F.R.'s Reviews > Doctor Who: Verdigris

Hooray! It’s Doctor Who facing his most dangerous enemy yet:

Literary post-modernism!

We’re in the reign of The Third Doctor and so there’s a lot of willingly suspended disbelief to be challenged – which means there’s a great deal of fun to be poked. So we have it pointed out to Jo Grant that all the aliens she meets have blue lines around them and look like crap special effects, a Dalek is opened up to reveal the space for an actor inside, the Silurians and The Sea Devils are mocked for their shoddy, unconvincing appearance and we have a villain who grandly states his name, but doesn’t bother to elaborate further.

The plot involves a bunch of aliens disguising themselves as famous fictional characters and trying to blend in when they arrive in old railway carriages. That’s post-modern in itself. But this is Doctor Who fiction that acknowledges Doctor Who is a TV show, and that this version is a TV show of the early 1970s. There’s the mocking of the effects and there’s a character who pointedly exists as the Doctor Who equivalent of a Shakespearian mechanical, there to be a bit yokel before being killed by the villain to move the plot along. But gleefully more than that there’s the fact that Jo Grant is an old friend of Tara King from ‘The Avengers’ (she’s the one who replaced Emma Peel), there’s a group of kids who bear more than a passing resemblance to ‘The Tomorrow People’, and (view spoiler)[there’s the fact that the whole thing – even the incredible intergalactic city – is actually based in Wales (a joke that becomes even more pertinent with the arrival of the new series.) (hide spoiler)]

And of course this being a Paul Magrs novel, we have Iris Wildthyme in tow – a vibrant post-modern challenge to ‘Doctor Who’. A time travelling adventuress who zooms about the universe in a London bus which is slightly smaller on the inside than the outside, and who seems to have had many of the same adventures as The Doctor, but in a different order and in much more of an alcohol fuelled haze. Putting her with The Third Doctor is a genius move. Of all the old Doctors he is the most establishment, the most authoritarian, the most sanctimonious – and so Iris pricks at that from start to finish in a way that is the most delightful fun. It’s the relationship of the screwball comedy, with the jibes covering over a true affection – it’s clear that The Doctor quite likes Iris, and it’s more than clear that in his current incarnation, she fancies the old rake.

There are some who apparently see this is as an attack on the Pertwee era. They see the jokes about the special effects and the digs at The Third Doctor’s character, and think it all comes from hate. It is possible though to adore that particular era, but still recognise that the effects are crummy (they’re frequently off the far end of crummy, leaning more towards the absolutely bloody atrocious) and Pertwee’s portrayal does err a little too much on the pompous side. However I think the affection here is unmistakeable. This is a love letter, a love letter with a well-developed sense of humour, but a love letter nonetheless.