The Kingmaker (audio story)

The Kingmaker
Doctor:	Fifth Doctor
Companion(s):	Peri, Erimem
Main enemy:	William Shakespeare (Mr Seyton) Richard, Duke of Gloucester / Richard III of England
Main setting:	London, 1597, April to November 1483 and June to 22 August 1485
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	Nev Fountain
Director:	Gary Russell
Music:	Andy Hardwick
Post production:	Gareth Jenkins @ ERS
Cover by:	Stuart Manning
Release details
Release number:	81
Release date:	April 2006
Format:	4 Episodes on 2 CDs
Production code:	6Q/I
ISBN:	ISBN 1-84435-161-0
Big Finish Doctor Who audio stories
← Previous	Time Works
Next →	The Settling

The Kingmaker was the eighty-first monthly Doctor Who audio story produced by Big Finish Productions. It uniquely features the Fourth Doctor not played by Tom Baker, but rather by Jon Culshaw, known in the UK for his impersonation of the actor.

Publisher's summary

Dr Who encounters one of the most notorious characters from the past as he journeys through time to solve the great Historical Mysteries...

Not surprisingly, the Doctor becomes mixed up with Richard III himself as he tries to unravel the perplexing problem of who exactly killed the princes in the Tower.

Peri and Erimem also encounter a suspicious time traveller. Someone from the Doctor's own past. Someone who shouldn't really be there at all.

So who did murder the princes in the Tower? Perhaps it's best not to ask a question like that...

You might not like the answer...

Plot

to be added

Cast

• The Doctor - Peter Davison
• Peri - Nicola Bryant
• Erimem - Caroline Morris
• Clarrie - Arthur Smith
• Mr Seyton - Michael Fenton-Stevens
• Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Richard III) - Stephen Beckett
• Henry, Duke of Buckingham - Marcus Hutton
• Earl Rivers / The Doctor - Jon Culshaw
• Sir James Tyrell - Chris Neill
• Susan - Katie Wimpenny
• Judith - Linzi Matthews

References

Individuals

• Peri thinks Mr Seyton is the Tremas Master.
• William Shakespeare hitched a ride in the TARDIS from 1597 to 1483.
• Shakespeare mentions his play "Titus Andronicus".

Books

• The Fourth Doctor considered writing books entitled How Green Was My Gallifrey and The Female UNIT.
• The intended title for the Doctor Who Discovers series was The Doctor, Who Discovers... but the publishing company misprinted the title, resulting in the author being mistakenly credited as "Doctor Who". Peri tells the Doctor that she likes the title "Doctor Who" as she finds it mysterious.

Notes

Illustrated preview by Martin Geraghty from DWM 368.

• Released in 2006, this was the first "appearance" of the Fourth Doctor in a Big Finish audio, in the context of the Fifth Doctor listening to a voice recording made by his previous self. The Fourth Doctor's recorded voice is performed here by Jon Culshaw. Tom Baker would not reprise the role of the Fourth Doctor for Big Finish until 2011.
• The Doctor's Doctor Who Discovers book series is a reference to the real-world Doctor Who Discovers book series. The cover art for the CD depicts the cover of one of these books, using the same format as the real-world books. It also displays the Tom Baker-era Doctor Who logo in an in-universe context.
• The Doctor's offhand comment that "it was either that or write a novelty cookbook" is a reference to The Doctor Who Cookbook.
• A preview for this audio story appeared in Doctor Who Magazine Issue 368 illustrated by Martin Geraghty.
• This audio drama was recorded on 20 and 21 November 2005 at The Moat Studios.

Continuity

• The Doctor states that he gained a bit of unwanted notoriety during his time with UNIT, thinking it might have had something to do with the Loch Ness Monster swimming up the River Thames and interrupting the Scottish Energy Commission. (TV: Terror of the Zygons)
• Peri refers to her encounter with the Tremas Master and Kamelion on Sarn in 1984. (TV: Planet of Fire)
• As a young boy, Shakespeare met the Eighth Doctor and Charley Pollard in the 2050s and briefly travelled in the TARDIS, an incident which will not happen for many years in the Doctor's personal timeline. (AUDIO: The Time of the Daleks)
• The revelation in this episode that the original Shakespeare left his time in 1597 and was killed in 1485, only for Richard III to return to 1597 and take the prematurely deceased writer's place, has not been acknowledged or addressed by in-universe portrayals of Shakespeare post-1597. Assuming it takes place in the same timeline, TV: The Shakespeare Code, would take place in both in Shakespeare and the Doctor's personal futures relative to these events.
• Peri would later visit 16th century England on at least two subsequent occasions in the company of the Sixth Doctor. (AUDIO: Point of Entry, AUDIO: Recorded Time)
• In 1483, Clarrie tells Peri and Erimem that the Doctor's letters were delivered to the Kingmaker inn by a "Northern chap with big ears." (TV: Rose)
• Erimem tells Peri that she believes in an afterlife. She seems to be have modified her views since first meeting the Doctor and Peri, when she claimed that she did not believe in the Egyptian gods. (AUDIO: The Eye of the Scorpion)
• The Doctor refers to Shakespeare as a "hack." However, during his fourth incarnation, he had told his companion Leela that Shakespeare was the greatest poet in the English language "with [his] assistance." (AUDIO: The Foe from the Future) By the time of his tenth incarnation, his opinion of Shakespeare's work had considerably improved as he spoke of it in glowing terms to his companion Martha Jones. (TV: The Shakespeare Code)
• An alternate account of the identity and fate of the Princes in the Tower was given in PROSE: Sometime Never....

External links

• Official The Kingmaker page at bigfinish.com
• The Kingmaker at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• DisContinuity for The Kingmaker at Tetrapyriarbus - The DisContinuity Guide