The Doctor and Evelyn brave the perils of the high-seas as they cross swords with the fearsome Red Jasper. And is the Doctor really going to sing?
The Doctor and Evelyn brave the perils of the high-seas as they cross swords with the fearsome Red Jasper. And is the Doctor really going to sing?
DOCTOR WHO AND THE PIRATES, OR: THE LASS THAT LOST A SAILOR
For better or worse, 2003 marked an almost wholly experimental year for Big Finish’s Doctor Who releases. The first real departure from the norm, though, came with the April release of “Doctor Who and the Pirates,” a Jacqueline Rayner script billed as a Doctor Who musical but functioning instead as a masterpiece of narrative style and framing devices.
It’s rare that a production matches an intelligent script with perfect direction, but “the Pirates” accomplishes this with relative ease. Dealing with Evelyn’s desire to avert the suicide of Sally, one of her students, the story involves the Doctor and Evelyn arriving at Sally’s apartment to tell her their own story of their recent adventures on the high seas. Rather than lapsing into a pure flashback story for four episodes, however, the script uses the apartment as a frame, constantly reminding the listener that the events on display are not objectively viewed but are rather seen through the eyes (or heard through the ears, I suppose) of the two narrators. As such, the story can be prone to exaggeration — Red Jasper walking on two wooden legs, for example — or confusion: the Doctor “dying” early on only to be resurrected when Evelyn remembers that he wasn’t the heroic sacrifice. But rather than using this style purely for comedic effect, Rayner weaves the variations in tone into the characters’ personalities: when Evelyn is troubled by a particular event, she either leaves it out or surrounds it with humor in an attempt to ameliorate its effects.
This leads to the third episode, the musical. Generally, I cannot stand musicals because they don’t make any sense: why do the characters break into song for no reason every five minutes? Where do the choreographed dance numbers come from? However, “the Pirates” avoids this conflict because the narrator, the Doctor, is aware of the cliches of the musical genre and inserts them into his own story. There’s also a scene where Sally herself begins to sing — in this one case, the world of the pirate narrative bleeds together with the “real” world, but it’s so natural and so effective that it does not jar at all. The lyrics are brilliant as well — yes, they’re just rewritten Gilbert & Sullivan songs, but nothing sounds forced or unnatural.
“The Pirates” served as a new challenge for Colin Baker’s Doctor: never before has the sixth Doctor been forced into such a sympathetic role. It’s somewhat ironic that his most mature, touching moments come when he needs to comfort Evelyn, rather than his other, younger, companions, but this is the first major case of that trend and Baker pulls it off magnificently. His character shifts back and forth between arrogant and subdued, often in hilarious fashion: this is really a stellar performance, as Baker plays the Doctor both as Evelyn sees him and as he sees himself and manages to show a significant difference between the two.
This is Evelyn’s story, however, as for the first time here she is brought face to face with the extent and danger of human insanity. Yes, the writers seem to enjoy putting Evelyn through the emotional wringer, but in Project: Twilight and later in Real Time, she witnesses the cruelty of vampires and Cybermen. Here, Red Jasper, insane as he may be, is still human, and his madness and sadism towards Jem and the rest are naturally more unnerving because of it. Maggie Stables gives arguably her best performance thus far, switching from her own suffering to a desire to help Sally — outside of the books and the new series, it’s hard to argue that we’ve ever had a companion this well-developed or well-played.
Bill Oddie headlines the supporting cast, and he gives an excellent performance as Red Jasper. As the story begins, he’s a typical “arr”ing pirate captain, but as it continues he becomes all the more serious and evil, and Oddie’s performance shifts to match. Helen Goldwyn is perfectly convincing as Sally, coming across as sympathetic without ever becoming whiny, and she has a beautiful singing voice to boot. Dan Barratt is solid as Jem as well, while Nicholas Pegg is absolutely hilarious as Captain Swan — this is yet another excellent Big Finish supporting cast.
The Inside Story reveals that David Darlington’s sound design was reworked extensively to match the framing device — well, whatever was done, it worked, as the sound perfectly matches the script. It seems as though the effects become more realistic as the tone becomes more serious — whether or not this is a matter of my perspective is in question, of course, but I was very impressed. Barnaby Edwards was called to direct and he brought in Timothy Sutton as musical director, and together the two of them oversee a production that is indeed superb, just as it says in the liner notes. The musical elements blend perfectly with the rest of the play, nor do proceedings ever seem to flag in order to allow in the various elements on display. Even the theme tune is reworked — the closing music is brilliantly appropriate.
There are a lot of words such as “brilliant,” “superb,” and “excellent” in the above review, and there’s a good reason for this trend: they all apply. “Doctor Who and the Pirates” is a masterpiece of narrative structure which expertly interweaves two separate stories thanks to a fine script, brilliant performances, and skilled design and direction. It’s Doctor Who at its most experimental, but it’s also amazing Doctor Who that should feature prominently in any collection.
Astonishing.
10/10