The Red Lady (audio story)
The Red Lady was the second audio story in the anthology Doom Coalition 1. It starred Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor and Nicola Walker as Liv Chenka.
Publisher's summary
An anomaly in time brings the Doctor and Liv to London in the 1960s, where they meet a young lady named Helen Sinclair - desperately trying to make a name for herself in the face of sexism and prejudice.
Whilst the Doctor tried to uncover the secrets of a mysterious artefact, a far deadlier mystery awaits Liv and Helen in the collection of a recently deceased antiquarian.
Because that's where they find the Red Lady. Because if you do, you might not like what you see.
Plot
After the Dead Dr Mcalan's dying wishes are ignored his considerable art collection is sold to the national museum. Each article featuring a grotesque image of a woman with red hair wearing a mask.
The doctor and Liv arrive in London on the trail of a time disturbance they suspect was caused by the eleven they travel to the museum and are thrown out after caught scanning an un readable Greek tablet. Which should be impossible due to the tardis language recognition circuits. Helen Sinclair, an assistant to Walter pritchett comes back from an enormously sexist argument with the curator and leaves for a party whilst Walter documents the items. However over the phone he hears the murder of the man he aquired the collection from. He hears breathing after a scream then a woman sighs and the phone is cut off. Walter calls the police and when the doctor, liv and Helen arive back they find Walter has decended into madness and is obsessed with the first article of the collection he saw, a tapestry. To him the lady is taking off her mask and close wheras to everyone else she's still in the distance. At the murdered man's house they find he was clutching a child's drawing. However at second glance liv and the doctor see that the items they first saw have also changed. The doctors to begin with described her as far, far away. But an hour later says far away instead.
Pritchett is later murdered by the red lady. She takes off the mask and he starts seeing her in every reflective surface. He runs back to the muse in and knocks out the guard and locks himself in his office the red lady materialises in his office and kills him. Each death the ambulance team survey to be death from fright. The doctor and Liv find out that Mcalan the original collector was blinded as a child and committed suicide after his child and wife and parents (his parents were killed when he was a child) were killed in mysterious circumstances. Also the creators of the artwork boxed and sealed the pieces as soon as they made them. And that dispite being made generations apart all had the same idea of boxing them straight away. They deduce that his family must've seen the artwork and we're killed. They also see that the lady only kills the first person to view each individual piece. This is why Helen Sinclair is unaffected by her temptations. When they arrive back at the museum the doctor and Liv start craving the red lady and can't help but stare at the pieces of artwork. The red lady appears but just before she kills them the doctor realises that Mcalan blinded himself and so they blindfold themselves. This works temporarily but then the red lady cam be heard shouting at them to take off the blindfold and they say it feels like she's grabbing them whilst to Helen it looks like they're fighting thin air. Then they realise that the artists stopped her by putting her in the artwork this was why the second to last victim held a childs drawing as this was how Mcalan survived when he was a child. The doctor draws some stick figures and Liv writes a poem. They fold the papers and lock them in the under gallery with the other artwork. They deduce that the reason no one ever destroyed the art was in case they were just destroying the cage not the prisoner.
Cast
- The Doctor - Paul McGann
- Liv Chenka - Nicola Walker
- Helen Sinclair - Hattie Morahan
- Walter Pritchett - David Yelland
References
- Liv misquotes "discretion might be the better part of valour", which the Doctor says is a line from Shakespeare.
- Musicians such as Billy Fury, Tommy Steele and Tom Jones are popular in this period.
- A man speaking to Liv says the New Wave is becoming less popular, citing This Sporting Life as a film he dislikes. He prefers From Russia with Love. The film in question starred William Hartnell.
- The Doctor refers to Steve Jobs as an individual who devised a way of recording things on a "tablet".
Notes
- This story was recorded at The Moat Studios.
- In the behind the scenes extras, producer David Richardson cites Verity Lambert as a source of inspiration for the character of Helen Sinclair, something acknowledged in the setting of the story being 1963.
Continuity
- Liv remembers Martin Donaldson. (AUDIO: A Life in the Day)
- The Doctor reminds Liv that she has previously visited London in the 1920s and 1970s. (AUDIO: A Life in the Day, Eyes of the Master)
- The Doctor says he has lived in 1963 several times before. (TV: An Unearthly Child, PROSE: Time and Relative) In this particular incarnation he spent a period of time trapped on Earth in the 20th century, and would have lived through 1963. (PROSE: Casualties of War, The Turing Test, Endgame, Father Time)
- The Doctor and Liv return to the Doctor's house at 107 Baker Street. (AUDIO: The Haunting of Thomas Brewster, Fugitives, The White Room, Eyes of the Master)
External links
- Official Doom Coalition 1 page at bigfinish.com
