Jeremiah Bourne in Time

By: Nigel Planer

Narrated by: Nigel Planer, Siobhan Redmond, Sophie Thompson, Tim McInnerny, Sebastian Armesto, Celia Imrie, Christopher Ryan

Length: 3 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

Jeremiah Bourne is a boy with a remarkable gift. He can travel in time. Not by using a time machine, or stepping through a dimensional portal. It just happens to him, as though by accident. One minute he’s in the present day, the next, he’s 100 years in the past, standing in the London of 1910.

Jeremiah has two questions: how did he get there - and how can he get back? On his quest for the answers, he enlists the help of Phyllis Stokes of The Society for Theosophical Research and her equally eccentric brother, Roger Allcot Standish, magistrate, spiritualist and dedicated nudist. He encounters the sadistic Mr and Mrs Grout and the ruthless Ed Viney, thief, gang member and slitter of throats. And he arouses the disapproval of Clementina Quentinbloom, the head of a home for ‘Fallen Girls’, by befriending Daisy Wallace, a girl ahead of her time.

Can Jeremiah get home? What is the connection between Clementina’s establishment and Doctor Henry Davenant Hythe, the humanitarian and eugenicist? And does Jeremiah’s gift of time travel have something to do with his mother’s sudden disappearance, all those years ago?

Directed by Barnaby Edwards

Produced by David Richardson

Executive Producers: Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery

©2018 Big Finish Productions (P)2018 Big Finish Productions

Critic reviews

"Planer’s tale hits everything it needs to in the right place to deliver something fresh to the genre of time travel stories." (Blogtor Who)

A Good Start

Jeremiah Bourne is a teenage boy who discovers that he has the ability to time travel without a time machine or any other sort of devic. He realizes this when he finds himself in 1910 Victorian England with no idea how he was able to get there and no idea how to get back.

To be honest, Jeremiah is a character that took me a while to warm to. He starts the story as a bit whiny, and thrown to sounding like he's throwing a hissy fit. He often seems to lack good sense. However, the character does develop through the story and we do see his strength in terms of memory and his ability to eventually work his way out of the problem.

The Victorian characters are probably more fun, particularly the elderly Lady Phyllis Stokes who becomes Jeremiah's first friend and her friend the nudist magistrate Sir Roger whose "forward thinking ways" actually seem to create trouble for his staff. The two are so lovable that they carry the story at the beginning and really are a delight throughout.

The plot itself was pretty good as its focus is rightly on Jeremiah's learning to understand his abilities and coming of age a bit. The Victorian plot (such as it is) serves this worked nicely. The series keeps several of Jeremiah's secrets close to the vest and reserved them for later series. So we don't get definitive answers to the series' biggest question. If the series isn't continued, we may never find out wy exactly Jeremiah how these powers and how specifically they work.

captivating story

it was very interested to listen, hoping for sequel very soon. So many unanswered questions.

Pleasantly Surprised

I loved this story. I also loved how it was not cinfusing and techie like sime stories. I really liked the cast. All around great

Awful in every way.

I love Nigel Planer, and absolutely adore the Cabin Pressure series, so I was hopeful to have a fun, playful adventure story here. And Nigel Planer is one of my MOST beloved narrators, making absolute magic in Terry Pratchett's Diskworld books. But this story fails on every level. The dramatization is absurd. The sound quality is terrible and the voices clownishly exaggerated, so that you can barely understand them most of the time. At first I thought maybe it would be better to read as a story, but no. The story goes from promising to awful. The main character is an idiot, plot is convoluted. And then there is the ending. It doesn't even deserve to be called a cliffhanger... it just stops in the middle of an event. Ugh, I'm so bummed I wasted my credits on this.