary with an inscrutable riddle written across them.

However, her investigation goes badly wrong when she is transported back into the past of the house and gets trapped within its grounds.

The house is the home of the Mortimers and with a limited ability to travel back and forth in time across eighty years and multiple generations she finds herself witnessing key moments in their family history.

If she wants to escape, the words in her diary are not the only riddle she has to solve. But not everyone in the house will survive what's coming. And not everyone is on her side.

The Rules of the House (1)
The day before the Luna University semester ends and the Doctor is due to take her to the Shores of Glib, River travels to the Mortimer house on Earth with a prototype echo gun. Although she has disabled her holographic assistant, Hugo, he has secretly added a projector to her vortex manipulator and accompanies her. She finds what she came for: a bundle of pages torn from her diary in the future which, in what appears to be her handwriting, tells her to "learn the rules of the house, find the key to the door, save the bird from the nest, draw the isle on the shore".

River uses the echo gun on her diary, scanning the timelines and inadvertently transporting herself back to 2014 where she finds that her vortex manipulator will not move her forward in time, possibly due to Hugo's interference. She meets Harry Mortimer and Vinay Siddiqui, a couple who mistake her for the cook and explain that they have come to renovate the house before selling it; looking around, she sees a photograph of herself with Harry's grandmother in the 1980s and wonders if Hugo arrived in that decade. She is able to use the vortex manipulator to move back in time, but instead arrives in December 1936, where she is mistaken by Lady Maddie Mortimer for her new lady's maid.

River next travels forwards in time to June 1988 and scares Thomas Mortimer by appearing out of thin air. The cook knows her name and takes her to Mary Mortimer, Harry's grandmother, who explains that River has a long history with the family and that she must come to understand the family legacy. In her bedroom, River is able to reactivate an earlier cache of Hugo and learns that a barrier is keeping her from travelling further back than 1936 or beyond 2014. Deciding that she has to solve the first part of the riddle and learn the rules of the house, she allows Hugo to explore in incognito mode whilst she goes to sleep.

In the morning, Hugo explains that an invisible holographic shield charged with temporal particles is around the area, preventing himself and River from leaving. She fires a temporal shot at the field with Hugo's holographic vortex manipulator and sees Maddie and her husband, Henry, for a few moments before Thomas invites her to join Maddie and Carla Alcazar, his girlfriend, for lunch. River learns that Mary's elderly mother is Maddie and speaks with her, but she becomes distressed when she mentions Henry. Afterwards, River learns from Mary that Maddie mysteriously vanished in 1936 and returned only a few months ago.

To keep track, River draws up a timeline from 1936 to 2014 on a page from her diary and notes the periods that she knows she will visit. She heads back to 1936 to play the role of Maddie's maid and Hugo is attacked by the cook, who looks exactly as she did in 1988 and is able to see him despite him being incognito. The cook tells him not to struggle.

The Key to the Door (2)
After the party, River manages to get Hugo back online, but he is suffering amnesia and triggers another hop, taking them both to September 1962 and making them realise that the years they have visited have been at twenty-six year intervals. River senses an unusual energy signature behind a locked door through which Hugo cannot pass and she assumes her sonic device will be unable to open. To get around this, she returns to 1936 with the intention to enter the room and leap forwards in time, but her vortex manipulator fails and Henry avoids telling her whose room it is when he sees her. Hugo is unable to enter the locked room despite the lack of an energy signature within.

In the morning, Maddie introduces River to her children, George and Mary, has her wrap an empty box for Henry's Christmas present and makes her read her palm; when River does so, she tells her that she will go elsewhere without her children for a long time. In 1988, River finds that the locked room is still locked and Mary tells her that it has likely been painted over or that the door is fake. River asks Maddie about it, but she starts crying and Mary sends River to wait for her in the library. Once Maddie has calmed down, Mary tells River that she will go back in time to 1962 and enter the locked room, which she will do by ingratiating herself into the family.

River travels to 14 September 1962 and uses forged references based on Mary's recollections to get hired as Thomas's governess, which Henry, recognising her from 1936, insists upon. She peeks under the door of the locked door and sees what she believes to be snow, which she leaves her sonic trowel to scan, hidden by a perception filter. She encounters the cook, who looks exactly the same; River realises that she is the Kontron crystal inside her vortex manipulator and that she has drained the device of power, which she then uses to send River and Hugo forwards in time to 2014. The sonic trowel has been removed, meaning that River cannot use it to recharge the vortex manipulator.

With an injured ankle and no way to leave, River stays the night with Harry and Vinay watching Pride and Prejudice. Afterwards, she confides in Hugo that she is nearing the end of her diary and making sure not to use up any pages unnecessarily as it might mean that her adventures with the Doctor will be over. She hears noises coming the locked room and investigates, but she is interrupted by a phone call from her future self from the 1960s, who warns her that things are going to become more complicated.

The Bird from the Nest (3)
River's future self, in 1963, tells her that her vortex manipulator will be out of action for some time but that she has to return to the day of her interview in 1962 and remain there for some months. River has Hugo insulate her with sand and use the echo gun to send her back in time, where she is given the job as Thomas's governess; Hugo remains in 2014 and speaks with Harry and Vinay, who have found River in a cross-stitch, in George's diaries and in The Midnight Waves: A Collection of Grim and Ghastly Tales, a book written by George and published posthumously in 1964. River retrieves her sonic trowel and uses it to begin the long process of recharging her vortex manipulator.

After several months, River manages to form a temporal spark in her Kontron crystal and intends on using it to power a device built from a cannibalised cassette tape she found in the old nursery, despite cassette tapes not having been invented yet, and communicate with her past self. Whilst Harry is scared of River for some reason, George and Mary are taken with her, especially after River misinterprets Mary and believes that she is flirting with her, which restores some of Mary's confidence. George draws a picture of River which Harry and Vinay will find in 2014.

Hugo, Harry and Vinay follow River's time in the 1960s by reading George's diaries, which come to an abrupt end. The cook appears and Hugo feels her boost a perception filter, having the effect of making Harry and Vinay forget about her as soon as she takes Hugo away to talk. She briefly disappears in front of him and gets him to contact River, which he hopes is the right thing to do. Vinay proposes to Harry with an attachment from the hoover instead of a ring, but they are interrupted when River arrives using her vortex manipulator and goes off to find Hugo.

River learns that the cook is Hugo, transported back to 1936 when River made her first leap. Hugo took the real cook's form and identity after she had a heart attack caused by his arrival and had to remain there after River told her that she would do so, forcing him to live as the cook so as not to disrupt history. This caused the cook to resent River, but she is happy that she was able to find a family and be respected as she was not whilst at Luna University. She has Hugo give River the echo gun and tells her to return to 1963, where she saves Thomas after he is attacked by wasps by taking him to 2014 and using Harry's EpiPen. When she returns him, Mary takes him to the hospital and River remarks that she "saved the bird from the nest".

To thank River, Henry gives her the key to the locked room, which he wore around his neck, and tells her to return to 1936 to use it and set things right. She finds an empty bedroom and is attacked by Henry, who has been suffering with PTSD since the First World War and accuses her of having a sexual relationship with Maddie. When she drops the echo gun, Henry assumes that she and Maddie were planning on killing him to run away together and picks it up, believing that River is his wife's previous lady's maid and lover, Nicole. He fires it.

The Isle on the Shore (4)
Maddie leaps in front of River and is hit by the echo gun, causing her to start rapidly ageing. When Henry returns from calling for a doctor, River refuses to allow him to see her body and orders him to get help for his PTSD and to lock the bedroom door and never enter again, wearing the key around his neck to remind him of the weight that he now has to carry. She also instructs him to give her the key when she saves Thomas's life at Easter in 1963 and to tell her to return to 1936. She then leaves the echo gun in the room to create the temporal field and visits the cook, who tried and failed to merge with Hugo some nights ago, to inform her that she can use the field to power her; the echo gun might run low, but it will reset the temporal cycle every twenty-six years.

River returns to George several days after her departure and ensures that he gives his family a proper goodbye before returning to his lover, Remy, in Switzerland, where she knows that he will die. She then says goodbye to Thomas and Mary, giving them some information on the future, and calls her past self in 2014. Jumping forward to 1988, she accidentally interrupts Thomas's proposal to Carla, who is two months pregnant with Harry and rejects the offer in favour of an unmarried life, and takes Thomas's cassette player. She then confirms that the older Maddie in 1988 is actually Nicole and learns that Mary has remained in contact with Remy, who has sent The Midnight Waves to her.

In 2014, River offers to officiate Harry and Vinay's wedding, suggesting that they hold it at the house, and finds some of Thomas's best suits for them to wear. She goes to the locked room and awakens Maddie, who has been insulated in snow and kept alive by the echo gun since 1936, to spend her final day with her family at Harry and Vinay's wedding as a witness. The service is held on the beach, where fulfils the final line of the Mortimer family legacy by drawing an aisle on the shore, and Harry and Vinay exchange two of Mary's rings, provided by the cook. After the wedding, River takes Maddie back in time to spend her last moments with George and Mary in the nursery and plays her a final message from Nicole on Thomas's cassette player.

River returns to 2014, where Harry has decided not to sell the house, and learns from the cook that she and Hugo have merged to prevent her from decaying. The cook resigns from the Luna University and endorses River as a suitable candidate for a professorship, choosing to stay in the 21st century with the name "Ivy", taken from two letters of the letters in River's name. The next day, she receives a message from the Doctor and says her goodbyes, intending on leaving pages from her diary regarding the Mortimer legacy and her wedding speech to them for their anniversary in 2015. She returns to the house decades later to stay with Harry, Vinay and their grandchildren for a time.

Cast

 * River Song - Alex Kingston
 * Hugo - Mark Elstob
 * Maddie Mortimer - Lillie Flynn
 * Henry Mortimer - Joseph Capp
 * Mary Mortimer - Jemima Rooper
 * George Mortimer - Matt Addis
 * Older Henry Mortimer - Tim Bentinck
 * Older Mary Mortimer - Isla Blair
 * Older Maddie Mortimer - Wendy Craig
 * Thomas Mortimer - James Camp
 * Carla Alcazar - Vineeta Rishi
 * Harry Mortimer - Jack Holden
 * Vinay Siddiqui - Ronak Patani
 * Cook - Phyllida Nash

Uncredited cast

 * Old man - Tim Bentinck (BFX: "The Key to the Door")

Continuity

 * River met a version of herself from another universe and might have married her. The details are fuzzy, however, and there was a strange resolution. (AUDIO: The Two Rivers)
 * River has "dabbled" with using the title of professor, having been referred to as such by people that she had met in her future. (TV: The Time of Angels; AUDIO: The Boundless Sea, Animal Instinct, etc.)
 * River got married in "a bit of a rush" because the universe was ending. (TV: The Wedding of River Song)
 * River tells her past self that things are going to get more complicated. Amy Pond did something similar after being released from the Pandorica. (TV: The Big Bang)
 * River says "I would like a hat like that". The Second Doctor said the same thing several times. (TV: The Power of the Daleks, The Highlanders)
 * River tells Thomas about the 1814 frost fair. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War)