The Marian Conspiracy (audio story)

The Marian Conspiracy
Doctor:	Sixth Doctor
Companion(s):	Dr. Evelyn Smythe
Main enemy:	Queen Mary I Reverend Thomas Smith Francois de Noailles
Main setting:	Sheffield, 2000 London, January 1555
Key crew
Publisher:	[[publisher::Big Finish Productions]]
Writer:	Jacqueline Rayner
Director:	Gary Russell
Producer:	Jason Haigh-Ellery and Gary Russell
Release details
Release number:	6
Release date:	March 2000
Format:	4 Episodes on 2 CDs
Production code:	7C/A
ISBN:	ISBN 1-903654-17-3
Official trailer
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Big Finish Doctor Who audio stories
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The Marian Conspiracy was the sixth Doctor Who audio story release by Big Finish Productions. It is the first story to introduce a new companion for the Sixth Doctor: Evelyn Smythe played by Maggie Stables. This was the first (of many) companions original to audio to be created by Big Finish.

Publisher's summary

Tracking a nexus point in time, the Doctor meets Dr Evelyn Smythe, a history lecturer whose own history seems to be rapidly vanishing.

The Doctor must travel back to Tudor times to stabilise the nexus and save Evelyn's life. But there he meets the Queen of England and must use all his skills of diplomacy to avoid ending up on the headman's block...

Plot

to be added

Cast

• The Doctor - Colin Baker
• Dr. Evelyn Smythe - Maggie Stables
• Reverend Thomas Smith - Nicholas Pegg
• The Queen - Anah Ruddin
• Lady Sarah - Jo Castleton
• Francois de Noailles - Barnaby Edwards
• George Crow - Sean Jackson
• John Wilson - Gary Russell
• William Leaf - Jez Fielder
• Royal Guard - Alistair Lock

References

Foods and beverages

• The Doctor agrees to take Evelyn to Mexico or Havana to pick up some chocolate for Evelyn's chocolate cake.
• Evelyn gives Mary some aspirin; she takes it with beer.

The Doctor

• The Doctor once again uses his well worn alias, Dr John Smith, to gain access to the Queen's inner circle.
• The Doctor does some serious name dropping during this story, mentioning meetings with Socrates (whom he told to "stick to his guns" when it came to his theories), Sir Francis Drake, Henry VIII, Lady Jane Grey (whom he met in the Tower of London), William Cecil and Queen Elizabeth I.

Individuals

• Evelyn was once married, but left her husband after a row about her attendance at an academic conference on the day of their anniversary. She doesn't seem to be too bothered about this, calling love a distraction. Her specialty is Tudor political history. She can pick locks with a hairpin after years of dealing with students who have locked themselves out of their rooms and she has a pathological love of cocoa and cakes.
• Evelyn tells the Doctor that the class of 1974 were "particularly unattractive."

File:Lee Sullivan BF 6 2 Marian Conspiracy.JPG

Art by Lee Sullivan featured in DWM 289

Notes

• This story was featured in a preview in Doctor Who Magazine issue 289 with an illustration by Lee Sullivan.
• This story was the first pure historical in performed Doctor Who since TV: Black Orchid in 1982 and the first to feature historical figures since TV: The Gunfighters in 1966.
• This audio drama was recorded on 23 October 1999.

Continuity

• When viewing London in 1555 in the TARDIS scanner, Evelyn muses that it will all be burnt down in the Great Fire of London in September 1666, a statement that causes an embarrassed intake of breath from the Doctor. His fifth incarnation played a major role in starting that fire in TV: The Visitation. Ironically, the Fourth Doctor, arriving shortly before his future self's departure, was wrongfully accused of starting the fire only hours later. (TV: Pyramids of Mars, PROSE: The Republican's Story) A similar exchange occurred between the Doctor and Peri Brown in AUDIO: Point of Entry.
• The Doctor says that he should "pop back and support Darwin." He and Evelyn would later meet Charles Darwin on the Galapagos Islands on 19 September 1835. (AUDIO: Bloodtide)
• Both the First and the Third Doctors referred to being imprisoned in the Tower of London (TV: The Sensorites, TV: The Mind of Evil). The Fifth Doctor and Nyssa suffered the same fate in the late 17th century, charges of forgery having been levelled against them by Sir Isaac Newton (AUDIO: Summer). The Sixth Doctor was also briefly imprisoned in the Tower in 1590. (AUDIO: Point of Entry) Evelyn and he would return to the Tower in an alternative 2003 (AUDIO: Jubilee) and 2010 (The Crimes of Thomas Brewster). In the former case, Evelyn learned that alternative versions of the Doctor and she were imprisoned together in the Tower for decades before her counterpart died. She briefly met the alternative Doctor, who had been rendered practically insane by decades of isolation during the latter part of his hundred years as a prisoner of the English Empire. She chose not to tell the Doctor that she had met his counterpart. (AUDIO: Jubilee)
• The Sixth Doctor previously visited 16th century London at least twice, both times in the company of Peri Brown. (AUDIO: Point of Entry, AUDIO: Recorded Time)
• Queen Mary refers to her late stepmother, Anne Boleyn, the mother of her younger half-sister Elizabeth, as a "harlot." Earlier in his personal timeline, the Doctor and Peri met Boleyn on 4 May 1536, shortly before her execution. (AUDIO: Recorded Time)
• The Doctor tells Lady Sarah that he once destroyed an entire race. (TV: Terror of the Vervoids)
• The Doctor and Evelyn would eventually visit Queen Elizabeth's court at some point before she departed the TARDIS. (AUDIO: Thicker than Water) Later in his personal timeline, the Doctor met her on at least three further occasions. (AUDIO: Terror Firma, TV: The Shakespeare Code, TV: The End of Time)

External links

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