Tony’s away with the
fairies.
Written
by Simon A Forward.
Read
by Bonnie Langford.
Doctor Who and fairy
tales. What could possibly go wrong?
Not, as it turns out, an
awful lot if you trust your Time Lord fairy tale to Simon A Forward.
The Short Trips are a
playground, where writers can do almost anything, so long as they can craft
their anything into the time run-time of a short story. They’ve been used to
add depth and weight to companion characterisation, to show vital moments in
the Doctor’s life that have never been seen on screen, to add texture to the
Doctor Who universe, and to even show the kind of adventure that is commonplace
on the Tardis, but still has a threat level that gets the pulse racing.
Forward does all that and
more besides in his tale of Mel and the fairy queen of darkness, the with-queen
from the other side of the mirror.
Mel-Evolent starts with
scenes that both perfectly encapsulate the 80s, technicolour vibe of Bonnie
Langford’s time with the Sixth Doctor, and gently satirizes the keenness with
which both Colin Baker and Langford used to take to the pantomime stage. ‘Once
upon a space and time…’ it begins – you’re almost hoping for an ‘Oh no it
isn’t!’ thrown in, but Forward moves things along quickly – a trip to the
Tardis theatre (oh yes, it has a theatre now), gives us a declaiming Doctor, a
costume bundle, a stab of nostalgia and then, rapidly, a shiver of danger as
Evil-Mel looks back at them from a dark – not to say a black – mirror.
Forward’s pacing of the
plot here is impressive, as the genuine danger to the here-and-now in which our
heroes exist is quickly explained and escalated, and the Mel in the mirror,
looking for all the world like a particular horn-headed Disney witch-queen,
sends evil, misshapen dwarfish minions to devour the Tardis.
While the Doctor stays
behind to Do Something Clever With That Pigging Exercise Bike, it’s up to Mel
to dress up like her Inner Badass and go to do battle with her doppelganger to
save the day.
The temptation, when writing
a Doctor Who fairy tale, is to only go so far, to go along obvious lines, or to
allow the Doctor to stay in fairy
tale territory too long, to the point of believing the myth, rather than giving
some kind of anchored science fantasy explanation (New Who, Series 5, we’re
looking at you).
Mel-Evolent does none of
those things, but fuses Doctor Who and fairy tale lore in a new, inventive way
that pushes beyond the ordinary, and makes you realise the power of a really
good writer, to deliver things you would never have thought of. The actual
threat in this story, the what of it and why of it, is sublime, and you won’t
see it coming till a heartbeat before it arrives – Forward gives you just that
long to realise what it is, and just enough description to trigger your
nostalgia, before moving…erm…forward in terms of plotting and emotional punch.
Forward delivers a story that goes beyond traditional fairy tales, to really
nail the Doctor Whoness of his story to your consciousness, leaving you well
and truly satisfied at the end of it all. What’s more, there’s a quality to the
actual descriptions of things like ‘liquid space’ that make you stop and clap
the business of writing, the ability creative people have to go beyond the
workaday and open your mind to things you never thought you’d see.
Bonnie Langford was one of
the most poorly served companion-actresses in Classic Who, from her two-line
character description, to her frequent reduction to boggling, screaming and
asking ‘What’s that, Doctor?’ in scripts which left her little else to do.
Big Finish has worked for
years to give her more to work with as an actress, and this Short Trip punches
above its run-time as far as expansion of character is concerned. Langford for
her part takes to this opportunity to go to the Dark Side, and especially when
she comes face to face with her mirror-side doppelganger, there’s a sense of
visual and vocal differentiation that’s very easy to imagine on screen. In fact,
the combination of Forward’s descriptive prose for some areas of this trip into
a weird realm, and Langford’s assured but Mel-breathy delivery, lets you lose
yourself in the visuals of this audio short very easily, and rewards you for
doing so with one of the more immersive Short Trips in recent times.
Overall, this is a
barnstorming Doctor Who fairy tale, and among the best examples of its kind,
because it goes that extra mile on every level – the story doesn’t rest on
familiar fairy tale territory but pushes beyond to give you imaginative
surprises that make you think about them even after the story’s over. It takes
Mel to new places, where you wouldn’t ordinarily imagine her going, and so
proves a constant but little-regarded element of her nature as a person – when
faced with necessity, Mel pushes down her fears, rolls up her sleeves and gets
on with the job at hand to the best of her ability.
So – a magical mystery
tour to the land beyond the mirror, a strengthening of the character of one of
Doctor Who’s most poorly-served companions, a Doctor Who fairy tale that merges
real-world threat with fantastical imagery, and all in the space, and for the
price, of a Short Trip. It’s been a while since Forward wrote a Big Finish
story. On the strength of this, it shouldn’t be so long till he writes his
next.
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