The Nightmare Fair (audio story)

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audio stub

The Nightmare Fair is an adaptation of an unproduced Sixth Doctor story of the same name, which was originally intended for Season 23, but cancelled along with other planned stories when Doctor Who went on a production hiatus. It is the first of a series of Big Finish Productions audio adaptations based upon these lost stories.

Publisher's summary

The TARDIS has been drawn to Blackpool in the year 1986, where the Doctor intends to investigate a dangerous space/time vortex... while enjoying some local attractions along the way. But an old enemy is watching from his base deep within the amusement park, a timeless being who craves revenge.

The Celestial Toymaker has returned. The game is on. And, should he lose, the Doctor will pay the ultimate forfeit...

Plot

The TARDIS falls through a time well, landing in modern-day Blackpool at an amusement fair. The Doctor and Peri, finding nothing else amiss, start to enjoy the fair's attractions. They are separated on an amusement ride; the Doctor's car is directed into the depths of the fair, while Peri encounters Kevin, a teenaged-boy looking for his brother who is missing but had last been seen at the fair weeks ago. The two are also eventually captured and brought to a prison where the Doctor has also been caged.

They discover their captor is the Celestial Toymaker, who has been stuck on Earth for several millennia, tricking a few unsuspecting humans into playing games with him and losing, become his perpetual servants. The Toymaker created the time well to bring the Doctor here, and added elements to the fair to help capture the Doctor. The Toymaker is on the verge of completing his "great work": an arcade game that feeds on the souls that lose to it, which then can generate powerful creatures with which the Toymaker plans to take over Earth. He is prepared to have the game mass-produced in America to complete his plan. The Doctor, who knows that the Time Lords do not fully know who or what the Toymaker is, learns that he is a powerful psychic being from another dimension where time moves much slower, giving him his seemingly immortality. Knowing that he cannot hurt the Toymaker physically, he works with Peri, Kevin, a Venusian engineer and a human android who is also one of the Toymaker's captives, to construct a device to disrupt the Toymaker's psychic field. The Doctor then traps him in a time field of his device that prevents the Toymaker from being able to control anyone outside of it and that will last forever. The other creatures captured by the Toymaker are freed, including Kevin's brother. The Doctor decides to return with Peri back to enjoy the fair a bit more.

Cast

References

  • Peri suggests that the Doctor could have taken her to Disneyland, but he suggests that it needs another hundred years "to settle."
  • The Toymaker operates outside of the Celestial Toyroom.
  • The Toymaker can intensify the Time Vortex on occasion.
  • The Toymaker refers to the Christmas Truce of 1914, where he says "During one of the Great Wars, they (the people of Earth) stopped fighting and played games."
  • Truscott mentions Preston North End.

Notes

CD Sleeve illustration of events of the story.

Continuity

External links