Iris Wildthyme
Iris Wildthyme was a renegade Time Lady who encountered the Doctor on a number of occasions.
Profile
There was some contention regarding where precisely she is from, and precisely where her home is. (EDA: The Blue Angel)
Many of the experiences Iris claims as hers are very similar to the Doctor's own. In some cases she vividly remembers the Doctor's first trip to Skaro as being part of her own past rather than his. Among the explanations she has offered for this are the possibility that she is an alternate universe's equivalent of the Doctor or that she is a creation of Faction Paradox. In truth however, Iris has a metafictional awareness of the fact that she is a parody of the Doctor, and is consequently madly in love with him. (DWM: DWM Issue 289) She once proposed to the Doctor, in Venice, when she appeared to be a woman in her 60s with long white hair that reached to the ground. (EDA: The Scarlet Empress)
She and five other of her incarnations faced Morbius in the Death Zone, facing things such as Quarks and Zarbi. (BFA: Excelis Dawns, EDA: The Scarlet Empress)
Iris was part of the Sisterhood of Karn for a couple of years and was one of those present crying 'Death!' when the Doctor paid Karn a visit.
On occasion the Doctor has even participated in adventures of Iris's which have paralleled his own. The efforts of Bianca, her evil future self, to steal her remaining regenerations echo the Doctor's conflict with The Valeyard to such an extent that the Doctor was left outraged by the repeated scenario and plagiarised dialogue. (BFA: The Wormery)
Another characteristic of Iris's interactions with the Doctor is her tendency to encounter him 'out of sequence'. For example, her adventure with the Doctor's fifth incarnation (BFA: Excelis Dawns) occurs later in her life than her first adventure with his eighth (EDA: The Scarlet Empress). It has been suggested that her very nature makes it impossible to tie her to a linear chronology. (DWM: DWM Issue 289)
Similarly, her TARDIS transports her not through one universe but through the multiverse. Intuitively, and often drunkenly, Iris has been able to discern the soft places where the barriers between realities are weaker and spend her career travelling between them all. (BFIW: Wildthyme at Large)
Iris' recent adventures have provided an alternative explanation for her origins, which bears some similarities to the Doctor's own. According to Iris, she was part of a race known as the Clockworks, a race which keep the multiverse structured and orderly, in much the same way as the Time Lords are said to do. Iris found this way of life dull, so she rebelled and stole the bus. The Clockworks have apparently been chasing her since (BFIW: The Land of Wonder). In a recent interview, Panda told Unreality SF that “She certainly used to mumble on when in her cups about the ‘crisp clear mornings in the mountains of Gallifrey’ but recently I think we've got closer to the truth with the Obverse and the Clockworks and all that."[1]
Iris's Different Selves
According to Obverse Books, there have currently been six incarnations of Iris Wildthyme[2];
- The Edith Sitwell Iris - Iris' first incarnation, which has been designated "off limits" by Obverse Books.
- The Shirley Bassey Iris - Known in this incarnation as Brenda Soobie while in 1960's Las Vegas, she met the Eighth Doctor, along with his companions Fitz Kreiner and Anji Kapoor. It was also here she met Noel Coward for the first time. (EDA: Mad Dogs and Englishmen)
- The Beryl Reid Iris - Encountered the Eighth Doctor and Sam Jones on Hyspero (EDA: The Scarlet Empress), as well as the Third Doctor on Earth (PDA: Verdigris)
- The Barbarella Iris - Iris regenerated into this incarnation after eating a Kaled mutant. She later encountered the Eighth Doctor in the Obverse. (EDA: The Blue Angel)
- The Fifth Iris - This incarnation is not mentioned in any media and can only be distinguished because it is explicitly stated that the Barbarella Iris is her fourth incarnation and that the Katy Manning Iris is the sixth.
- The Katy Manning Iris - Iris' sixth and current incarnation. She left a handbag, which later became a mythical treasure, on the planet of Excelis and became a nun for a while before encountering the Fifth Doctor (BFA: Excelis Dawns). She encountered the Doctor again in his sixth incarnation at Bianca's Bar (BFA: The Wormery). Since then, she has been travelling the universe with her friend, Panda.
Iris's TARDIS
- See separate article.
Iris's Companions
- Captain Turner, who left Iris after only one trip to marry a sort of weretiger. (ST: Old Flames)
- Timmy, Iris referred to him as her "glamorous assistant". (EDA: The Scarlet Empress)
- Iris mentioned Gary as another of her previous companions. (EDA: The Scarlet Empress)
- Iris refers to one of her former companions as "an obtuse shape-shifter who loved nothing better than to spend much of his time as a lippy and garrulous penguin" (who most likely is Frobisher). (EDA: The Scarlet Empress)
- Flossie and Fritter joined Iris following the adventure with the Doctor and Noel Coward. (EDA: Mad Dogs and Englishmen)
Jenny
Traffic warden, (suggested she's a lesbian), used to get diarrhoea whenever they went through the vortex.
Martha
Is a poodle from the Poodle planet. (EDA: Mad Dogs and Englishmen)
Tom
Tom (is also gay) and his talking panda travelled with Iris for some time, before he returned to Earth, Iris then came looking for Tom once more. (BFIW: Wildthyme at Large)
Panda
He looks like a stuffed panda, likes more than a drop of alcohol (any really) and was a freelance journalist at one point in 1972. He continued to travel with Iris even after Tom departed. (BFIW: The Land of Wonder)
Behind the Scenes
Iris Wildthyme can be described as a meta-fictional character, able to comment on the world she is in, and on the Doctor's own adventures from a point of view removed from the normal narrative structures. Iris has also appeared in novels by Paul Magrs outside of the Doctor Who Universe, making her a crossover character. The "old woman" Iris Wildthyme appears like actor Beryl Reid (who has guest-starred on Doctor Who). On audio, Katy Manning supplies the voice for the character.
