The Monk (The Black Hole)

The Monk

Appearances

Talk

The Monk
Main aliases:	Constable Pavo, Reverend Mortimer, Simon Saunders, Henry VIII, the Master, Borac, Mr Thelonious
Species:	Time Lord
Affiliated with:	Celestial Intervention Agency
Place of origin:	Gallifrey
First appearance:	The Black Hole
Appearances:	see list
Main voice actor:	Rufus Hound

Incarnations of the Monk

One incarnation of the renegade Time Lord known as the Monk decided to move beyond the tenuous relationships of his previous lives, and began life intending to be a new man.

While he had acknowledged and accepted that most people referred to him as "the Monk" (AUDIO: The Blame Game) or "the Meddling Monk", he expressed great irritation at being called this. This incarnation lived past the Last Great Time War. (AUDIO: Divorced, Beheaded, Regenerated)

Biography

Early days

At some point after his encounter with Lucie Miller, (AUDIO: The Rise of the New Humans) the Monk regenerated into a new body with a large moustache. (AUDIO: The Black Hole) He decided to forget about all his grudges and disagreements from his previous lives and start afresh. (AUDIO: The Side of the Angels)

Meddling in the universe

In the 13th century he joined a band of outlaws and learnt of the First Doctor's presence and wanted to take revenge. He helped William of Berkshire gain entrance to Lincoln castle. He kidnapped Dodo Chaplet and told her that they were fighting for justice. He was intrigued after learning about how the taxes were being collected, hoping to drive a wedge between Nicholaa de la Haye and King John of England. He wanted to get John of the throne as revenge against Richard I of England and put Louis on the throne. He was to be executed by Nicholaa based on Dodo's confession but the Doctor managed to reduce the sentence to being left in a dungeon. The Doctor found his TARDIS and sabotaged it. (AUDIO: The Outlaws)

The Monk popped up in 1945 shortly before Winston Churchill's general election loss. Under the guise of Simon Saunders, Churchill’s new strategic advisor, he planned to change the outcome of the election, believing the UK would be far better off with Churchill in charge, though it was hinted that his true goal may have been to manipulate his way into becoming Prime Minister himself. Involving himself with a double agent within MI5 named Kulcade, the Monk got him to steal artworks, even from Downing Street itself, in order to fund his political ambitions. Initially unbeknownst to the Monk however, Kulcade had a pair of alien siblings working for him (albeit not willingly) to help him steal the paintings and cause disorder by engaging in other espionage activities. Luckily the Seventh Doctor arrived on the scene and managed to intervene, stopping the spy, saving the alien siblings, and making sure that Churchill stayed on the losing path, but not without consequences to their friendship. Meanwhile, the Monk and Kulcade eventually found themselves cornered by Churchill and the police, to be taken into custody for various crimes. (AUDIO: Subterfuge)

The Monk heard about the Second Doctor's trial and exile on Earth and decided to visit the Third Doctor to see him in his new incarnation and get revenge for being trapped in the 11th century. He convinced the Doctor that he would take him to the 51st century where the Doctor could get a vortex manipulator. The Monk did the exact opposite and took the Doctor far into the past during the formation of Earth. He trapped the Doctor on a Delphon ship which was on Earth as it formed. Liz Shaw convinced the Monk to return to the Doctor and save him. The Monk did just that and brought the Doctor back to his exile in the 1970s. While the Monk wasn't looking, Liz stole several important components from the Monk's TARDIS. The Doctor theorised that this would eventually cause the Monk's TARDIS to break. (AUDIO: The Blame Game)

Eventually settling on Earth once again, the Monk set himself up as chief administrator of a clinic that used technology from the future to treat his patients. He employed Doctor Kurdi as his chief physician, funding her efforts to develop a "virus" that would essentially allow those humans infected with it to rapidly evolve to cope with the disease or injuries facing them.

This clinic eventually attracted the Third Doctor's interest when he and Jo Grant learned of two suicides where the victims' bodies had begun "evolving" before they died. After seeing the futuristic technology at the clinic, the Doctor believed that the Master was involved before the Monk showed himself. The Monk was offended slightly by the suspicion, calling the Master's feud with the Doctor a grudge.

When the Doctor confronted the Monk about his plans, the Monk tried to force the Doctor to help Doctor Kurdi perfect her serum by infecting Jo with a lethal virus that could only be cured by Kurdi's process. The Doctor was able to both perfect the serum and a means of negating it, but the situation was complicated when the test subjects in the clinic attacked the others, intending to spread out and convert all of humanity into the new humans With the aid of a patient who had developed psychic powers to compensate for his quadriplegic body, the Doctor was able to devise a cure that could be dispersed through the clinic's air circulation system. The Monk escaped once again, but the Doctor stole the Monk's dimensional buffers before his departure. (AUDIO: The Rise of the New Humans)

The Monk, in his new body, impersonating Constable Pavo. (AUDIO: The Black Hole)

The Monk allied himself with the Seeth and planned to use the Second Doctor's TARDIS to free them from a black hole. He shot a Time Lord Chapter 9 constable called Pavo and used his perception-altering ring to pretend to be his next incarnation. He convinced the Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon, and Victoria Waterfield that he was the real Pavo and took control of the Doctor's TARDIS with a Stattenheim remote control. He successfully freed the Seeth, but the Doctor stopped him and sent the Seeth back to their prison. (AUDIO: The Black Hole)

The Monk then visited Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution to try to take over the world using a weather control device. The Fourth Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith and Harry Sullivan were present and the Doctor managed to defeat him. The Monk later recounted this when he spoke as a guest speaker to the Darkon Corporation. (AUDIO: How to Win Planets and Influence People)

The Monk, now hiding in 1970s New York under the pseudonym "Reverend Mortimer", forged an alliance with Cardinal Ollistra to infiltrate the business industry of the city and construct Gallifreyan structures that would protect them from the destruction of the universe. They also teamed up with the Weeping Angels to power up these structures with time energy in exchange for human prey when they activate the said structures. However, when the Eleven came to him, the Monk helped him to corner Liv and Helen in the museum to save his own life. Ultimately, the Monk was betrayed by the Weeping Angels who, hungry for potential energy, sent him back in time several centuries. The Monk pleaded with the Eighth Doctor to help him, but the Doctor turned his back. (AUDIO: The Side of the Angels)

Some time before he became aware of the Time War, the Monk was forced by a Mr Mallory to break into UNIT's Black Archive to retrieve the Hyreth's Magna Grel, his body implanted with nanobombs to ensure his compliance. Traveling across time to acquire a smart black omnivariable decryptor, he was pursued by the Doctor, suffering from degeneration but stabilized as his fourth incarnation. Stunning him with a sedative to throw him off, the Monk then kidnapped Sarah Jane Smith from Aberdeen to help identify the Magna Grel in storage. Despite the efforts of the Doctor, Kate Stewart and Osgood, he retrieved the device and delivered it to Mallory, only for him to reveal himself as Hyreth leader Galavaunt, who kidnapped him as he returned to his warship to awaken his armies. He remained a hostage until the Galavaunt surrendered following his army's passing, allowing the Doctor to defuse the nanobombs and question him about his involvement in the Doctor's condition. However, the Monk hadn't yet experienced the events the Doctor remembered, and could only suggest tracking down his "daughter". As he departed, hte took Sarah Jane along to return her to Aberdeen. (AUDIO: Past Lives)

Escaping the Time War

The Monk posing as Henry VIII. (AUDIO: Divorced, Beheaded, Regenerated)

With the outbreak of the Last Great Time War, the Monk attempted to keep himself, and his lifetimes as a whole, out of the conflict, to the point he would meddle with his past to make sure his past incarnations remained unaware of it.

During this period, he fell into a trap laid by the Union and River Song, imprisoned in the Diamond Array for experiments in degeneration. Before that could happen, he was liberated by the War Doctor, who tried to escort him to his TARDIS before they were confronted by the Union with her degeneration gun. After shooting the Doctor with it, she attempted to shoot the Monk, but was slowed down when the Monk deployed a "temporal stink bomb" device he had put together in his cell. Realizing that this was what led the Doctor to interfere in his Hyreth scheme, the Monk set the Doctor's TARDIS to take him to the nearest Time Lord field hospital and gave him a temporal iterator to track his past self before imploring him to "find the Monk". He then set him off, having time to say goodbye to the Union as he escaped in his own TARDIS. (AUDIO: The Union)

Eventually, the Monk became fearful that the Daleks would win, and knew they would not let him survive. He travelled to Earth and turned himself human to escape the conflict. His disappearance was such that, (AUDIO: Divorced, Beheaded, Regenerated) after the end of the Time War, the Ninth Doctor did not expect to ever see the Monk again, (AUDIO: Flatpack) believing all the Time Lords bar himself to be dead. (TV: Dalek)

To prevent detection by the Time Lords, the Monk removed his TARDIS' components, but didn't perform a careful job of removing them, badly damaging the TARDIS in the process. He still kept a connection to the Matrix, to see what was going on. The Monk hid away in an abbey in England during the 16th century. Through his connection to the Matrix he witnessed the disappearance of Gallifrey at the end of the Time War and its subsequent return to the universe. Feeling trapped on Earth in one time zone after badly damaging his TARDIS, the Monk tried to raise Gallifrey's attention by meddling with time. He posed as Henry VIII by utilising his TARDIS' chameleon circuit. His meddling caught the attention of Missy, who was looking for a time traveller in order to plunder their technology.

Missy exposed the Monk as an impostor to the locals. They were prepared to behead him until Missy hypnotised the executioner and they escaped. The Monk ran back to his TARDIS and Missy followed. Stealing what she needed from his TARDIS, Missy departed using her vortex manipulator. This left the Monk trapped inside his broken TARDIS as the villagers tried to force their way in. The Monk, furious that once more he'd been stranded on Earth and one of his people was involved, swore that after he had dealt with the Doctor he was coming for her. (AUDIO: Divorced, Beheaded, Regenerated)

Adventures with Missy

The Monk caught up with Missy when she was stranded in 1605, undoing her interference in the Gunpowder Plot and capturing her. (AUDIO: Treason and Plot) Before he could exact his revenge, they were both captured by Ogrons. The Ogrons were seeking payment for a job the Master had hired them for long ago, and assumed the Monk was the Master. As she was unable to steal his TARDIS due to a safeguard he’d added to make it only work with him aboard, Missy eventually helped the Monk escape and they returned to his TARDIS. She then revealed that whilst she couldn’t remove his safeguard, she had been able reprogram his TARDIS to only work with them both aboard. As the Monk despaired, Missy claimed this was the start of a "horrible friendship". (AUDIO: Too Many Masters) After reaching the conclusion that she could fly the Monk's TARDIS with only the Monk's brain, she removed it from his body. (AUDIO: Body and Soulless)

Missy and the Monk ended up in a war between the VAD and the Kalvor. Knowing it would end up in VAD hands, Missy threw the Monk's brain off a cliff as part of her scheme. The Prime VAD and his army located the Monk's TARDIS and inhabited his body. Missy used this as the perfect opportunity to use regeneration energy to destroy all VAD from the body and win the war for the Kalvor. Missy, seemingly in a kind mood, then returned the Monk's body to him. (AUDIO: Body and Soulless)

Apparently bent on proving the Monk she could be nice, Missy travelled to Earth in the XXth century, where a millionaire, Richard Morris Temple, was selling regeneration energy to mankind dispersed in different products. This was due to him exploiting a War Seed, a being created by the War Master during the war to turn the people of entire planets into a warrior race, the Cheetel, faithful to the Time Lords. The Monk witnessed Missy promising Temple to furnish him a personal army, bringing him to the planet of the Cheetel and then leaving him there to die. (AUDIO: War Seed)

Missy was contacted by the Nun, a future female incarnation of the Monk, to 16th century Italy, to strike a deal: she would give her the coordinates of her Master TARDIS, in exchange for the deliverance of his past self. The two couples met at the villa of Alfredo Borgia in Tuscany, where the Nun repeatedly try and eventually succeeded to inform his past self of who she was. Together, they were eventually able to escape together in the Nun's TARDIS, leaving Missy stranded in Italy, and went on to meddle in history together. (AUDIO: Two Monks, One Mistress)

Personality

The Monk claimed that he started fresh after every regeneration, adopting a policy of separation between his incarnations. He dropped all grudges held by his past selves and asked those that encountered him to consider the action of his other selves as the actions of different people. (AUDIO: The Side of the Angels) However, this could be attributed to his overarching nature to reflect any responsibility and blame for his past actions onto anyone else, further exaggerating his blatant arrogance and fecklessness. (AUDIO: The Secret History)

In fact, this incarnation still wore vengeance on the Doctor for their deeds beforehand, (AUDIO: The Blame Game, Divorced, Beheaded, Regenerated) even holding the Third Doctor to account for the Eighth Doctor's supposed role in the death of Tamsin Drew. (AUDIO: The Rise of the New Humans)

One of the his justifications for time meddling was that he watched history repeat time and time again. He observed as people made mistakes, and believed that by manipulating events he could ensure those mistakes didn't happen. In his view, as a Time Lord, he had the right to make decisions that would shape histories. At the same time, he believed nobody was equal, as power was unevenly distributed. (AUDIO: Subterfuge)

Despite his experience as a time traveller, the Monk's attitude typically demonstrated a very short-term view when setting his plans to action, intending to alter the outcome of the 1945 United Kingdom general election with only vague ideas of how things would work out as a result. (AUDIO: Subterfuge)

He justified this attitude by proclaiming that he actively helped others, where the Doctor used the Laws of Time to justify inaction. In turn, the Third Doctor believed that not taking action helped others develop on their own, whereas the Monk simply gave advanced technology to societies before they were prepared to understand it, or to use it responsibly. Instead, the Doctor saw that the Monk failed to consider the consequences of his meddling. He argued that one woman's death from a terminal illness could have inspired others to conduct more research into that field, leading to more cures, and more people being treated. (AUDIO: The Rise of the New Humans)

When he travelled to Earth to flee from the Last Great Time War, the Monk was perhaps a bit too zealous in making sure no-one could track him down, making it easy for Missy to strand him in time on Earth. While he had a clear affection for his TARDIS, he had no problem with abandoning his ship when it was heavily damaged, even though it was his own fault. (AUDIO: Divorced, Beheaded, Regenerated)

The Monk was aware of all of the other renegade Time Lords. He recognised Missy the moment he met her as an incarnation of the Master. (AUDIO: Divorced, Beheaded, Regenerated)

Appearance and clothing

Much like many of his predecessors, this incarnation of the Monk was pale-skinned and had small dark eyes. The most memorable feature of this incarnation was a large, fair-haired moustache. (AUDIO: The Black Hole, The Side of the Angels)

Though this incarnation generally no longer wore a monk's robes, gladly dressing up in location and period-appropriate garb as part of his cons, (AUDIO: The Black Hole) he did wear them when visiting the Third Doctor. (AUDIO: The Blame Game)

Behind the scenes

Big Finish promotional image of the Monk in The Rise of the New Humans

• In this incarnation's first story the Monk impersonates Constable Pavo, whose second incarnation is played by Janet Dibley. Janet Dibley is the daughter-in-law of Peter Butterworth, the first actor to portray the Monk.
• While AUDIO: The Side of the Angels and The Rise of the New Humans would establish that this incarnation of the Monk recalled the events of AUDIO: To the Death and AUDIO: Divorced, Beheaded, Regenerated would establish that this incarnation had lived through the Last Great Time War, both AUDIO: The Black Hole and AUDIO: The Blame Game contain evidence that this incarnation is a contemporary of the Second and Third Doctors.
• Coincidentally, Rufus Hound's first appearance in licensed Doctor Who material was in the 2013 documentary The Science of Doctor Who, where he participated in a demonstration on black holes.