The Wrath of the Iceni

[Theta Sigma]

The Wrath of the Iceni is the third story of the Fourth Doctor Adventures season 1 with Louise Jameson as Leela.
Written by John Dorney and was released by Big Finish Productions in March 2012.
The Wrath of the Iceni is a historical story featuring Boudica played by Ella Kenion.
Boudica has entered history as a warrior queen and Ella Kenion did very well in portraying her as a very bloodlusty figure. She certainly had me convinced that Boudica is not someone I want to be in the same room with.
Since Leela is a warrior herself The Wrath of the Iceni fits very well with Leela’s character.
Also very good is Nia Roberts as Bragnar from the moment that she stumble into information she shouldn’t have.
An early scene had the Doctor and Leela talking about the meaning of people’s name and it is interesting how this becomes significance later on in the story.
The scene when Boudica threatened the life of Bragnar in order to get certain information out of the Doctor felt akin to Davros doing the exact same thing to Sarah and Harry in Genesis of the Daleks.
A perfectly delivered story due to Ella Kenion’s performance as Boudica, Boudica’s interaction with fellow warrior Leela, the scenes of the Doctor and Bragnar being quite fun and Leela pretending to be against the Doctor.
It also should be noted The Wrath of the Iceni is a pure historical story without any sci fi elements apart of course from the TARDIS and its crew, a kind of story that Tom did not get to do in the TV series.

In the interviews was surprised to learn that Ella Kenion was in the TV series playing Harriet in Let’s Kill Hitler. I just didn’t match the voice, the name and her face together before.
I also eventually remembered that Nia Roberts was also in the TV series playing Ambrose in The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood. In The Wrath of the Iceni, Nia Roberts had very good interaction with Tom.
It was also interesting to hear from writer John Dorney that The Wrath of the Iceni of being dominated by female characters was him rectifying the fact that many of the Tom TV stories did not have many female character and even ones that did not have female guest characters at all. He even thought of calling the story Women of Iceni prior to settling with The Wrath of the Iceni name.

[tch]

Nice to hear they are doing a straight historical.
I always thought every Doctor should have at least one historical story.

Much as I'm excited about this, it just reminds me how behind I am on BF stories. Too much good stuff...

[bcm77]

This story is my favorite from the first series of Tom's Big Finish adventures and I think it's one of the best stories featuring Leela in any medium.

When I met Louise Jameson at Collectormania last year I had the chance to chat a little with her about the audios and she mentioned this story was a lot of fun to do as Leela is very conflicted with her feelings throughout but her loyalty to the Doctor wins through in the end.

[Betty]

I agree that this is one of the best stories Big Finish has done. I was so pleased to be able to talk to John Dorney at the Big Finish Day 3. It is such a unique story as well, since it's Tom's only straight historical.