Polly Wright
Polly Wright was a companion to the first and second incarnations of the Doctor.
Biography
Early life
Polly was born in 1942 in London, England (PDA: The Murder Game) but spent much of her early life in Devon. (MA: Invasion of the Cat-People). She was the only daughter of Dr. Edward Wright and his wife, the former Miss Bettingham-Smith. Edward was the second of three sons, younger than Charles and older than Randolph. Edward and Bettingham-Smith married around August 1939 and had a son soon after. Polly was their second child. At this time, the Edward Wright family lived "in a big, old house in the country". As far as her extended family were concerned, Polly's paternal grandmother and her two paternal uncles were still alive at the time of her birth.
By 1944, her father's younger brother, Randolph, had been imprisoned in a Nazi prisoner of war camp, where he died. In contrast, Edward survived World War II. He lived long enough to father three more sons and to tell Polly stories of her uncle.
In her young adulthood, Polly reflected on her parents and said that she had always "taken them for granted" while she was away from home enjoying herself, but that they were always there for her when she needed them. (CC: Resistance)
In 1948, when Polly was six, she was separated from her mother on a shopping trip to Fortnum & Mason. In 1952, when she was ten, she attended a fair with her uncle Charles and had her fortune told by a gypsy, who warned her of a tall, dark stranger. (MA: Invasion of the Cat-People)
Joining the Doctor
Before meeting the Doctor, Polly was a typical 1960s London twenty-something. She lived in Chelsea, worked as Professor Brett's personal assistant and was unhappy that WOTAN's typing was faster and more accurate than hers. She appeared to have an active social life and to enjoy her time off work. She met Ben Jackson at one of her favourite haunts, the Inferno nightclub, where they were joined by the First Doctor, who expected to find Dodo Chaplet there.
When Dodo failed to show by closing time, the three went out into the night together and soon became embroiled in the fight against WOTAN. Polly 's mind fell under WOTAN's control. Ben freed her just as WOTAN was destroyed by one of its own War Machines. When she and Ben found the Doctor beside an old police box, Polly told him Dodo would be staying in England. Miffed, the Doctor bid the couple adieu. As they walked away, Polly turned to see the Doctor had used a key to enter the police box. Remembering that Ben had found a key that had earlier fallen out of the Doctor's cloak, she dragged Ben back to the police box to see if it would fit. They ended up inside the ship just as it was taking off. (DW: The War Machines)
Early travels with the Doctor
The Doctor first took Polly and Ben to 17th century Cornwall, where they ran into smugglers. (DW: The Smugglers) In 1986 at the South Pole, Polly helped fight off an invasion by Cybermen from Mondas. After these events, the exhausted Doctor collapsed and went through his first regeneration. (DW: The Tenth Planet) On the planet Vulcan, she adjusted quickly to the Doctor's having changed into a new and younger persona. Ben was less adaptable to the change, speculating that an imposter had replaced the Doctor. On Vulcan, Polly and Ben encountered the Doctor's archenemies, the Daleks. (DW: The Power of the Daleks)
Later travels
Polly was confident and not afraid to use her feminine wiles. She used them to enlist the help of Redcoat Algernon Ffinch while the travellers were in the Scottish Highlands. Polly also encouraged Kirsty McLaren and the other Scots girls to lure Algernon into a pit, where they took his money, identity disc and a lock of his hair. She struck up a relationship with Ffinch and teased him whenever they met, calling him 'Algy'. She realised that he admired her and she gave him a kiss goodbye. Polly asked for the young Jacobite piper, Jamie McCrimmon, to come with them into the TARDIS, as she feared for his safety. (DW: The Highlanders) She and Ben grew to see Jamie as their little brother. (CC: The Forbidden Time)
When Polly found herself in Atlantis, she was initially slated to be converted into a Fish Person. The Doctor interrupted the power supply as her operation was about to begin, allowing her to escape Damon's medical bay and rejoin her friends. Here, she took on the disguise of an Atlantean in a seashell dress. She and Jamie escaped the rising water as it flooded Atlantis, initially fearing that the Doctor and Ben had perished. They were relieved to to fine that they too had survived. (DW: The Underwater Menace)
Beautiful Polly was more than just a pretty face. When they arrived on the Moonbase in 2070 and faced the Cybermen, Polly soon realised the plastic parts of the Cybermen could be attacked with a mixture of solvents. She thought of the way nail polish was dissolved by nail varnish remover, and concocted a mixture including acetone, benzene, ether and epoxy propane to make a substance (called "Cocktail Polly" by Ben) which was shot at the Cybermen with adapted fire extinguishers. (DW: The Moonbase)
Although Polly enjoyed her adventures, she couldn't hide her desire to stay at home. After an adventure with the alien Chameleons in 1966, the travellers found that the TARDIS had returned to London just before they had departed. With Ben, Polly left the TARDIS and returned to her life, appearing never to be missing. (DW: The Faceless Ones)
Life after the Doctor
Polly brought home Ben, much to the horror of her parents. Her father made a terrible face. (BFA: The Five Companions)
Their relationship did not last. They eventually married other people. On New Year's Eve 1986, Ben and Polly reunited. Having visited the year 1986, they anticipated the arrival of Mondas, the planet of the Cybermen. (ST: Mondas Passing) In 1999, the Second Doctor helped Ben meet Polly once more and they admitted their love for each other. (ST: That Time I Nearly Destroyed the World Whilst Looking for a Dress)
In the 21st century, Polly went onto the Internet to search for others who had known the Doctor. However, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart had all information on the Doctor deleted. Nevertheless, they corresponded by e-mail ad were joined by Thomas Brewster. At first, Polly did not believe that their Doctors were the same person when she saw a UNIT party photo with the Doctor in his third incarnation but they realised they had both previously met him during his first and second incarnations. The three former companions rescued the TARDIS from Lens and saved the Earth from dying and from a Coffinloader, a beast which fed on dying worlds. (CC: The Three Companions) Polly gave a presentation on her experiences with the Doctor, Ben and Jamie, much to the audience's disbelief. She hung on to her secretarial Dictaphone recordings of Jamie, which had chronicled their adventure with the Time Walkers. (CC: The Forbidden Time)
Eventually, she reconciled with Ben Jackson and they married. When Polly was transported to an alternative version of the Death Zone on Gallifrey by Borusa using a Time Scoop, she came into contact with Fifth Doctor, Ian Chesterton, Steven Taylor, Sara Kingdom and Nyssa. She was soon caught in the middle of a fight between the Daleks, the Sontarans and a Tyrannosaurus rex. Polly brought up her feeling that she was not courageous and was only good for getting the coffee. The Doctor reminded her of having inspirationally stood up to the Cyber-Leader Krail. Polly stuck her stiletto into a Sontaran's probic vent before it could shoot the Doctor, as he was not paying attention to her. Polly and the rest expressed their hopes that the Doctor might visit them some day, though they doubted if he ever would. (BFA: The Five Companions)
In 2010, Sarah Jane Smith said that Ben and Polly were running an orphanage together in India. (SJA: Death of the Doctor)
Personality
Polly teased and bantered with those she cared for. She hid her affection for others, particularly Ben, behind this façade. She chatted him up when she met him and she was still chatting him up when they left the TARDIS. When her friends were in trouble, Polly was completely serious - particularly if Ben was in trouble. Polly would drop the banter and flippancy to work towards practical solutions. Like the earlier Wright to travel in the TARDIS, she hoped to find her way back to her own time period. She said, "Please let it be Chelsea, 1966," when guessing what would be outside the TARDIS doors after it landed in Atlantis (DW: The Underwater Menace). On the first landing in mid-1960s London, Polly left the Doctor with Ben, just as Barbara had left with Ian. (DW: The Faceless Ones)
Nicknames
She was also often called "Poll" by Ben; this was adapted to "Paul" when she was pretending to be a boy in 17th century Cornwall. (DW: The Smugglers) He also described Polly as "our little dolly-rocker duchess" (DW: The Smugglers) or simply "the duchess".
Behind the scenes
Is "Polly Wright" right?
Like Vicki before her, Polly's surname never appeared in any televised episode. "Wright" only came to Polly via stories in other media. The first such story to give her the surname was the 1995 novel by Gary Russell, Invasion of the Cat-People, one of the earlier Virgin Missing Adventures. Once BBC Books took back the original novel license from Virgin, it then became effectively "house policy" of the BBC Past Doctor Adventures line to call her "Polly Wright", as evidenced by both Steve Lyons' and Mark Gatiss' usage in their 1997 novelsThe Murder Game and The Roundheads, respectively. Prior to this, the name was the subject of speculation.
In the introduction to Cat-People, Russell made his case for the surname, claiming that "Wright" was used in the audition script Anneke Wills and others. Indeed, David J. Howe, et al, unearthed the audition script for their First Doctor Handbook. It does indeed include the character identifying herself as "Polly Wright" in a phone conversation. However, the name never made it into the recording of The War Machines. It's unclear why the surname was dropped, but it could have been because of a previous companion, Barbara had the same last name. Had she been called "Polly Wright" in 1966, viewers might well have wondered whether she was related to Barbara, last seen on television just a year earlier.
The matter became more complicated during the early days of organised fandom in the late 1970s, when the surname "Lopez" was applied to the character. This surname was the result of not one but two misunderstandings, both having to do with episode two of The Faceless Ones. As the cliffhanger to part one suggested, Anneke Wills was not then playing Polly, but a duplicate of her created by the alien Chameleons. At the start of part two of the story, the Doctor asked Anneke Wills' character her name, to which she replied, "Michele Leuppi, from Zurich". This name was later confirmed in the serial's novelisation.
Early fans listening to off-air audios transcribed the name as "Lopez" and believed, for reasons obscure, that this was the surname of the real Polly. Subsequently this surname was used by Doctor Who non-fiction author, Jean-Marc Lofficier in 1992's The Universal Databank, in which he referred to her as "Polly Lopez". Thus the name "Polly Lopez" came to be used in one of the most prominent Doctor Who reference works at the start of the 1990s.
Then, in a 1993 Myth Makers interview with Nick Briggs, Wills confided that Polly's surname was actually "Bettingham-Smith". However, in her 2007 autobiography Self-Portrait, Wills changed her mind and said that her character had no surname and was simply "Polly".
These questions have been resolved by the 2009 Big Finish Productions audio story, Resistance. In Resistance, Polly encounters what she believes is her patrilineal uncle, Randolph Wright. The Second Doctor dispenses with the possible relationship to his former companion Barbara by revealing that, in independently deducing Randolph was her uncle, he considered the fact that "Wright was a very common name". Later, it is revealed that "Bettingham-Smith" is actually her mother's maiden name. Finally, she is directly called "Polly Wright" in the play, several times by the Doctor himself.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
