‘The sound of trumpets echoed up the misty valley, a harsh challenge, unworldly and defiant. The possibility of fresh snow spiced the air. Leaning on his stick, the adventurer picked his way between the rocks and down the mountainside. His ship sat behind him, a black casket squat against the snow line. Again the clarion echoed out of the mist (elephant trumpets sound!), and then the adventurer saw the army, grey shapes emerging from the mist. Like an armoured serpent bristling with spears, riders and foot soldiers marching six abreast, and great alien beasts, ears flapping with wooden turrets on their backs, glinting with more weaponry.’
There are different ways to rebel, different ways to thumb your nose at the future that other people have mapped out for you and different ways to explore the universe. One way is to leave, get away and wander. Another is instead to become a writer of scientific and historical romances – An Adventure in Space and Time in fact – to wander a virtual universe from the comfort of home. A universe of the mind, where you could research the history of a planet like Earth and write stories of an adventurer who visits there to meet Hannibal Barca and his Carthaginian army on an alpine pass, but maybe, since you are he author of this world, you could just improve or embellish the story ever so slightly – for example to encompass talking Elephants…
So before there was a new series of Doctor Who, when the old one was 40 years young, there was an anniversary year that sometimes felt more like a wake. Mark Gattis spoke recently about going earlier that year to the Dapol exhibition in Llangollen, sitting in a slightly dilapidated Bessie and hearing a child asking what a Dalek was – and thinking that was that. Well it was at least until Friday, 26th September, 2003 when the BBC confirmed that the programme would be coming back. Filling the gap ably this year was Big Finish, who had first obtained the Doctor Who licence in 1999. 2003 had some great releases – ‘Jubilee’, ‘Omega, “Master’, ‘Davros’ and ‘Scherzo’, but also a highly anticipated, but ultimately disappointing anniversary release – ‘Zagreus’ following in the wake of ‘Neverland’ from the previous year – where the story of the Eighth Doctor and Charley Pollard came to what seemed like a shattering conclusion.
That year they decided in addition to their usual schedule to cast their own Doctor’s in a series of ‘Unbound’ plays. The series starts brilliantly (this story, ‘Sympathy for the Devil’, ‘Full Fathom Five’ and ‘Deadline’) and tails off alarmingly (‘He jests at scars’ and ‘Exile’ are both dreadful). The idea of the series is essentially a ‘what if?’ – in this case ‘what if the First Doctor never left Gallifrey’. The alternative first Doctor is played by the late, lamented Geoffrey Bayldon of Catweazle, the Crowman and Organon in Creature from the Pit. Long a fan favourite for the role and someone who apparently was in line for the part back in 1963 and turned it down – so the casting is a ‘what if?’ as well as the story. Despite being only being 40 back then he was used to playing old men – by the time ‘Auld Mortality’ was recorded he was already the perfect age for the First Doctor.
Adventures in Space and Time?
So for me the very essence of the Doctor is that he left Gallifrey to see the universe, to travel. I really don’t really need more than that, he felt stifled and limited by his home world and saw an opportunity in a rickety, wonderful old TARDIS to escape and see the wonders of the world outside of the capitol. That is actually good enough for me – I understand that, it appeals to wanderlust that I also have within me, that has taken me to some amazing places. The mystery, well I find that I actually don’t care too much about that. Lungbarrow does a decent enough job of showing the Doctor’s home and why he might want to escape it, so does Deadly Assassin – in fact every time we’ve seen Time Lords (since the Monk at least), you can see why he’d want to leave the boring bunch of stuffed shirts – whether they are like crappy sci-fi gods or like a cross between the old men of the Vatican, University of Oxford or Langley, Virginia. I understand wanting to see the universe, running away from responsibility and boredom – that will do for me. I’ve never understood the need for the mystery of the ‘Cartmel Masterplan’ (not that I actually mind it, I really don’t – it is at least interesting and “The Other’ is a satisfying and suitably complex version of ‘before the Doctor’) or all that guff about ‘The Hybrid’ or heaven forbid ‘Timeless Children‘. He left home to wander the universe and see it, The Master left to conquer it or watch it burn – there you go – works for me.
Anyway, where ‘Auld Mortality’ is very clever – is that in this alternative timeline the Doctor stays at home – but even then he still finds a way to explore the universe even when denied his exit, escaping the confinement of Time lord society in a different way. Although a reclusive writer living in rooms beneath the capitol, he uses a ‘possibility generator’ to explore alternative versions of events – walking into other worlds to research his books. ‘An adventure in possibility and imagination’ instead of ‘space and time’ Where Marc Platt is really, really clever here – is that the Doctor walks into what could have been one of his own adventures from the early 60’s – meeting Hannibal on an Alpine pass as he heads into Italy to attack Rome. He also adds the twist of the Doctor being able to use ‘artistic licence’ in this world – in some ways a critique of the lack of historical accuracy in fiction and Doctor Who. So the Gauls have the wrong hair colour, it snows too early in Hannibal’s trek and rather wonderfully his aide de camp and confidante is a talking elephant called Surus. I cannot tell you how much I love that – Surus is brilliant, he’s been with Hannibal since he was a youngster and has been by his side since then, like a gruff Sergeant Major mirroring Badger’s relationship with the Doctor.
The possibility tree
‘Look down there. Do you see the fires of the Aurora Temporalis? The anvils of heaven from where all time springs.
And down there – the frost fairs of Ice Asgard, the Winter Star, where you can skate through the sky and carve sculptures in the clouds.
And there, glittering torchlight on the canals of Venice – murder, intrigue and madrigals. Cities and jungles, alien kings and alien creatures, always darkness and light in perpetual battle. It draws you in – the possibilities blind you with diversity. Far safer to stay at home.’
‘There are other Gallifrey’s that I’ve seen too. Gallifrey’s where the rulers are as steeped in blood as we are steeped in .. dust. Where the world was cursed and the children died
or sorcery ruled instead of science. But always, always Gallifrey watched, always did nothing while the universe burned.
And once like a mirror I thought I saw myself, spiralling between worlds in an old TARDIS, just as I had thought to do so long ago. Imagine that, but I can’t can I, they won’t let me?’
So, a lot of ‘Auld Mortality is about the choices we make, the alternatives and possibilities – not just for the Doctor, but also Susan and even Ordinal-general Quences (the Doctor’s dead relative from ‘Lungbarrow‘). There is a moment when the Doctor asks ‘supposing I had turned left, rather than right’ – sound familiar? This also bleeds into the world of Hannibal – in the scenes where he asks the Doctor’s advice on which one the 6 Alpine routes to take – each one potentially leading to victory or disaster. In the end Hannibal survives, but loses a lot of his army (14,000 men and half the battle elephants) in the crossing – blaming the author for these events and the choices made.
‘Another two star systems have fallen to the Thalek empire’
And it isn’t just Gallifrey were choices have been made and different routes taken. In this universe on Skaro it is the Thals instead of the Dals or Kaleds who have become ‘Thaleks’, without the Doctor they are creating their own empire and the Doctor regrets the fact the nobody has done anything about it. The universe still very much needs the Doctor.
More than just choices though – the story is about possibilities and imagination, the ability of a writer to create worlds and images and characters and stories. The author is the ‘possibility generator’ – the device at the heart of this story. There is a glorious moment when the Doctor realises that the black casket he thinks is a TARDIS is just an empty box – ‘ a literary conceit to get my adventurer from one place to another’. The author becomes aware of creating his own world and in thinking it through, transports himself and Susan from the Alps to his own scented Rose Garden – maybe where me meet the Doctor in the ‘Three Doctors and “Five Doctors’. Reality and imagination become blurred to the point that we often no longer know which are ‘real’ and which imagination or fiction– perhaps none of this is real.
What of the Doctor himself? Well Geoffrey Bayldon is superb. There are a few echoes of Hartnell – more so than either Richard Hurndall or David Bradley. He has the lightness of touch that Hartnell also had – we get the fussing and the indignation and the gleeful chuckling of delight at his own cleverness – for example when he first hears Surus speak having forgot that he’s written that. He is also his own character though – an insight into what Bayldon’s Doctor might have been like. The story also allows us some beautiful scenes between this Doctor and Susan. He hasn’t seen her since she was very young and he left and disowned his family and the house. She was the only family member that he really loved and saw potential in.
So although ‘Auld Mortality’ encompasses elements from Lungbarrow (Quences, Badger etc.), Susan is very definitely the Doctor’s granddaughter here – not ‘The Other’s’ – so it is even an alternative version of Lungbarrow. She forces her way into the possibility generator, into the Alpine pass, to speak with the Doctor and there is a beautifully played scene where she talks with the Doctor and explains he is now a great grandfather. This is echoed in a later play that I will hopefully cover soon. The Doctor explains that he wanted to take her away and had his eye on an old TARDIS to escape with, but realised he couldn’t – just lovely.
‘Robes of night that drink the light’
Ordinal-General Quences from ‘Lungbarrow’ is still hanging around like a bad smell, representing cloying, oppressive tradition and old Gallifrey. He is still a ghostly image of his long-dead self (Susan went to his interment in the family vault many years ago) and has transferred his mind into Badger (the servant he gave to the Doctor) rather than the matrix, to carry on influencing and trying to run the Doctor’s life from beyond the grave. He still regrets the loss of prodigy ‘The Doctor’ – the only family member with potential while he was alive, but the fact that it is Susan who is close to becoming President herself has passed him by – he realises that he backed the wrong horse all along. Quences is also the ‘Auld Mortality’ of the title – the shadowy Time Lord in the background in presidential inauguration ceremonies, tasked with reminding Presidents of their own mortality and frailty, such that they don’t get to big for their boots. In this guise, in his black robes – he is a direct representation of death and mortality. Darren Nesbitt is wonderful in this and a very apt link to the First Doctor via Tegana and ‘Marco Polo’ – a story that is echoed in the story via Hannibal’s journey towards Rome.
‘The possibilities are limitless’ or ‘An exciting adventure with the Thaleks’
Oh the ending – it is just wonderful. Reality and imagination become jumbled up and during Susan’s presidential investiture, Hannibal and his elephants, fresh from victories at Ticinus and Trebia rivers, gloriously invade the capitol! Surus slays Badger (pity I rather liked him) and Auld Mortality/Quences fades away – freeing the Doctor and Susan from his malign influence. The Doctor’s rooms (like Chronotis’s years later) are revealed to be the TARDIS that he was about to escape in before Quences stopped him – he has been there all this time, stopped at the very moment of his escape. Choices and possibilities again – now free of Quences, the Doctor can escape once more, Susan can too – she might go with him or stay as president – a touching goodbye before years of responsibility or the freedom of a whole universe to travel?
The end sequence where the Doctor sees all the possibilities stretching out before them is so beautifully evocative of Doctor Who in the early 60’s that it is very affecting. We have ‘a merry Othermas to all of you at home’ – I don’t need to explain that reference do I? Also ‘It was a foggy night on Barnes Common’ – where presumably Ian Chesterton has snagged his best sports jacket on his way to an interview at Donneby’s the rocket component company in Reigate (will be mentioned again soon)! I love this idea – where Doctor Who could be an eccentric British inventor from the 1960’s or the Third doctor could be living in a cottage and driving a car called Betsy or where Jo Grant joins him in a story called ‘The Doomsday Weapon’ or where the Doctor and Jamie meet walking scarecrows or Doctor Who travels with his grandchildren John and Gillian battling ‘The Trods’ or the Doctor travels with Sharon or Evelyn Smythe or Erimem or Charley Pollard or Izzy or Sir Justin. All of those possibilities…
‘Auld Mortality’ is a beautiful story – imaginative, lyrical, clever, moving and silly – Doctor Who really. It is beautifully acted by all concerned and a shout out for the sound design – the music is wonderful and the trumpeting of elephants that herald Hannibal’s army arriving is so evocative. The story strikes a chord with me right now – vanishing into world of fantasy and infinite possibilities with no responsibility is a tempting prospect. There is a line in ‘The Prisoner’ (‘Dance of the Dead’ – Mary Morris from Kinda is talking to No. 6) where No. 2 says ‘if you insist on living a dream you may be taken for mad.’, ‘I like my dream.’, ‘Then you are mad.’ Maybe it is time to travel for a while or maybe retire and keep bees or radio-tag sharks or maybe write my own scientific romances or not. Which way to turn, so many possibilities? Maybe while I think about it, I’ll have one more cup of tea and watch an episode of ‘City of Death’…
I’ll leave you with the ending as narrated by all the cast members in turn– showing all the infinite possibilities and alternatives. If you love the First Doctor in all his forms, I challenge you not to be moved:
‘And with the wheezing sound of an asthmatic elephant, the ship dissolved like vapour in the breeze.
…
The teachers stopped the car and the headlights lit the name on the gates – I.M.Foreman
…
Time opened like an eye to the departing ship, light surged around it as it cut a path through the void
…
It was a foggy night on Barnes Common
…
Then the Doctor saw the opposing Thalek Armies, silver against black, and the air between them was full of fire – “Annihilate! Annihilate! Annihilate!”
…
“Cigar, Doctor?”, “Not for me, thank you, Winston!”
…
and the ship was now disguised as an old tree stump, a golden minaret, a wardrobe, revolving doors, an ancient black sarcophagus
…
“and a Merry Othermas to all of you at home too!”
Goodnight all. Where to next? Maybe take the long way round, all those possibilities, we’ll see.
A Journal of Impossible Things 