The Beautiful Ones

Quick plug – my Doctor Who audio ‘The Beautiful People’, one of the first releases in the ‘Companion Chronicles’ range, is available this day only for £5. It’s a story narrated by the fabulous Lalla Ward, as Romana, guest-starring Marcia Ashton (out of Brookside) as the evil Karna.  It owes more than a little debt to Little Britain, Victoria Wood’s Men Sana In Thingummy Doodah and, of course, The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams. It’s a breezy comedy with a serious point.

To order it, click here. Other ‘Companion Chronicles’ are also available.

As a little taster, here’s the first page from the script.

(FX: TARDIS INTERIOR)

ROMANA: The Doctor was having another of his funny moods.

‘Doughnuts!’ he shouted, as though giving the answer to a very important question.

I had only just walked into the TARDIS control room and, of course, I hadn’t actually asked him anything.

‘What?’ I asked wearily.

‘Doughnuts!’ the Doctor repeated. ‘Why is it, Romana, that we never seem to have enough doughnuts? Travelling through time and space is hungry work, you know. And we’ve run out. Again!’

I had found that it was best to humour the Doctor on these occasions. ‘The TARDIS food machine is perfectly capable of approximating the flavour and texture-

‘Pah!’ the Doctor interrupted. ‘It’s nowhere near the same! You can’t have cookery by machine! Where’s the panache, the élan, in micro-circuitry, hmm?’

‘It provides healthy, vitamin-enriched alternatives,’ I reminded him.

‘And that’s another thing, Romana’. The Doctor pulled one of his indignant expressions. ‘What if I don’t want to eat healthily? Sometimes, you know, it’s good for you to have something that’s bad for you.’

I knew there would be no point in questioning the Doctor’s logic, as he only makes these sort of statements to be irritating, so instead I gently suggested that if he wanted doughnuts so badly, he should try baking some himself.

‘It’s not the same if you have to bake them yourself,’ he replied, sulkily adjusting his long, multi-coloured scarf.

‘Well, what about K-9?’ I said. ‘You could ask him.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said the Doctor. ‘Me, training a dog to bake doughnuts? And besides, I’ve already tried, and he always uses the wrong sort of jam.’

Kinky Boots

Yesterday I also received in the post the ‘Doctor Who – The Prison In Space’ script book. It’s an unofficial fan publication, meaning that it’s made for love, not money (quite the opposite) and is not trying to step onto any licensed toes.

It’s a huge, A4-sized, weighty tome, containing scans of the scripts for the legendary unmade Patrick Troughton Doctor Who story The Prison In Space. For quite a long time in 1968, it looked like the second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe would be having an adventure set on a future Earth ruled by women, an adventure which involved cross-dressing, disco-dancing, and some spanking. It would, no doubt, have been a classic adventure – as demonstrated by Big Finish’s fabulous adaptation of the scripts last year, by the annoyingly talented and pleasant Simon Guerrier. This script book isn’t mean as an alternative to that production, they are complementary, you have to buy both.

There are only two things wrong with The Prison In Space. Firstly, it has no monsters. Secondly, it’s very, very sexist. Because on this future Earth women are the monsters, aaah. And while it’s intended satirically, it’s quite blunt anti-feminist satire, filtered through middle-aged male fantasy. There’s a longer review/essay on the story by me included in the book, as well all sorts of other goodies; Dick Sharples' original scene breakdown for the story, Brian Hayles’ scene breakdown for an unmade Ice Warriors story, a special Time Team, and Andrew Pixley trying to make sense of the mad merry-go-round behind the scenes of Doctor Who in 1968, where scripts fell through, got pulled out of the bin, gained or lost episodes, and where the producer and script editor seemed to swap jobs on a weekly basis. The Prison In Space got so far as having a guest part cast, and sets and costumes designed before it was cancelled, suffering the indignity of being replaced by The Krotons.

To order this book, you’ll probably find the details at Nothing At The End Of The Lane in a few weeks’ time.

Scream And Run Away

Out today, a new issue of Doctor Who Magazine. It’s a special tribute issue to the wonderful actress Elisabeth Sladen who played Sarah Jane Smith in Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures. While the magazine does her proud, I think we’ve had enough special tribute issues now, so could former Doctor Who companions please stop dying for a bit? If you’re a former Doctor Who companion and planning on dying, hold your breath. No, on second thoughts, don’t hold your breath, keep breathing regularly. (And the same applies to former Doctor Whos, producers, writers and script editors.)

Playing a Doctor Who companion can be a thankless task, as the characters are often under-written, existing only to ask questions and get into trouble. I think why Elisabeth Sladen is so highly-regarded is that she worked so hard to make Sarah Jane Smith more than that. Watch any of her episodes and she’s always making interesting, clever acting choices; always attentive and reacting to what’s going on, sometimes playing against lines or delivering them self-mockingly, always adding both a sense of fun and a sense of emotional truth to what’s written on the page. She made Sarah Jane a companion you wanted to spend time with, a companion who you laughed with, and also a companion who you were scared with. I’m always in awe of actors who lift the material they are given, who give two-dimensional characters depth, who seemingly instinctively add humour and life to a part, and Elisabeth Sladen was one of the best.

I started writing this blog with the intention of plugging my comic strip The Child of Time, part three of which nestles unobtrusively between pages 66 and 79 of the magazine. It’s all setting the stage for the fourth and final part and is quite grim and serious.

Elsewhere in the magazine there’s a wonderful review by the erstwhile Gary Gillatt of the recent DVD release Day Of The Daleks. I love this story so much I had to buy the DVD without waiting for it be discounted. It’s more-or-less the first time Doctor Who did a story about time travel, but it’s also about much more than that; the various moral choices and compromises people have to make, whether they are freedom fighters or dictators.

The DVD also includes a bonus special edition of the story, in which some of the special effects have been replaced, some of the more ‘embarrassing’ moments have been removed, and various other perceived deficiencies in the production have been remedied. I realise lots of people like these special editions, and I’m delighted these special editions exist for them, but they’re not for me. It just seems pointless to go back and insert modern special effects when everything else, from the script to the performances to the sets to the costumes to the film stock screams 1970’s. If those things don’t take you out of a story, then why worry about some special effects which were, for the time the programme was made and the resources available to them, at worst serviceable and at best extremely ingenious and technically impressive. (Though I couldn’t help noticing that some of the CSO in the ‘original’ version had been tidied up, which ironically I found more distracting than had it been left uncorrected.)