The Crown

The Ferryman stands in shadow and waits. The Ferryman giggles, hungers and hates.

The Ferryman comes to carry away - All who behold the crown and disobey.

The Crown by Jonathan Barnes

I really like The Crown because I love a good old story that's primarily about atmosphere, but in truth I cannot deny that The Crown is a horror story that is hardly scary in any manner. I know, I know, that may seem kind of cruel and a cheap shot to make, but in earnest, I am a really easy person to scare the pants off of. Too much of an anxiety person really. Most Torchwood episodes scare me. And while this is spooky - It's not scary, and there's a decisive difference. Mostly The Crown is a story that sort of loses itself as it goes on. It could be a lot shorter, especially since it lends itself to a short story structure of the Queen telling us a story about how she got a crown. It has a short story mindset in a way - Victoria talks about events in that sort of way. She's like "Oh, and then this happened," and doesn't really go into description at all for certain sections of the tale. They're sections that don't matter too much, and of course they can be cut, but it's interesting that it retains the mindset of short form drama. As writers we're often told to cut anything that doesn't add anything, and The Crown certainly works by this merit. You think Victoria has learnt a lesson in humility, but the story doesn't delve into that, and the story also removes a lot of Victoria's own agency by having Maddox resolve the plot rather than her giving the Crown away. Horror audio really can work, it can really scare you to bits - and while this story is competent, it's just not frightening enough. 

The central concept, I feel, also needs a bit of work. From the start we're aware that this patient in the Asylum is indeed Victoria. The story takes no moment to disabuse us of that notion. It's incredibly obvious what's happening as a result. Even a line about how "The Queen is away in Buckinghamshire" would improve this issue. This is also the first audio drama with Queen Victoria to properly star Queen Victoria. Fortitude's main character is the Maharaja. Save Our Souls is an ensemble piece with the Queen largely staying in the background. The Crown, for better or worse, puts the Queen front and center. This works in this story, but I like having the Queen as this manipulative background presence, a spider pulling everyone's strings. In a way she accomplishes that but in others she is mainly just telling a story that she stars in. I've ragged on the Crown quite a bit now for not being scary, but I do have to point out one more thing: Even though it's not scary, it's actually really interesting. There's character work in here for the Queen that does actually work, and it has an interesting and ambiguous premise that allows it to go places and do out of the ordinary things. The Crown is a very good story because it's one of the few recent Torchwood Monthlies that's felt like it has some new ideas to it, new ways to play with the format. The Queen's narration is in some ways narration, but it doesn't feel like narration because of the way it's presented. In some ways it's comparable to a companion chronicle, in others it works differently. The Victorian setting often used in Jago and Litefoot and the Paternoster Gang once again lends great credence to the Torchwood audios. If you'd have told me early on that Queen Victoria would have a far better audio record than Tosh for instance, I'd have shrieked in shock, because Tosh is incredible. Yet here we are - The Queen has deposed several regulars in terms of quality at this point.  Even if the Crown isn't scary, which is indeed a cardinal sin for a horror story - it's good, and really, that's what matters. While it can be laggy early on, The stunning final few scenes make the slow burn worth it. 7/10