Verdigris (novel)

Verdigris
Doctor:	Third Doctor
Companion(s):	The Brigadier, Benton, Yates, Jo
Featuring:	Iris Wildthyme, Thomas
Main enemy:	Verdigris
Main setting:	Thisis, Great Yarmouth and London, 1973; Wales, 1973
Key crew
Publisher:	BBC Books
Writer:	Paul Magrs
Release details
Release number:	29
Release date:	3 April 2000
Format:	Paperback Book; 25 Chapters, 288 Pages
ISBN:	ISBN 0-563-55592-0
BBC Past Doctor Adventures
← Previous	Tomb of Valdemar
Next →	Grave Matter

You may wish to consult Verdigris for other, similarly-named pages.

Verdigris was the twenty-ninth novel in the BBC Past Doctor Adventures series. It was written by Paul Magrs, released 3 April 2000 and featured the Third Doctor, Jo Grant and Iris Wildthyme.

This was the first full length past Doctor novel to feature Iris Wildthyme. The novel featured Iris' companion Tom, who had previously appeared in the story Entertaining Mr O in the 1998 charity anthology Perfect Timing and would later make many appearances in the Iris Wildthyme series.

Publisher's summary

Jo Grant had no inkling of the ship that revolved in orbit like a discreet, preposterous thought in the mind of someone serene but bonkers.

High above London and its crust of smog, stretched tall above the soapy atmosphere of the Earth, is a ship the size and exact shape of St Pancras railway station.

On board, the Doctor and that mysterious lady adventurer, Iris Wildthyme, are bargaining for their lives with creatures determined to infiltrate the 1970s in the guise of characters from nineteenth-century novels.

Without the help of UNIT, the Doctor and his friends face the daunting task of defeating aliens, marauding robot sheep, the mysterious Children of Destiny and... the being who calls himself Verdigris.

Plot

to be added

Characters

• Third Doctor
• Jo Grant
• Iris Wildthyme
• Tom
• Verdigris
• The Master
• Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart
• Sergeant Benton
• Captain Mike Yates
• Dobbs
• Sally Northspoon

The Meercocks

• Mrs Bennett
• Bluebeard
• Miss Haversham
• Little Red Riding Hood
• White Rabbit
• Wolf

The Children of Destiny

• The Children of Destiny
• Kevin
• Marsha
• Mary
• Peter
• Simon

The Galactic Ambassadors

• Borges
• Katra
• Saldis
• Valcino

Worldbuilding

Foods and beverages

• The Doctor, Jo, Tom and others drink Chardonnay, whiskey and multiple gin and tonics.
• The Doctor prefers lime rather than lemon in his Bombay Sapphire.
• The Doctor provides cold roast beef sandwiches with horseradish and gherkins for Jo, Iris, Tom and himself. He later prepares a roast dinner for the four of them.
• When the Doctor, Jo, Tom and Iris go for a drive in Bessie, Jo brings a china tea service and cakes.

The Doctor

• In the future Iris and Jenny help (a future incarnation of) the Doctor to defeat the Dalek Supreme in the Crystal Mines of Marlion.

Individuals

• Verdigris travels to the anti-matter universe and makes Omega aware of the Doctor.
• Following her impersonation in the Sisterhood, Iris was time scooped to Gallifrey where she and her other incarnations battled the Zarbi, Voord and Mechanoids in the Death Zone.
• Iris met the Brigadier during a conflict in Venice involving the Celaphopods.
• Iris has met the Terrible Zodin on Mars.
• Jo is trained in lock picking and escapology.
• Iris describes her companion Jenny Winterleaf as the "butch dyke traffic warden".
• Tom is gay, but has a paranoid moment when he meets his mother and thinks he's destined to impregnate her.

Locations

• The Doctor takes Jo to his country house, which is thirty miles from Thisis.
• He had also taken Jo to his house in Kent, his flat in London, and a caravan he has in the highlands of Scotland.

Planets

• Iris summoned Verdigris from the planet Makorna.
• The Doctor and Iris agree that the Nurses of Ionicaiy Six would go to the trouble of kidnapping humans simply to play doctors and nurses.
• In Tom's first trip with Iris she took him to the planet Calgoria.

Species

• The Meercock homeworld was destroyed by the Valceans.
• The Saldisians are hand-bag shaped aliens.

TARDIS

• The Doctor wants to steal Iris' TARDIS so that he can escape his exile on Earth.

Notes

• Paul Magrs crafts Iris Wildthyme as a sort of "anti-Doctor". She drinks, smokes, and generally kidnaps her companions. Also her companions are more or less opposite to the Doctor's: Jenny, the lesbian traffic warden who "got the runs" as they went through the vortex, and Tom, the black gay guy whom she also kidnapped.
• In her diaries, Iris refers to the Third Doctor's era as gentler and more innocent time where "the timelines are intact, causality is unimpeached, and one historical event follows another in strict chronological order," and she wishes she could warn the Doctor of the coming "canon-death," where "everything was altered." Narratively, this is likely a reference to the Third Doctor's death on Dust. (PROSE: Interference - Book Two) Given Magrs' metafictional style, it could also be a commentary on how the style and subjects of Doctor Who stories had changed since Jon Pertwee's televised tenure.
• Jo's friend and roommate, Tara, is the character Tara King from The Avengers.

Continuity

• Iris mentions the occasion when the TARDIS fell off a cliff on Peladon. The Doctor says that that has not happened yet in his personal timeline. (TV: The Curse of Peladon)
• Iris was on Karn when the Fourth Doctor visited the planet. She was then a member of the Sisterhood of Karn. (TV: The Brain of Morbius)
• Iris has an adventure in the Death Zone remarkably similar to the Doctor's. (TV: The Five Doctors)
• The Master leaves Earth at the end of this story, having escaped from prison, (TV: The Sea Devils) and aims for Skaro. (TV: Frontier in Space)
• At the end of the adventure, Verdigris travels to the anti-matter universe to assist Omega against the Doctor. (TV: The Three Doctors)
• Iris recalls her encounters with the Fourth Doctor while he was travelling with Sarah Jane Smith (PROSE: Old Flames) and, later, with "a blonde girl" and "a robot dog". (PROSE: Suitors, Inc.)
• Jo recalls being dragged to the future to face the Daleks, (TV: Day of the Daleks) tussling with "fish people", (TV: The Sea Devils) being tied to an altar to be sacrificed to the Devil, (TV: The Dæmons) facing "a malign alien consciousness that disguised itself variously in the form of shop dummies, plastic daffodils and trimphones" (TV: Terror of the Autons) and visiting Atlantis. (TV: The Time Monster)
• The Doctor mentions that the Cybermen once had a base on the Moon. (TV: The Moonbase)
• The Nepotist is mentioned. (PROSE: The Blue Angel)

External links

• Verdigris at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: Verdigris at The Whoniverse
• Cloister Library - Verdigris