Doctor Who_ Lungbarrow - Marc Platt [150]
Twenty years ago, when I was writing articles for such luminaries as Stephen James Walker, David Howe and Gary Russel , I used to say that the Fifth Doctor was the only one you'd feel comfortable inviting home for tea. The rest would be an absolute (and joyous) nightmare. That was years before Sylvester arrived, but here he is proving the point. This is the Doctor as subversive, the way I like him. No wonder his Cousins find him so deeply aggravating and embarrassing. He's perfectly capable of behaving himself, but like the little boy in the Duchess's lullaby, "he only does it to annoy, because he knows it teases." Even the Fifth Doctor isn't so house-trained these days.
Gallifrey's most dysfunctional family: Surely the Doctor can't be comparing Springfield's finest family to his own?
Marge may have the equivalent of Innocet's hair, but otherwise the Simpsons are paragons of virtue in comparison.
I wanted the Family to have something real y interesting for this festive dinner. That's probably why Ace, sorry Dorothée, went to Marks and Spencers.
Hoorah for Satthralope. No enemy of the Doctor could ever set about him the way she does. It's that family thing again.
236
The little (or rather big) puppet play is another chance for a resume of the history of Rassilon's coming to power, with guest appearances from the other two members of his ruling triumvirate, Omega and ...the Other. The play is a hangover from Gallifrey's more cultural y exotic past, before the Time Lords' grey bureaucratic, civil service mentality set in. It's all deeply symbolic and colourful in a heady mix of styles from Kabuki and Bunraku puppet theatre to Morris dancing and the York Mystery plays. I've filled out some of the stage details since the first performance in the book version, including an extra dance routine and some more pointed audience reaction. Next year it visits the Edinburgh Festival, before a short season at Sadler's Wells.
Chapter 27
Just for a change, this chapter shares a title with one of Alan Ayckbourn's three The Norman Conquests plays -
another farce set in a dining room.
Captain Redred makes his transmat journey from the Deathday to the present in what seems to him like less than no time, but for everyone else is 673 Gallifreyan years. By the time he gets a grasp on what's happened to him, he'll probably need counsel ing.
Satthralope's starter course of fish tongues links back to the Old Time. According to Time's Crucible, the line of Pythias, ancient seers who once ruled Gal ifrey, existed on an exclusive diet of fish tongues. The final Pythia threw a bowl of tongues at an envoy of Rassilon who plotted her overthrow. Although the Pythia's followers left Gallifrey after her death and founded the Sisterhood of nearby Karn, the role of wise women at home is preserved and honoured by the Housekeepers, who in some small way, still echo the once great power of their predecessors.
The Doctor's tirade against his family and account of his adventures, resurfaced in revised form in the Probability Tree scene in Auld Mortality. It's part of the Doctor's credo. His raison d'etre was to see the rich diversity of the Universe. Ironical y, this freedom is exactly what was denied to the rest of his family as a result of his actions.
The 'Happy Name Day' moment was another occasion when the characters took over the story. Ace, sorry Dorothée, just climbed up on her chair and started singing in defiant support of her best friend. I thought that was very sweet. It also suggests that the Doctor's chosen companions are his true family, rather than the motley crew of Cousins with whom he got lumbered at birth.
The Vatican was obviously one of Robert Holmes's sources for the Time Lords - witness al those Cardinals, and the outgoing President in Deadly Assassin, who is a dead ringer for the old Pope John. So I thought it only appropriate that the correct term for the severing of links between Lungbarrow and the Matrix