From TES issue 49 (January 2008)

Series 7. Level 1/2.
MARTA
This blond and buxom serving maid, who was one of the horde of new characters in series 7, was played by Jacquelin Joyce. As I have mentioned previously in this section, I really did not enjoy Joyce’s portrayal of her main character – Romahna – but Marta was a different kettle of fish altogether. Her “ooh-ah” accent, friendly manner and cascade of blond curly hair made her a really believable medieval serving wench, and it is a shame, in my opinion, that she was not featured more often in the series.

Marta worked at the inn that was once known as the Crazed Heifer, where as well as dispensing food and drink, she was more than willing to part with useful snippets of information in exchange for gold, gems and other such valuable items. Her manner often seemed to suggest that she would have been willing to offer plenty more besides if the price was right (or was it just me?) but none of the dungeoneers ever thought to ask her for that kind of service. Anyway, Marta proved herself to be a useful source of information on several occasions.

Marta’s first appearance was with dungeoneer Simon in level two, when she parted with a useful spyglass in exchange for a green gem. After offering Simon some information, Marta seemed to be quite surprised that it was actual information Simon was after, and needed a bit of persuasion before she revealed the spyglass.

When we next saw Marta, she had been turned into a cat by Sidriss. Nicola returned Sidriss’s wand so that the daffy sorceress could change Marta back, but she ended up turning her into a dog instead! However, Marta was back in human form by Naila’s quest, when she was involved in another scene in the Crazed Heifer, along with Sylvester Hands, during which she revealed to Naila that Grimaldine was a good source of firestones for dragon-riding.

Marta’s final appearance was with Ben in level two, when he rescued her from a locked chest and she gave him the combination to the Trial by Spikes in return. Of course, we saw Jacquelin Joyce in her Marta get-up during two episodes of Barry’s quest, but she was playing the part of Lissard in disguise, as part of Lord Fear’s plan to deceive Hordriss, who apparently found Marta quite attractive. So did Lord Fear, actually…

As you can probably tell, I think Marta is quite a good character, although she’s not one of my absolute favourites. She is certainly a nod back to the likes of Gretel and Mellisandre, which is nice. She was slightly underused, in my opinion, and would perhaps have been a better main character than Romahna for Jacquelin Joyce.
Fear Factor: 3 Feisty, but mainly friendly.
Killer Instinct: 0 Not in the literal sense, anyway…
Humour Rating: 4 Certainly didn’t take kindly to Sly’s brand of humour.
Oscar Standard: 9 Very nice.

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