Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Grel Escape, or simply The Grel Escape, was the first audio story of the fifth season of the Big Finish Bernice Summerfield series. It featured the first use of Bernice and Jason Kane's Time Rings in a Big Finish original story, though they had appeared in the adaptation of Just War. It was also the first original Big Finish use of the Grel, who appeared in the adaptation of Oh No It Isn't!
Written by Jacqueline Rayner, this was her first Bernice Summerfield audio story that was not an adaptation of a novel. It was something of an homage to the 1965 Doctor Who television story The Chase, with several scenes throughout the story mimicking those that appeared in the precedent story.
Contents
Publisher's summary[]
Young children can be difficult. Tantrums, toy-throwing, not wanting to go to bed, whisking their mothers on dangerous journeys throughout all of time and space...
Jason wants Benny's son Peter to have a normal childhood. Peter has other plans. And unfortunately, Peter also has Benny and Jason's Time Rings. And knows how to use them. Even more unfortunately, the fact-obsessed, tentacle-faced Grel have built a time machine, and they're after Peter.
So Benny finds herself on the run, landing in frightening festivals and deadly deserts, facing ridiculously inaccurate robot doubles and hideously accented tourists, in what can only be described as a sort of chase...
Plot[]
to be added
Cast[]
- Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
- Jason Kane - Stephen Fewell
- Joseph - Steven Wickham
- Sophia - Julia Houghton
- The Grel - Daniel Hogarth
- Peter Summerfield - Dacey Warriner
References[]
Time travel[]
- Jason tries to get Peter to use his and Bernice's Time Rings.
Notes[]
- This story is a homage to the Doctor Who television story The Chase, with several scenes mimicking the events of that story.
- Like several Benny audio titles, this one is a pun. In this case, it's an obvious play on The Great Escape, a film that was quite often traditional Christmas-time viewing in the United Kingdom.
- This story was originally released on CD and download. A download version is available.
Continuity[]
- Jason and Bernice were given their time rings in PROSE: Happy Endings.
- The occupation of the Collection is mentioned. It began in PROSE: Life During Wartime and ended in AUDIO: Death and the Daleks.
- Sophia, Peter's godmother, first appeared in PROSE: The Glass Prison.
- This is the first time that Bernice has travelled through time since AUDIO: Just War.
- Benny is shown a violent future version of Peter who unknowingly killed Grel as well as hit his own mother. This is foreshadowing of Peter's violent nature, evident in actions such as brutally killing zombie like creatures in AUDIO: Beyond the Sea, becoming an aggressive chief of security on Legion in AUDIO: Vesuvius Falling and killing his father, Jason Kane, in AUDIO: The Final Amendment (although Braxiatel manipulated Peter into doing so).
External links[]
- Official Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Grel Escape page at bigfinish.com
- The Grel Escape at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
