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The Shoreditch Intervention was the fourth and final story in the audio anthology Susan's War, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Alan Barnes.
Set in 1963, The Shoreditch Intervention included a number of elements from TV stories, namely An Unearthly Child and Remembrance of the Daleks, and featured another meeting between Susan and the Eighth Doctor. It also featured a brief cameo by David Bradley as the First Doctor through dialogue inserted from another story and ended with Susan being taken to the War Room.
Publisher's summary
When Susan's TARDIS is intercepted, she is given a highly classified mission.
Earth, 1963 is a nexus point in the Time War, but the timelines must be negotiated carefully. Mods and rockers are not the only dangers on the streets of Shoreditch.
In Susan's past, the Daleks are waiting. But so is the Doctor!
Plot
Susan arrives on a planet that she was not expecting and meets Lehena, who says that she does not represent the disbanded Celestial Intervention Agency and whispers one of Susan's names to her. Lehena shows her that they are in the past of Arcadia and asks if she would avert the Time War if she could, saying that she and her grandfather were responsible for bringing it about in 1963.
Outside of a café in 1963, Franko teases JP about his motor scooter, despite Alex telling him not to, and accepts his challenge of a race. At the drop of Alex's scarf, the race begins.
Lehena tells Susan that her grandfather had returned for the Hand of Omega in a later incarnation and used it to destroy a version of Skaro, a massive escalation in the build-up to the Time War. She says that Susan could use a Time Ring to follow her younger self in the slipstream of the Doctor's TARDIS, tricking the time lock and allowing her to go to Earth.
Franco and JP taunt each other as they race and come to the attention of the police, who give chase.
Lehena gives Susan a Time Ring and a sonic wand of her grandfather's design and tasks her with convincing the Hand not to allow the Doctor to use it. Having put the Ring on, Susan disappears. Lehena shouts that it is okay to lower the hypnoscape and tells the Daleks that phase 1 of the operation is complete. The Daleks lock onto Susan's temporal trail.
Susan arrives in London and is almost hit by Franco and JP, so she uses her sonic wand to make JP's scooter fall apart. She leaves to avoid the police and JP tells them that Susan had been the one riding the scooter. Franco manages to escape and returns to Alex at the café, ordering coffees and going to play pinball to establish an alibi. Susan arrives there as well and finds that it is 7 August, which is later than she was hoping; she sees and confronts Franco, telling him what has happened to JP. Alex goes to see if he is alright.
The Daleks use a pulse sphere to bypass the time lock on Earth.
JP and the policeman, soon joined by Alex, see what looks like a ball of lightning appear where Susan did. The lightning hits JP, who hears Lehena and the Daleks tell him that he must obey them. Alex takes JP to the café, where Susan is trying to make an urgent call, and Lehena orders him to follow Susan wherever she goes. He alerts Franco when Alex steals his scooter to take Susan to the other side of London and uses lightning to make Franco another Dalek servant.
Susan and Alex hide from two rockers and Alex tells Susan her name, reminding her of her son. Once the rockers have passed, they continue on to Foreman's Yard and watch the First Doctor enter. Alex asks Susan if she is spying on the Firm and, when Susan detects with her sonic wand that the Hand is twenty minutes' walk north-west, insists that she joins her in going to Bethnal Green.
Susan knocks on Fyodor's door and tells him that the Doctor, who Alex says is her grandfather, has changed his mind about leaving the Hand with him. Fyodor says that they will have to repay the loan plus interest and Susan agrees to give him the Time Ring to repay it. He takes it to his colleague: the Eighth Doctor, who asks Susan how she came by the Time Ring and sends Alex to wait at the door. The Doctor disapproves of Susan joining the CIA and says that he is here because he received a space-time telegraph from her, ten minutes in the future, asking for help after realising that she was tricked into coming here.
JP bangs on the door and the Doctor lets him in, telling Susan that her telegram told him that JP is under the control of the Daleks. JP reveals that the Daleks' plan is to use the Hand of Omega to destroy Gallifrey instead of Skaro and attacks the Doctor with his electricity, but the Doctor uses the Time Ring to deflect it and free him from the Daleks' control, albeit leaving him unconscious for hours. The Doctor has Fyodor show Alex the back way out and returns to his TARDIS with Susan, where she sends the telegraph and the Doctor plots a course out of 1963.
Fyodor shows Alex outside and is nervous about strangers' bikes parked nearby. The rockers, under Dalek control, restrain Alex and chase Fyodor, demanding an explanation for the extra-terrestrial energy burst that they detected earlier.
The Doctor has caught the trace of his younger self leaving Earth a few weeks into the future with Susan, Ian and Barbara, planning on materialising a nanosecond after the earlier TARDIS leaves, with the time breaks off, and being towed out of 1963. Although the Doctor wants to spend time with her, Susan asks him to take her back to Gallifrey to continue helping in the Time War in the name of her son. Fyodor bangs on the door of the TARDIS and warns them of the rockers, whom the Doctor believes must be controlled by the Renegade Daleks. The Doctor prepares to dematerialise to avoid altering the past, but Susan asks for five minutes and leaves.
Susan uses her sonic wand to temporarily break the connection between the rocker and the Daleks, allowing Fyodor to restrain him with handcuffs from his magic act. She goes to save Alex from the other rocker, telling him that she knows that he is a Roboman and claiming to be here to fence the proceeds of a space train robbery. When she tries to break the Roboman connection, she learns that the control has been encrypted and that Roboman reinforcements have arrived.
Having given Susan five minutes, the Doctor leaves the TARDIS and learns from Alex and Fyodor that Susan has been captured. Franco and a group of four other mods under Dalek control arrive and tell the Doctor that the Time War Daleks will save Susan from the Renegades in return for the reprogrammed Hand of Omega. The Doctor agrees, holding out his sonic screwdriver for the Daleks to give it the power to disrupt the Renegades' Roboman control.
The Robomen put Susan in a sidecar and transport her across London until the control signal is cut.
Franco sends two mods to collect Susan and asks for the Hand of Omega. The Doctor tells him that the Hand is in a nearby sarcophagus; although he cannot detect any stellar energy, the Doctor claims that it is because of his TARDIS' chameleon circuit and the mods carry it into the TARDIS where they are joined by Susan. Franco tells the Doctor to take them out of 1963, threatening to kill Susan, Alex and Fyodor, and he obliges, taking them to the recreation of Arcadia and meeting Lehena. The Doctor identifies her as a Dalek duplicate of a Time Lord whom he once had a crush on at the Academy.
The Daleks remove the hypnoscape, revealing that they are on a Dalek dreadnought, and demand that the Doctor removes the illusion around the Hand of Omega. He sends Susan into the TARDIS to get his screwdriver, but she is unable to find it. The Doctor takes the screwdriver from his pocket and tells the Daleks that the Hand was never at Fyodor's and remains hidden. He uses the screwdriver to close the TARDIS doors with Susan inside and bids her farewell as Special Weapons Daleks surround him. The TARDIS dematerialises and the Doctor is seemingly exterminated, leaving no remains.
The Doctor arrives on the TARDIS, having used the Time Ring to escape extermination. Susan takes it to return to Earth to save Alex and Fyodor, but the Doctor tells her that the Dalek control was cut off the moment that they left and that they are safe. Susan asks him to fly her as far as Kasterborous, for old time's sake.
JP finds Alex and wakes her up, calling her "Aud" and "Audrey". They flee from Fyodor, who tells them not to come back.
Susan returns to Gallifrey in Veklin's TARDIS and tells her and Rasmus about the Dalek ploy to unravel the timelines. Rasmus says that her talents make her valuable to Gallifrey and that they will have to take better care of her from now on. Rassilon has taken an interest in Susan and Rasmus believes that he might want to speak with her. He takes her to the War Room to see how else she can contribute.
Cast
- Susan - Carole Ann Ford
- The Doctor - Paul McGann
- Alex / Lehena - Becky Wright
- JP / Rocker 2 - Tom Mahy
- Franko / Policeman - Louis Davison
- The Daleks / Fyodor / Rocker 1 - Nicholas Briggs
Uncredited
- The Doctor - David Bradley (BFX: The Shoreditch Intervention)
- Veklin - Beth Chalmers
- Rasmus - Damian Lynch
Worldbuilding
- Alex does not like cappuccinos as they go cold too quickly.
- Franko tells Chalky to put a sixpence in the jukebox.
- The Chiffons and Martha Reeves & The Vandellas' records have been replaced in the jukebox by the likes of Frank Ifield and Matt Monro, whose music Alex says one cannot dance to.
- Susan is given a Time Ring and a sonic wand of the Doctor's design.
- Alfredo works at the café.
- A train robbery happens in August 1963.
- Daleks use a pulse sphere to bypass the time lock.
- The policeman sarcastically asks JP is the woman he claimed was riding his scooter was John Steed. Alex later says that Susan is "a real-life Avenger" like Mrs Gale.
- Alex says that her mother has wanted her out of the way since Donald the Lodger came onto the scene.
- The Daleks refer to the Eighth Doctor as the "current incarnation" of the Doctor.
- JP's mother worked at a self-service in Acton.
- The TARDIS jolted whenever it landed because the Doctor had not yet found the time breaks.
- The Doctor recognises Dalek duplicates through blink rate.
- Lehena was left behind by the Celestial Intervention Agency.
- Lehena summons Special Weapons Daleks to destroy the TARDIS.
- Rasmus mentions the Brancheerian, who confirmed that the Daleks have renewed their interest in Earth.
Notes
- David Bradley's cameo was taken from another audio play and not specially recorded for this production. (BFX: The Shoreditch Intervention)
Continuity
- Susan is aware that the Celestial Intervention Agency was disbanded. (AUDIO: Assassins)
- Lehena knows Susan's true name, which is a "great state secret" only known by a select few. (PROSE: Birth of a Renegade)
- In a Dalek hypnoscape, Susan is brought to a garden with silver trees and an orange night sky, (TV: The Sensorites) in the city of Arcadia. (TV: Doomsday, The Day of the Doctor)
- Gallifrey, Skaro, and Earth are time locked during the Last Great Time War. (TV: The Stolen Earth, et al.)
- Susan and her Doctor were hiding in 1963 London (TV: An Unearthly Child) with a device, which a later Doctor retrieved and used to "wipe out one version of Skaro and its sun". (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks)
- Susan refers to her last encounter with the Eighth Doctor. (AUDIO: All Hands on Deck)
- Susan space-time telegraphed the Doctor. (TV: Terror of the Zygons, et al.)
- A few weeks in the future, the First Doctor, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright, and the past Susan will leave Earth. (TV: An Unearthly Child, PROSE: A Long Night, Who Killed Kennedy)
- Susan kept a diary. (PROSE: Time and Relative)
- The Renegade Daleks used advanced robotization techniques. (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth, PROSE: What To Do If A Dalek Attacks You!, et al.)
- The Doctor claims he gave up his chameleon circuit to disguise the Hand of Omega's container, which is why his TARDIS became stuck as a police box. (TV: An Unearthly Child)
- The Doctor hid his secret diary in the lower compartment of the astral map. (TV: The Web Planet, et al.)
- The Doctor tricks Susan into his TARDIS and sends her away for safety. His future incarnations would also do the same for Rose, (TV: The Parting of the Ways) Clara, (TV: The Time of the Doctor) and River Song. (TV: The Husbands of River Song)
- An execution party of Special Weapons Daleks seemingly obliterates the Doctor, (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) but he survives by teleporting at the moment he should die. (TV: The Witch's Familiar)
- Information obtained from the Brancheerian Dalek agent has revealed the Daleks have a heightened interest in Earth. (AUDIO: The Uncertain Shore)
- The Lord President Eternal Rassilon has taken an interest in Susan and wishes to speak to her. (AUDIO: Havoc, et al.)
External links
- Official The Shoreditch Intervention page at bigfinish.com
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