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Home Truths was a 2008 audio play released by Big Finish Productions. It featured Jean Marsh relating two stories: one told as a matter of historical reflection, featuring Sara Kingdom, Steven Taylor and the Doctor; and the other occurring a thousand years later, featuring a policeman named Robert and an older version of Sara.
It was the first piece of performed Doctor Who to feature Sara Kingdom since the character's death in "The Destruction of Time" in January 1966. It began a trilogy later continued in the The Drowned World and The Guardian of the Solar System.
Publisher's summary
There’s a house across the waters at Ely where an old woman tells a strange story.
About a kind of night constable called Sara Kingdom. And her friends, the Doctor and Steven. About a journey they made to a young couple’s home, and the nightmarish things that were found there. About the follies of youth and selfishness. And the terrible things even the most well-meaning of us can inflict on each other.
Hear the old woman's story. Then decide her fate.
Cast
- Sara Kingdom/The Old Woman - Jean Marsh
- Robert - Niall MacGregor
References
- The Old Woman mentions that Sara had been to Hollywood and was considered for a role in a movie. (DW: "The Feast of Steven") However, by Robert's time, Hollywood was unknown.
- Robert says that war is unknown in his era, no conflict having been fought for generations. He says that although he has sworn an oath to defend his society in time of war, he would need a good reason to enthusiastically participate in one. A possible inference that can be drawn from his conversation with the Old Woman is that there has been no war since Sara Kingdom's day.
Notes
- Dialogue within the story calls into question how trustworthy the narrator actually is. Thus, it is difficult to know just how accurately the Doctor, Sara and Steven are portrayed.
- This story has some commonality with DWM: "Funhouse", in that the key antagonist is an intelligent house.
- This is an unusual Companion Chronicle in that the returning actor from Doctor Who portrays the nominal villain of the piece.
Continuity
to be added
Timeline
As with the entire Simon Guerrier Sara Kingdom trilogy, this story can be placed on a timeline based on the two major halves of the story.
In terms of the present-day coversation between Robert and Sara, Home Truths occurs between DW: "The Destruction of Time", which occurs about a millennium earlier, and CC: The Drowned World.
The flashback involving Sara, Steven and the Doctor, however, occurs at a time between "The Feast of Steven" and "Volcano".
Placing this flashback relative to the flashbacks contained in Guardian and Drowned is a matter of debate, because the reliability of Sara as a storyteller is called into question in Home. That Sara tells the flashback in Home in such a way that it seems to have occurred after the flashback in Drowned could simply be, as Robert points out, the embellishments of a woman who's told the same stories for centuries.