4th March 2013
The Northcote Library kept us eager Doctor Who fans, fans of the Splendid Chaps podcast waiting in the 15 degree cold weather outside the library, right up until 4:30 and a bit pm. Why? No idea. They’re probably just into acting like the Master in Castrovalava and we’re all their Adric.
Petra, following up her appearances as/within a Dalek during the MICF walked into the start of this podcast in a spacesuit with the audio of Proper Dave saying “Hey, who turned out the lights?” appropriately from the Doctor Who TV story “Silence in the Library”.
The guests for the podcast were Katie Purvis and Dave Hoskin. Hoskin has written two Doctor Who-universe stories one “iNtRUsioNs” in the Doctor Who short story anthology; Short Trips: Transmissions edited by Richard Salter and one “Writing in Green” in the Bernice Summerfield short story anthology Something Changed edited by Simon Guerrier both are published by Big Finish Productions. Although only ‘Something Changed’ is still in print.
There were several reading moody readings; from novelisations, short stories (Hoskin’s “iNtRUsioNs”) Virgin New Adventure novels (“Damaged Goods” by Russell T. Davies) and Doctor Who Quiz Books. The podcast closed with a dramatic reading by Lawrence Leung of the the Make Your Own Adventure novel “Crisis in Space” by Michael Holt.
There was much discussion and praise for Terrance Dicks “Uncle Terry” and his novelisations and his many stock phrases that he used to describe the Doctor and how the TARDIS sounds (a wheeze groaning sound).
Personally I’m more a fan of the comics which describe the TARDIS as going ‘Vworp-Vworp’. That at least seems like an attempt to render what the TARDIS’s materialisation sound is in prose.
Aside from being mentioned by Petra in her introduction the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures and Past Doctor Adventures weren’t mentioned during the podcast. Something of a disappointment as I’m something of a fan of those.
The Virgin New Adventures were mentioned, but weren’t really discussed as much as I’d hoped. These were novels that the publisher (Virgin Books) described as “too broad and deep for the small screen”, these were novels that were written for a then adult (though young, but not “young adult”) audience. These novels included sex, violence and ‘mature language’.
These stories were gone into a little bit, but some of the context for them was missing a little bit.
It was still funny going through the various ways Kate Orman (the only female writer who wrote for the Virgin New Adventures) tortures the Seventh Doctor in each of the stories he appears in written by her. Including the fairly graphic time when in The Room With No Doors he holding a baby, and is then shot with an arrow, with the arrow going through the baby’s head and embedding in between his ribs, putting him in a coma, but his companion thinks him dead so buries him. When he awakens he has to dig out of his own grave.
Not all New Adventures were that graphic, there’s Transit, which has the word “Fuck” in it; 10 times, it was the first novel to use that word.
This wasn’t mentioned during the podcast recording.
They did however mention the planet Dildo, one of many spelling mistakes and factual errors in “The Doctors - 30 Years of Time Travel” by Adrian Rigelsford.
There was some interesting and funny analysis of some of the novels and how they pre-empted the post-2005 TV series. Dave Hoskin’s comments on “Damaged Goods” that it basically has all the elements of RTD’s Doctor Who isn’t new (I’ve read similar things before) but just how he commented on it made me think anew about it.
The Doctor Who Quiz Book of Dinosaurs reading was hilarious, as Hoskin commented it sounded like Tegan was on LSD. It clearly sounds like Michael Holt who wrote it had been given a (very) brief description of the Fifth Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa, then just wrote this quiz book from there. As all the Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa are so very out of character, the internal area of the TARDIS and its control room don’t resemble the TV series and Tegan is very out of character.
It was nice to see at the recording so many people who’re fans of the books, as while I’ve always been a fan of Doctor Who for a long time, like Ben McKenzie (one of the hosts of Splendid Chaps) the New Adventures and Eighth Doctor Adventures are what made me a bigger fan. These are the stories that continued to tell the Doctor Who story after the series finished in 1989 with Survival and then was given a zap with the paddles in 1996 with the TV Movie staring Paul McGann. It was said during the podcast if you read the New Adventures and the Eighth Doctor Adventures there is less of a gap, story development wise between Survival, the TV movie and Rose.
The novels developed so many different ideas and their slightly edgier existence meant that they could explore more mature themes that once stood outside of the TV show, while other concepts like paradoxes, bi-sexual companions and the destruction of Gallifrey was done in the novels as it was thought that was something that would never happen in the TV show.
Again, like previous shows this one seemed too short, despite going for 1 hour 30 minutes or so. There was so much more that could have been covered, the annuals were very briefly skipped over, Bernice Summerfield’s development from companion to main character wasn’t mentioned or how she and Fitz Kreiner are the longest appearing prose-based characters in Doctor Who’s history. I know with so much stuff that’s been published it’s difficult to focus on everything and still keep it relevant to those who’re not as widely read as others. Although, from looking at Ben McKenzie’s twitter feed, he seemed to have read and brought along a lot more books than were actually mentioned in the podcast. Having been to all the previous podcast recordings (except the one in Adelaide) they do seem to prepare a lot of things to talk about and then just run out of time because the guests are very interesting on their own and have interesting things to say. Which is pretty much similar to many other podcasts I listen to.
I am still looking forward to the the next recording Five/Fear and intend to attend all the other podcasts this year (that take place in Victoria). They (John Richards and Ben McKenzie) have said that Splendid Chaps is a series of 11 podcasts that they’re doing this year and this was episode 7, however last episode, episode 6 was actually two shows joined together. They also mentioned a Doctor Who and Food themed episode as well, which might also fall outside of the 11 previously mentioned. They also mentioned it possibly being 26 episodes rather than 11.
We shall, it seems have to wait and see, how many episodes there will actually be of this podcast, whose projected episodes seems to grow each time I see it.