The Vanity Box (audio story)

The Vanity Box
Doctor:	Sixth Doctor
Companion(s):	Mel
Main enemy:	Wishing Beast
Main setting:	Salford, England, 1965
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	Paul Magrs
Director:	John Ainsworth
Music:	ERS
Sound:	ERS
Release details
Release number:	97b
Release date:	July 2007
Format:	1 Episode
Production code:	7C/V
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-84435-284-5
Big Finish Doctor Who audio stories
← Previous	The Wishing Beast
Next →	Frozen Time

The Vanity Box was the following one-part story comprising part of the ninety-seventh release in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Paul Magrs and featured Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor and Bonnie Langford as Melanie Bush.

Publisher's summary

A strange beauty parlour has opened its doors for business in a dowdy Salford terrace circa 1965. Monsieur Coiffure is the talk of the street with his fabulous make-overs. When the Doctor arrives, however, he knows at once that there's been some unnatural titivation going on.

Plot

to be added

Cast

• The Doctor - Colin Baker
• Melanie Bush - Bonnie Langford
• Nesta Trubshaw - Diana Flacks
• Winnie - Christine Moore
• Bessy Tiplington / Barmaid - Rachel Laurence
• Monsieur Coiffure / The Wishing Beast - Toby Longworth

References

• Mel refers to Ready Steady Go! and Carnaby Street.
• The Doctor orders a pint of blackcurrant squash with water rather than soda in The Sailor's End.
• From the Doctor's dress and manner, Winnie believes that he may have just been released from either prison or a mental asylum.
• The Doctor describes the Vanity Box as an "excessively chintzy establishment."
• While disguised as a "provincial dolly bird," the Doctor tells Monsieur Coiffure that "two Yanks helped me up the statue in Piccadilly Gardens" on VE Night on 8 May 1945.
• The Doctor buys a milk stout for Nesta in The Sailor's End.
• Bessy Tiplington was born in 1909.

Notes

• The Vanity Box is only one episode long. The other three episodes on the discs are of The Wishing Beast.
• This was the final appearance of Bonnie Langford as Melanie Bush in a Big Finish audio drama until AUDIO: The Wrong Doctors in January 2013.

Continuity

• The Vanity Box takes places immediately after the events of AUDIO: The Wishing Beast, from the Doctor and Mel's perspective. However, those events have not taken place from the perspective of the Wishing Beast.
• The Doctor previously visited 1965 on three occasions during his first incarnation. (TV: The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve, The Daleks' Master Plan; PROSE: The Meeting) He would later do so again during his eighth (PROSE: The Space Age) and eleventh incarnations (AUDIO: Blackout).
• The Doctor previously disguised himself as a woman on two occasions during his second incarnation (TV: The Highlanders; AUDIO: The Glorious Revolution) and once during his third incarnation (TV: The Green Death).

External links

• Official The Vanity Box page at bigfinish.com
• The Vanity Box at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• DisContinuity for The Vanity Box at Tetrapyriarbus - The DisContinuity Guide