What mystery does the forbidden planet of Endarra hold? The Eighth Doctor, Charley and C’rizz will discover the truth – if they survive.
What mystery does the forbidden planet of Endarra hold? The Eighth Doctor, Charley and C’rizz will discover the truth – if they survive.
SCAREDY CAT
With the 2005 renaissance fully underway, the next production to emerge from the BF production house was Will Shindler’s Scaredy Cat. Shindler’s previous script, The Twilight Kingdom, was a solid but unspectactular runaround, and Scaredy Cat goes down precisely this same path, proving an unimpressive Doctor Who story that presents a number of interesting concepts but fails to explore any of them in any depth.
I’ve never been big on Gaia mythology, and so I wasn’t particularly stimulated by this play. Right from the beginning, the Doctor is on about “morphogenic fields” of planets, which apparently cause ideas to magically transport themselves between different animals. Planets evolve personalities, too, and so it is dangerous to journey to new planets, lest they become corrupted — apparently all Time Lords are forbidden from doing so. But if we just accept this as the nature of the play, there are still problems which become evident. I accept that the planet manifested itself through the avatar of the little girl Galayna, and how Flood became the “opposition,” but they end up being archetypes thrown at each other without any sort of thematic support, leading to an ultimately uninteresting confrontation.
Indeed, “uninteresting” is the word of the day, as nothing is developed. The back cover says “C’rizz learns that some tragedies can’t be averted,” and that one-sentence summary contains all the relevant depth of the scene in question. Essentially, the Doctor says “Nope, can’t interfere!” and leaves, and with only the barest minimum of agonizing, C’rizz decides to betray him and interfere anyway. Fortunately, the Doctor saw this coming from the beginning — but the listener didn’t, as none of the characters are given motiviations beyond the barest minimums. The “conflict” seems like it was thrown in at the last minute — entire stories are regularly written around the importance of preserving the timeline, and a marked philosophical difference between the Doctor and C’rizz should not be dismissed in five minutes.
Furthermore, what’s going on with the title? To whom does it refer? I suspect the answer is “nobody,” and that it’s the title simply because it matches the girl’s catchphrase — a catchphrase, incidentally, which has nothing to do with the content of the play, and proves annoying rather than creepy.
A further complaint of mine rests with the running time. I have no problem with shorter Doctor Who stories, and I think it’s refreshing to hear a story check in at 75 minutes. However, that much material can fit on one CD, and as such there are no excuses for releasing it on two and ratcheting up the price. If the play was released with all the content on disc one, and disc two blank — which it could have been — there would have been riots. There still should be.
The regulars are, for the most part, uninteresting. McGann gives a very subdued portrayal of the Doctor, verging on sounding bored at times, and didn’t hold my attention as he normally would. Charley has absolutely nothing to do, and her role in the script is every inch the 1960s Doctor Who companion — “What is it, Doctor?” and being locked up with the bad guy. India Fisher does okay with this, but even she sounds bored, and as I’ve said before, once Charley was established as a complex character, it’s impossible to take her seriously when she’s reduced to this state. I liked C’rizz, however — we continue to see sides of his personality emerge depending on who he’s with, and his association with Flood in this play brings us ever closer to the revelation that we know is coming. Conrad Westmaas continues his tradition of solid performances.
As for the supporting characters, we’ve got the traditional trio of scientists: the harried leader, the unsure female support, and the male support who enjoys being the “muscle” a bit too much. Rosalind Blessed, Arthur Bostrom, and Spencer McLaren are adequate in these roles, but none rises above the material. Shindler’s introduction of Flood is brilliant, using him as a type of narrator throughout the play, but eventually he’s revealed as a standard madman. His contention that he’s a protestor isn’t believable for a single second. Michael Chance has fun in the role, and I believe he made the right decision in not playing it way over the top, but there still isn’t much here. Lastly, Linda Bartram is woefully miscast as Galayna, as she doesn’t sound at all like a child.
The production, as always, is top-notch, starting with Gareth Jenkins and Andy Hardwick’s sound design. The crowds of natives are represented well, and their assault on the compound is nicely loud and frightening. Hardwick’s music is quite good as well, giving a surprising degree of atmosphere to such a fast script. Nigel Fairs’ direction obviously keeps the play moving, though I do wonder if it wouldn’t have been better to add more down time and let the play breathe. The cover is vaguely interesting, but having the figures standing astride Earth is more than a little disconcerting.
This review has been overwhelmingly negative, but I should state that I didn’t find the play to be irredeemable. I’m upset because Scaredy Cat could have been so much more, but instead it ended up so lightweight as to be almost completely forgettable. It’s not a bad diversion for 75 minutes, but after 75 releases, it’s unusual to release a play whose closest counterpart is Red Dawn.
Decent, but forgettable.
6/10