The Sixth Doctor and Mel are appalled to discover that their good names are being blackened by a pair of imposters.
The Sixth Doctor and Mel are appalled to discover that their good names are being blackened by a pair of imposters.
THE ONE DOCTOR
The decision to venture into pure comedy for the 2001 BF Christmas release was risky: such a genre is rare in Doctor Who and attempts in that direction have had a variable reception through the years. Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman’s The One Doctor, however, defies any negative preconceptions and delivers hilarious results — but despite this, The One Doctor is not a masterpiece and its critical reception seems somewhat overblown.
The driving conceit of the play — that of actors in the future using the Doctor’s identity to swindle helpless planets out of lots of money — is brilliant; its description as “the vulgar end of time” is perfect. Indeed, it’s the humor that derives from this conceit that works the best: the Doctor/Banto exchanges are hilarious, the interactions of the two companions and two Doctors equally so, and the not-too-bright inhabitants of Generios amuse as well. There’s a lot of Douglas Adams-esque humor here — arguing with the alien intelligence over the definitions of its units of time, for example — but it all works extremely well and the listener should have a constant smile on his or her face.
Unfortunately, the other set pieces don’t hold up nearly as well. For example, while the Assemblers are hilarious, the situation put to Mel and Banto is not. Maybe it’s not funny to Americans, I don’t know, but listening to two people assemble shelving is boring, no matter how impossible the task may be. Similarly, the Weakest Link parody just drags and drags — given that the show is fairly funny to begin with, there’s not much there to lampoon. And the situation with the Jelloid has its funny moments, but it too goes on far too long, and by the time the Jelloid is singing I’m contemplating skipping to the next track.
This is not to say the play is bad, of course, and one of its main redeeming factors is the performance of Colin Baker. His Doctor is a perfect straight man to Banto’s antics and Baker plays this to the hilt — but he’s also very good at needling and ridiculing the opposition and he gets more than one opportunity to do this as well. I realize that I’ve never given anything but a positive review about Colin’s performances — this should really tell you something.
After her revelatory performance in The Fires of Vulcan, it’s interesting to see Bonnie Langford right back into comedic Doctor Who. Of course, this isn’t the over the top stuff of season 24, and likewise Mel isn’t nearly as loud as before. Langford has excellent comic timing — though her “Bushes” speech falls flat — and her exasperation with Banto Zame is almost more entertaining than that of the Doctor himself. It’s thus unsurprising that another Doctor/Mel team was used for the subsequent year’s comedy release.
Christopher Biggins’ turn as Banto Zame is excellent — his fake Doctor is almost convincing even to the listener while remaining funny. Same goes for Clare Buckfield, whose Sally-Ann sounds almost identical to Mel when she’s in-character. Matt Lucas almost steals the show as the Jelloid, Nicholas Pegg is funny as Mentos, but the real show-stealers are Mark Wright and Alistair Lock as the guards — their (few) appearances had me laughing out loud every time.
It should come as no surprise that the production on The One Doctor is impeccable. Alistair Lock, aside from his acting talent, had a number of effects to come up with and they’re all convincing. His score fits the tone perfectly. Gary Russell directs again and brings it all together well — true, there are some parts that drag, but at no point does The One Doctor sound self-indulgent or unfunny.
McGann season aside, 2001 was a very solid year for Big Finish, and though I personally would not rate The One Doctor as the year’s best release, it’s unsurprising that the surveys give it that reputation. Repeated journeys into the realm of comedy might not fare as well, but Roberts and Hickman keep the story relatively fresh throughout and rarely cease being entertaining. It’s hard to say whether comedy Doctor Who can be better than this, but this is certainly nothing to be ashamed of — quite the opposite, in fact.
Highly recommended.
8/10