WHO'S COMPANY
Since they began in 1999, Big Finish's Doctor Who audios have not only taken the Doctor's TV companions on all-new adventures - they've also created their own additions to the TARDIS crew! Simon Guerrier meets these new old friends...
[Published in Doctor Who Magazine #367 (Panini UK, 29 March 2006), pp. 40-48. Posted here by kind permission of DWM editor Tom Spilsbury.]
Rose, says the Doctor,
is fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And he means it. Of all the
people on Satellite 5 – even Lynda-with-a-Y – it’s Rose the
Doctor saves, sending her away back home in the TARDIS. Later, it’s
just Rose he himself leaves with, abandoning Captain Jack.
"I only take the
best," he says, dumping failed-companion Adam. Yeah, Rose is the
best. She’s special. She’s different.
But not unique. Don’t
tell her, but Rose isn’t the first pretty girl to be whisked off in
the TARDIS. (She’s about to find that out for herself anyway...) Oh, the Doctor’s got
about in his 900 plus years. There’s four of his exes on this issue’s
free CD. He’s shown the wonders of time and space to girls from the
distant future and from the ancient past. He’s taken in grown-ups,
professionals, runaways and criminals. There’ve been boys, men and
various types of alien, and even one or two machines…
So why does he need
a companion with him? To find out, I talked to the writers who have
written for the Doctor’s friends, and to the actors who played
them. I want to know what makes the Doctor’s friends so special. I
want to know how they continue to be important, to grow and develop,
in their ongoing adventures in the Big Finish dramas.
There’s an all-new 100-minute (at least!) audio Doctor Who play from Big Finish Productions every month, starring
Doctors Five to Eight. And as well as giving the Doctor's old TV companions new
things to do, Big Finish has also created
brand new companions of its own.
I want to know what’s
changed for Big Finish since Doctor Who returned to our TV screens. How has
Rose influenced what the Doctor’s old companions are up to these
days? And how’ve they influenced her?
So, where to start?
ACE - SOPHIE ALDRED
"I assumed,
when I auditioned for the part of Ace," says actress Sophie Aldred, "that I
would be running around quarries, twisting my ankle and screaming.
But when I got the first script for Dragonfire I thought, 'Wow!
This doesn't seem like Doctor Who – this is very different!'"
Meet Ace. She’s
different.
First seen in 1987, Ace sulks! She carries a ghetto-blaster! She
swears! (Really – she shouts things like 'Gordon Bennett!' and
'Bilge-bag!' at people.) She even beats up a Dalek with a
baseball bat!
What’s more, as she
travelled with the seventh Doctor, we got to watch Ace grow up. Her
character developed and changed, and we believed in her.
That’s what made her
special, and it might explain why Sophie’s continued to play Ace
for almost 20 years. When Doctor Who was taken off the air in 1989,
Ace continued to develop in books and CDs. As the free CD this issue
shows, Ace is now an adult. She doesn’t need the Doctor to look out
for her. And she seems to have earned a companion of her own…
So how was it done?
Perhaps because Ian Briggs, who wrote Ace’s debut, based her on
real people. "Yes," Sophie confirms. "These three girls
who he'd worked with at a youth theatre in Ealing. The reaction I got
to Ace from girls was relief. 'Oh hooray! Somebody real!'"
"It's interesting,"
Sophie continues, "because Rose has
got a similarly real background. We know a lot about the backstory.
But that's quite a normal thing now because we've had years of
EastEnders and gritty realism. In 1987, EastEnders was very new. So
for me it was really quite a surprise. I was delighted to see so much
of the action, and to receive this script in which, at one point, I
had a monologue. Again, very unusual on telly at the time."
I suggest that Rose
can also be a strong character without all that shouting and kicking.
"Rose is not really a tomboy whereas Ace definitely was," says
Sophie. "Their backgrounds are similar, where they come from and
their emotional backstory with similar traumas. But I don't know
whether Rose would have worked in 1987."
Well, she was just a
baby...
So, Rose and Ace are
special because they’re ‘real’. I ask Paul Cornell, author of
the recent episode Father’s Day, how you create a ‘real’
character. "The really difficult job," says Paul, "is
to create people who aren't you, who don't think like you and act
like you. I tend to
cut-and-paste from people I know."
So does he scribble
down everything he overhears on the bus? "It's very rarely
individual lines," says Paul. "It's usually a vague impression of
people." On the DVD commentary for Father's Day, for
example, Paul reveals that, "...it’s all about my dad. Pete Tyler is
exactly like my dad. He did all that stuff, the health drinks.".
But why does ‘reality’
matter? Later on in the same commentary, Paul asks Billie Piper and
Shaun Dingwall what it takes to play the scene where Pete
discovers that this teenager in front of him is really his
baby daughter. "It’s quite a tricky scene to play," Shaun tells
him, "because it’s not real. It’s so not real that you
have to rely on your imagination to find some truth in it."
Billie explains that
she "listened to really sad songs for about a week" to prepare,
but Shaun says, "For me, it was pretty much the words. The script."
So, I ask Paul, where
does his talent for making a situation ‘true’ – even when it’s
so strange – come from?
"In this particular
case," he tells me, "one half of me being a hard-core
fundamentalist geek who would like to present the most far-spun
fantasy imaginable with little connection to the real world. Then
there’s another half of me that wants to tell stories about people
in the real world. Rather than doing those two things separately I
always seem to do them both at once."
And why does this approach work? Just before Rose aired last year, Gary
Gillatt discussed Ace’s last TV story, Survival, in DWM. "Imagine,"
he said, "a series that adopts a familiar urban world as its
backdrop, and uses visits to a crumbling council block – and the
friends and family of the Doctor’s assistant – to allow its
audience to understand more clearly the stakes the Doctor is playing
for."
Sound familiar?
Grounding the
companion in reality makes everything more real. Whatever weird alien
stuff the Doctor shows her, if she’s real and she believes it, then
so do we.
Survival was, however,
the last television Doctor Who story for more than six years, and
when the Oaul McGann TV movie was broadcast in 1996, the Doctor was
travelling alone.
"I've got this big plan," reveals Sophie, "that
Russell T Davies is going to do a story where we find out what
happened to Ace." She smiles sadly. "But then that's a bit pie in
the sky. One can always have these dreams." Yes, just imagine if the new
series brought back an old companion…
Still, there are
different accounts of what happened to Ace. She died in the DWM comic strip. She left the Doctor to hunt Daleks in Virgin's New
Adventures books. And in the webcast Death Comes To Time, she takes
the Doctor’s place as guardian of time when he seemed to have blown
himself up.
What did Sophie make
of what was being done to her? "I read a couple of the Virgin
novels," she admits. "I was delighted it had a life beyond telly, but it didn't really seem to have much to do with me."
Paul Cornell, however, was one of the most prolific New Adventures authors.
"I think if there's
one thing that my stories are about," says Paul, "it's the effect
on people of quite extreme fantasy circumstances. Certainly way back
in the New Adventures, mine were full of ordinary people encountering
very, very weird stuff."
I hazard that as well
as showing a greater degree of character depth than the TV series had
managed before, many of Paul’s novels also showed the consequences
of travelling with the Doctor, companions who are changed by their
experiences. "Absolutely," says Paul. "You cannot come back
through the door and be the same person."
So
change is good. That goes doubly so in the case of Big Finish.
"You’ve also got to make it interesting for the actors," says
Gary Russell, producer of the audio adventures. "You have to offer them something
new."
Of course, there had
been nods to stronger, more independent companions before. In the mid
1970s, Sarah Jane Smith paid lip service to something called ‘women’s
lib’. Leela threw knives at people. Romana and Tegan were quite
bossy. Yet for much of the show’s history,
efforts to make any new companion different and/or real were
short-lived.
"The
character traits they were given for their first four episodes very
rarely got mentioned again," says Gary. "Nearly every one of the actors
has at some point said, 'I was disappointed that
when I started with the character it was meant to be A, B and C, but
it very quickly ceased being that.'"
EVELYN - MAGGIE STABLES
So meet Evelyn. She’s
different. The first companion Big Finish created for
themselves, Dr Evelyn Smythe is older than any of the Doctor’s
previous companions, the TARDIS just one more chapter in her life. And
since she first appeared in 2000's The Marian Conspiracy, Big Finish have
genuinely cared for her, developing her relationshiop with the Doctor in each story.
Their friendship is
really tested in Robert Shearman’s Jubilee (later adapted into the
television episode Dalek), and they nearly part company after the
events of Project: Lazarus. But the Doctor has always won her over
(so far), perhaps most movingly in Jacqueline Rayner’s bold – and
musical! – Doctor Who and the Pirates.
At the recording of
2001’s Bloodtide, Colin Baker explained why Evelyn works so well.
"She has us a more adult relationship," he said. "On television there was always the
whinging Peri and – very briefly – the highly energetic Mel. But
they were kind of the relationships of adult and child. It has been interesting for the Doctor to be faced with a companion who is,
if not his equal in every single way, certainly his equal
intellectually."
"I
had always wanted to bring in an older character," Gary tells me. "The
part was created for Maggie Stables. Maggie, like Colin, is a
super-intelligent person and they get on like a house on fire.
Translating that to Evelyn and
the Doctor was very easy."
So how does Evelyn’s
character break away from the generic companion role? "I can see
that it gives problems to the writer," Colin went on. "It removes
a device – which is I’m sure reason the Doctor has
always had juvenile companions – so he can explain what
he’s doing all the time."
So in effect, Evelyn is too much of a real
person to be just a peg for the plot.What’s more, we can
judge the Doctor by the quality of his friends. A more out-going,
intelligent companion makes him look more out-going and intelligent too.
"Yes,
and less patronising," Gary agrees. "The Sixth Doctor has a
reputation of being a blustering,
aggressive, slightly unpleasant character. There’s no chance of that with Evelyn. She wouldn’t put up with
it!’
"I think she’s not
too frightened of him," says Maggie herself. "She’s impressed
by him, obviously, but she doesn’t feel too overshadowed."
BERNICE - LISA BOWERMAN
In some respects
Evelyn could be seen as an older version of the first new companion
created after the end of the TV series. Meet Professor Bernice
Summerfield. Benny’s different, a hard-drinking, sassy
archaeologist from the future, originally created as a replacement
for Ace in the New Adventures by Paul Cornell. That man gets everywhere!
"Benny is very close
to my viewpoint character," says Paul. "So much so that I
quite like the fact that so many voices have ruffled her up a bit
since then."
Benny proved highly
successful, and spun off into her own range of novels long after
leaving the Doctor behind. In 1997 Big Finish also released the first
Benny audio adventures, starring Lisa Bowerman. The range is just starting its seventh series.
"Lisa's voice
infected me so fast," says Paul. "I find it very hard to think
of Benny as anyone else now." I ask if Lisa's performance
changed how he writes for ‘his’ character. "Very much so," he
nods. "In particular you'll find her speech patterns have
changed a bit, because in Lisa's performance a lot of what she does
is in wonderful hesitation."
"Once you’ve got the voice of a character," says Eddie Robson, who has also written for Benny, "everything does sort of follow. Doing Doctor Who prose you have the actors' voices for the Doctor and companions, but I mentally cast the other roles as well. That’s what I did for Benny, years ago when I was doing Benny fan-fiction. Even before Lisa was doing them. Fortunately they then cast a similar kind of voice!"
Eddie’s Memory Lane
is released later this year, and stars another strong, independent
companion...
CHARLEY - INDIA FISHER
Meet Charley Pollard.
She’s different, and the most travelled of all Big Finish’s
companions. In 25 full-length audios, as well as a DWM freebie,
Charley’s come a long, long way from her first meeting with the
dashing Eighth Doctor, aboard the doomed R101 airship. They’ve
battled Romans in a mixed up past,
seen Earth overrun by the Daleks, and even got lost in a whole
other universe.
"She’s quite easy
to write," says Eddie, "because she wants to get out there
and have adventures. It can be more difficult with some other
characters to convincingly put them in situations that most of us
would never go near, really. But Charley
will go into the dangerous situation because she feels she’s got
something to prove."
So a bolshier
companion actually makes it easier to jolly the story along. And
Eddie’s technique seems to work. "Memory Lane!" enthuses India
Fisher, who’s been playing Charley for the last six years. "I
just read it and thought, 'Oh, that’s where she should be and
what she should be like.'"
"The thing about
Charley," says Eddie, blushing, "is that she’s quite a
recognisable archetype – kind of George from the Famous Five. A
character like that wouldn’t really work now, in our post-Buffy
age. One of the advantages of Doctor Who is that you can do old types
of character you don’t get any more, and look at them from a modern
perspective. She comes from an age where her kind of behaviour
wouldn’t have been the norm. She wants people to know she’s as
good as the boys.’
I ask India which
story she thinks has been best for her character. And since none of
us have heard Memory Lane yet, she’ll just have to pick another one.
"I always say
Neverland," she says, "because I liked doing the anti-Charley
thing. [In Alan Barnes' 2002 drama an evil simulacrum of Charley appeared, composed of 'Anti-Time'.] But it did push Charley forward as a character. You
realise that she’s the reason that all this time-space continuum
malarky isn’t working, and therefore there’s that whole kind of
sacrifice thing.’ She’s referring to the ongoing story that the Doctor should never have rescued her from the
R101. Because she’s still alive, history is all out of whack.
But it’s not just
the total collapse of time and space that appealed to India. "It pushed
on her relationship with the Doctor more than any other, I think."
Oh yes. Long before
that snog in The Parting of the Ways, a companion told her Doctor she
loved him. And in Scherzo, by Dalek writer Rob Shearman, Charley and the Doctor had to melt their
bodies into one other. Which is a bit like snogging,
isn’t it?
So what’s Paul
McGann like to kiss? "Would that I knew," smiles India. And
how did people react? "It seemed everyone threw their hands up in
the air and went, 'Ooh no! The Doctor and his companion can’t be
in love!'"
"Actually," she
continues, ‘I read in an interview with David Tennant that the new
series openly suggests that the Doctor and Rose love one another. They are in
a relationship - a very powerful relationship. I sort of hope that
was brought about because of Rob Shearman’s brilliant work in
Scherzo, trying to develop the different kinds of love and what that
can mean.’
But Charley
and the Doctor’s own love affair has been complicated by the
arrival of a new character...
C'RIZZ - CONRAD WESTMAAS
Meet
C’rizz. He’s different.
Really different. After a brief dalliance with a Vortisaur called Ramsay in the first series of the Eighth Doctor audios, a proper bona-fide alien has joined the TARDIS. The lizard-boy from a whole other universe is
a chameleon in more ways than one.
"C’rizz is a bit
unstable," says Conrad Westmaas, who plays him. "It was mentioned
in his very first story, The Creed of the Kromon, that he’s
influenced by people he’s around. I’ve tried to show that a
little bit more as time’s gone on. The more time he’s spent with
the Doctor and Charley, the more he becomes like them. Even in between scenes
he changes. If he’s with someone who’s not one of
the TARDIS crew he will take on some Doctorish moments. If he’s
with Charley he’ll fall into the companion mode.’
So what’s the real
C’rizz like, then? "He’s quite proper, a bit of an Oxbridge
twit who doesn’t tolerate being messed about. It gets quite funny
in Other Lives, where he ends up in some rather undignified
situations. Which he gets terribly shirty about!"
The characters have
proved hugely popular. "I’ve been stopped in the street," says
India, "and at a music festival in a tent full of
50,000 people, someone said, 'Aren’t you India Fisher?' Of course my friends can’t understand how the hell anyone can
know what I look like because it’s audio!"
Conrad shakes his
head. Is he jealous? "When the new series
started I thought that would be it, but still lovely letters are
turning up, people wanting to know what’s going to happen. Once I
was understudying in Abigail’s Party. I was in my first week,
barely knew my lines and there was this really weird moment when we
were all leaving the theatre. There were these people wanting
autographs at the stage door. I thought it was for the main cast but
it wasn’t, it was for me. And the main cast were obviously going,
'What on earth?!'"
And how much of a say
do they get in the development of the characters? Do you get to
suggest stuff you’d like to do? India considers. "Probably more
so when we recorded in Bristol, in a big block of episodes," she says, "because it was just
the nature of the game. We were all in a hotel together for the week
and so in the pub in the evening Gary would ask..."
"'What do you want
to do?'" says Conrad, in a voice that’s more Noel Coward than
Gary Russell.
"There was a
classic one where C’rizz had first come in," laughs India. "I
think you’d done two stories, it was the middle of your first
series. And Gary asked, 'How about you two getting it together?'
And we both just said –"
They chorus together:
"Noooo!"
Conrad, though, admits
he knows exactly where C’rizz is going – even the number of
stories he’s got left. Does that mean he’s leaving? "I said to
Gary that I don’t want to go in a way that anyone else has gone.
That was the only time that I really put my foot down because I don’t want to get married off.’
You read it here
first. C’rizz doesn’t get married. Though maybe it’s a trick
answer, and he’ll have a civil partnership. And when? Conrad?
No, he’s disguised
himself as the scenery and I’m not getting an answer.
So just how far can
you develop a character? Ace, for example, has now been in some
50-odd stories – TV episodes, novels, audios, short stories, comic
strips... "Everyone has explored Ace inside out, upside down, back to
front," says Sophie Aldred. "Gary's been trying for ages to age her up.
Every now and again we'll record a scene and he'll say, 'Um, yes,
very nice, but far too young.' But it's been difficult to get any
of that across because I've felt slightly trapped, I suppose, in
the same old relationship with the Doctor."
It’s even more
difficult when Big Finish wants to use other television companions,
when we know how their characters finished up. Under the terms of the
licence with BBC Worldwide, the audios must slot seamlessly between
television stories. For example, Peri travels with the Fifth Doctor
in stories set just before his regeneration in The Caves of Androzani. In
that TV story, Peri’s still the naïve young brat she was in
her debut, so the audios can’t develop her beyond that. Big Finish
gets to play with the toys, but it has to return them to the box just
as they were.
So what do you do?
Apart from howling at the moon and weeping. One way is new blood...
ERIMEM - CAROLINE MORRIS
Meet Erimem. She’s
different. The Fifth Doctor and Peri are surprised they’ve
never heard of Pharoah Erimemushinteperem when they meet her. There’s
a reason for that – she leaves ancient Egypt for a life in the TARDIS.
"She’s
not to take away from Peri," says Gary, "but to add to her.
Particularly as Erimem wasn’t created as a companion anyway. It
gave us that ability to play around and just bolster those characters
up a bit."
Erimem
was created for The Eye of the Scorpion by writer Iain McLaughlin, who
also co-wrote this issue’s free CD. How has she changed since her
debut?
"Every
writer brings something new to her," says Iain. "She's still
strong and proud but I think she's a bit more relaxed than she was
when she was Pharaoh. She's relaxing into a friendship with people
she trusts."
"She's
been let down by people she trusted and loved," says his co-writer
Claire Bartlett, "but she still trusts the Doctor and Peri."
"Most of the time," adds Iain: "You haven't heard The Council of
Nicea." He’s referring to Erimem’s fight with the Doctor during
a key moment in the history for the early Christian church. The story is
probably the highlight of Erimem’s travels so far.
"Probably
the biggest factor in Erimem's evolution," Iain continues, "is
Caroline Morris. She's given subtlety and nuance to the dialogue
she's been given so it's much easier to write knowing what she sounds
like. She's terrific."
"She’s definitely
grown up a hell of a lot,"
says Caroline, in a break from recording this month’s The
Kingmaker. "She’s still very young and she’s still developing,
but she’s definitely gone from being a naïve warrior queen –
if you could put those two words together – to more of a teenager,
learning about life and people and aliens. The last couple of scripts
I’ve done, the writers had definitely taken onboard the character
and involved her, which has just been a joy for me."
Sophie Aldred feels the same about Ace's current development in the audios - a world away from the 'nothing to do with me' Aces of the novels.
"What's really taken
Ace off in a new direction,’ enthuses Sophie, ‘and quite
unexpectedly for me, is the relationship with Hex."
HEX - PHILIP OLIVIER
Meet Hex. He’s
different. Handsome male nurse Thomas Hector Schofield –
played by former Brookside pin-up Phillip Olivier – joined the TARDIS crew in The Harvest.
He’s since flown on a space-travelling Uluru (Ayer’s Rock to you) and brought down a government live on
air. "Now he's come in," says Sophie, "it's much easier to play
Ace older because she's guiding him. She's being like his older
sister."
"I think he’s a
great character," says Phil, speaking at the recording of The
Settling
– written by yours truly. "He’s got the slight humour
about him. He’s still learning at the moment and in the past couple
of scripts we’re seeing a bit more of his character. A bit of a
sarcastic side with the Doctor, getting along with Ace… And is
there anything, any kind of chemistry between the two?"
What can he mean?
Ooh, a grin from Sophie. "That's brilliant," she says. "That was beginning to happen right from The Harvest." What was happening, exactly? Spell it out for us, woman! "Ace brings on a whole different aspect to Hex," she says. "The scenes that we've done of us just talking together have been so lovely to do."
So, are they going to
get it on together? Come on, she must know…
"Gary's taken me
aside and very kindly told me where it's heading in the next year
or so," Sophie teases. "It was very sweet of him to ask if it would be
all right. I'm really excited about it."
"It came to me
when we were doing Project: Lazarus back ion 2003," says Gary. In that story,
Evelyn’s friend Cassie mentions that she has a son. "I thought it
would be good if the Seventh Doctor finally met Tommy," Gary
continues. "And then I thought, 'Hang on, I’ve wanted to bring
a new companion in for Sophie, and there’s your perfect
opportunity. Hex is Tommy!'"
But
Hex doesn’t know this yet. Only the Doctor – and the
audience – does...
"Hex has been
in complete blissful ignorance," says Gary, "It’s never
occurred to him. And the longer the Doctor keeps it quiet, the more
of a corner he’s in. He should say to Hex, 'I need to tell you
something about your background.' But he won’t, because this
particular Doctor doesn’t do that sort of thing. And that’s going
to come back and bite him at some point."
"Also," says Gary struggling not to say too much, "we
know that Ace has a bit of a short fuse with that sort of
manipulation, and she may well be more on Hex’s side than the
Doctor’s."
New blood isn’t the
only way to develop the old companions. 1980s assistants Nyssa, Mel and Turlough are
still one-on-one with the Doctor, and it’s not doing them any harm.
Mel, for example, is
being given more to do than she ever had on the telly. "Colin Baker and
Bonnie Langford," says Gary, "were both hideously under-rated as
actors. It just needed the right scripts and the right push to show
people what they were capable of."
MEL - BONNIE LANGFORD
Meet old Mel. She
makes the Sixth Doctor drink orange juice, knows how to work a
computer, and… no, that’s about it.
"I actually think
Bonnie’s very good in the TV series," says Big Finish author
Joseph Lidster, "a really nice, fun companion. But she’s not
grounded in reality at all. All you know about her is she’s a
computer programmer from Pease Pottage, from the 1980s. She’s not
given a surname onscreen, you don’t even see her join the Doctor.
She’s a plot device, not a person."
Joe thinks Mel is the ultimate example of the companion as a means to an end, there
solely to have the plot explained to them and to get in trouble (so the Doctor can rescue them).
But meet the new Mel.
She’s different. All that’s been needed to transform the
character is for the situations she finds herself caught up in to
have real consequences, for her travels to affect her. In her first
Big Finish story, The Fires of Vulcan, Mel has to take charge when
the Doctor goes to pieces. In The One Doctor, she’s up against a
spoof Doctor Who companion, Sally-Anne, who plays up to all the worst
stereotypes. The contrast shows how rounded a character Mel is. In
The Juggernauts she spends three months believing the Doctor long
gone, building a life for herself, using her computer skills, and even
getting engaged.
NYSSA - SARAH SUTTON
This is true of other
1980s companions, too. Meet Nyssa. She’s… well… How can we put
it?
"There’s almost
nothing for an actor to play in that part on TV," says Paul
Cornell. "There's some nice fairy-princess stuff in The Keeper of
Traken, and [writer] Johnny Byrne gives her some stuff to do in Arc
of Infinity, but you don't really learn much about her in doing it.
There aren't any shades of grey there."
Paul hopes to redress
that in his forthcoming audio Circular Time – co-written with Mike
Maddox. "We have her live in a small village while the Doctor plays
cricket. It's four short stories. There's a historical, there's a
weird one, there's a far future one and there's a kind of pastoral
one. It's a very character-based set of stories. There's a nice
little romance for her."
So what has he done to
bolster the character? "Giving Nyssa humour is, I think, the starting
place," says Paul. "Making the relationship between her and the
Doctor much more one-to-one so that you can believe in it. And giving them certain points of disagreement, a
couple of flashpoints. There's a lot of threads that run through all
four stories which put together form a greater story again in
character terms."
Also
much anticipated is the return of Nyssa’s best friend. Janet
Fielding, despite what’s she’s said to the contrary, is returning
as bolshy ex-air hostess Tegan Jovanka.
"It’s
set in 2006, over 20 years after she left the Doctor," says
Joe Lidster, who is busy writing the scripts. "Tegan may occasionally
regret having left him, but it’s not ruined her life. She’s now
a 40 year-old woman who’s lived life to the full. Just part of that
included choosing to travel with the Doctor and save the universe a
few times."
Joe
denies any kind of reinvention. Instead, he says, he’s building on
the different facets we already know. "I think that’s what so
good with Tegan: you see her in all these different situations. You
see her as someone who doesn’t want to travel, and later you see
her as someone who chooses to. You get to see her with two very
different sorts of TARDIS team. The Fifth Doctor, Adric, Nyssa and
Tegan, all four of them are effectively kids. With Turlough they all
seem more grown up and it’s a darker series. In fact," he says,
watching Gary’s reaction carefully as he spills some top secret
beans, "she’s in a dark place in her life when we meet her in
mine. And responding to that with black humour."
And then there’s the
return of another old friend. Just as it was that announced Sarah
Jane Smith would be returning to Doctor Who on television, David Bishop was
busy writing a spin-off audio series for her.
"The theme of the
new audios," David tells me, "is learning to cope with loss. It
was something Elisabeth Sladen was keen to explore, specifically how Sarah
has – and hasn't – come to terms with life after her time
travelling in the TARDIS. Sarah saw and experienced things she can't
share with anyone else, especially since she lost touch with fellow
time traveller Harry Sullivan. As a character she's matured, found a
place for herself in the world, but she's still grieving for the life
and friends she's lost."
Again, it’s about
bringing something new to the character. "Lis wanted Sarah to move
on from the paranoia of the first audio series," says David. "So
these four new stories feature Sarah taking greater charge of her
destiny instead of being manipulated by others."
And later this year, Big
Finish releases the third series of Gallifrey, with the
former companion Romana now president of the Time Lords. Also caught up in the story are
other old friends Leela and K9. (You can also hear Romana, K9 and the
eighth Doctor gallivanting round Cambridge in Shada, on the official
Doctor Who website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/webcasts/shada/)
So there’s still
lots to happen with the Doctor’s companions yet, plenty of space
for them to grow and develop. They could just go on and on, couldn’t
they? Well, not necessarily.
That would be too easy.
Evelyn, for example,
is not merely the first of Big Finish’s creations. She’s also the
first to have been written out of the range, in last year’s Thicker
than Water. Then again, she’s also still travelling with the Doctor
this year… Huh?
"We know the
end of her story," Gary explains. "But that’s not to say there
aren’t a few more things that are going to help us get there. I
made it very clear to Maggie and Colin this wasn’t the end of their
adventures. It was the chronological end, but it wasn’t the
production order end."
Thicker than
Water was a sequel to 2004’s Arrangements for War, in which Evelyn
was wooed by a nice chap called Rossiter. "I thought it was
fantastic," Gary enthuses. "It’s one of the best things we’ve
ever done. And it seemed obvious that Evelyn should end up with
Rossiter. She deserves that, doesn’t she?"
So he’s not afraid
to write his characters out, then? But would he ever
kill a companion off? "Hmm... Maybe. Who did you have
in mind?"
I ask how the new
series changed Sophie’s ideas about what she'd like Ace to do. "I
can see so much of Ace in Rose," she says. "Not the character,
because Rose is much more maturely emotional, much more gentle and
sensitive in a humane way. She's older for a start. Ace was very
young when she started. I liked that Rose learns. She's always been loyal to the Doctor and always
backed him up. She's never really questioned him, even when he's been
pretty manipulative of her. So just creeping in is this
backlash, and I think that will be good."
Is she saying that what Rose needs is a life of her own? "Yeah. She needs to leave the nest."
Is she saying that what Rose needs is a life of her own? "Yeah. She needs to leave the nest."
It seems nothing lasts
forever – which is, again, very Doctor Who. So would Sophie, I wonder,
ever feel it was time to leave Ace behind her?
"Certainly it's not
something that I'd like to completely let go of yet," she says,
after some thought. "I think what it will be is when I stop getting
invited to conventions. But then [Sophie’s son] Adam is nearly six,
so he'll start watching Doctor Who, and then he'll watch me!"
So she’ll be doing it for his benefit? Sophie laughs, "I might be leaning on a walking stick or in a wheelchair." I suggest that that doesn’t matter – it’s on audio, and no one need be any the wiser. She likes that idea. "I'm quite happy to be thought of as young as possible," she laughs. "If it were up to me, I'd be eternally sixteen..."
So she’ll be doing it for his benefit? Sophie laughs, "I might be leaning on a walking stick or in a wheelchair." I suggest that that doesn’t matter – it’s on audio, and no one need be any the wiser. She likes that idea. "I'm quite happy to be thought of as young as possible," she laughs. "If it were up to me, I'd be eternally sixteen..."
The Veiled Leopard
Four companions play away from the TARDIS in this issue's free CD...
A hip, swinging
party in 1960s Monte Carlo. But it’s not the fancy dress that’s got
the guests all excited. There’s a chance to see the Veiled Leopard,
one of the world’s most precious jewels. The Fifth Doctor has sent
his companions to protect it. Except, the Seventh Doctor has sent his
companions to steal it…
"In The Christmas
Invasion," says co-writer Iain McLaughlin, "Rose said 'Somebody's
got to be the Doctor!' when the Doctor was out cold. Here
there's no Doctor and his companions have problems to solve – but
they do it their own way rather than try to be the Doctor
themselves."
"It should be a fun
introduction for anyone who doesn't know them," says other author
Claire Bartlett. How much fun? "You should be able to see Cary
Grant – ask your parents – in the background. We wanted a very
glam atmosphere."
Friends Reunited
A rough guide to the best Big Finish story for each companion...
Spare Parts - The harrowing birth of the Cybermen
makes great, emotive use of Nyssa’s intelligence and
compassion.
Loups Garoux - A love affair for Turlough, and
an exploration of his darker side. Oh, and werewolves.
Eye of the Scorpion - An action-packed role
for Peri, and a rich, vivid atmosphere when the Doctor meets
the ‘lost’ Pharaoh, Erimemushinteperem.
The Holy Terror - The DWM award-winning
debut of Dalek writer Rob Shearman. And the
companion in this one’s a penguin!
Project: Twilight - A gripping, grisly
horror-fest set in present-day London, with Evelyn struggling
to save poor Cassie from a sinister fate.
The One Doctor - The potential of Mel
fully realised in this barking mad, brilliantly funny epic. Even Matt Lucas from Little Britain is in this one. And Christopher Biggins...
The Harvest - A near-future thriller, and the return
of the Doctor’s old enemy, the… oh, see for yourself! Told from the
perspective of new boy, Hex, this is the ideal jumping on
point for the audio adventures…
Terror Firma - Charley and
C’rizz must battle the combined horrors of Daleks, Davros,
the Doctor’s dark past… and a rather drunken party.
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