Phantasmagoria (audio story)
Phantasmagoria was the second story in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Mark Gatiss and featured Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor and Mark Strickson as Turlough.
This meant that Mark Strickson became the first televised companion to reprise his role for Big Finish, as the preceding Big Finish audio, The Sirens of Time, was a companion-less adventure.
Publisher's summary
The TARDIS takes the Doctor and Turlough to the London of 1702 where a mysterious highwayman roams the streets, a local occultist has made contact with the dead and gentlemen of fashion are disappearing, only to find themselves in a chamber whose walls weep blood...
The time travellers become enmeshed in the hideous plans of Sir Nikolas Valentine, a gambler at the mysterious Diabola Club who always seems to have a winning hand...
Plot
Part One
In the opening scene, Jasper Jeake, Quincy Flowers, Edmund Carteret and a fourth person are playing whistand discussing the coming succession of Queen Anne, at the Diabola Club (apparently a similar institution to the Hellfire Club). They argue and Carteret storms off, claiming a desire for adventure and excitement. Carteret is then approached by the sinister Sir Nicholas Valentine (introduced as a scholar, landowner and astrologer), and they agree to play cards. Carteret is later heard leaving alone furtively and acting "very queer". The following morning Valentine is heard to remark that he had good luck at cards the previous evening and inviting a down-at-heel school teacher to play with him the following evening.
Meanwhile, in the Tardis, the Doctor tries to teach Turlough the rules of cricket with the aid of a 1928 Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, and attempts to work out their time location from clues from the house they find themselves in. They are confronted by the home's owner, Dr Samuel Holywell, whom they deduce to be an antiquarian; they explain their presence on the pretext that they were delivering him the Tardis to form part of his collection. While the Doctor distracts Holywell, Turlough notices that some of his books are connected with necromancy. It then becomes apparent that the protagonists are being observed by an advanced intelligence, not from their current era. That evening, while the Doctor and Turlough are being entertained by Holywell, Jeake and Flower are robbed by Major Billy Lovemore (a highwayman) and lose their winnings from the previous night. Later Ned Cotton (a drunken watchman) encounters Holywell's maid, Hannah Fry, outside Holywell's house and assaults her. Hearing her cries, Turlough comes to her rescue. Inside the house, Holywell informs the doctor that he has practical proof of the existence of ghosts and is in regular contact with them.
Part Two
Before Turlough can fight and save Hannah from Cotton, they are distracted by a man running towards them as if chased invisible pursuers; he drops dead with a playing card in his hand. The Doctor puts the card into his Almanack. Holywell blames himself, believing the death to be a result of his contact with the ghosts.
In an aside, to the background of screams of torment, Valentine is heard to comment that only a little time remains until his work is complete. Following the altercation between Turlough and Cotton, Turlough has gone missing and the Doctor attempts to locate him. He notes that the dead man has numerous coins and promissory notes in his pockets and Holywell informs him that there have been a number of disappearances like Turlough's recently. Holywell claims that he has been able to contact the spirits of these missing persons through his experiments. Turlough, it becomes apparent, has fallen and injured his head but has been rescued by Flowers and Jeake. Holywell tells the doctor that twenty-four people have gone missing within a mile of the Diabola Club. Meanwhile, Lovemore murders Cotton, citing vengeance as the reason. In the Diabola Club, Poltrot is playing cards with Valentine and notes that Valentine never removes his gloves. This is dismissed by Valentine as a gambler's superstition. Flowers confronts Valentine about Carteret's disappearance. Valentine claims that Carteret left after a few hands, and invites Flowers to play with him and Poltrot. Later Jeake and Turlough see Flowers leaving the club, looking pale and avoiding them.
Holywell, the Doctor and Hannah hold a seance in an attempt to locate the missing persons. They hear sounds that remind them of the death outside Holywell's house, and represent a series of numbers. Meanwhile, Turlough and Jeake decide to follow Flowers. They catch up with him and he asks for help, claiming that he is pursued by devils and a thousand voices.
Part Three
To Be Added
Part Four
As the spirits begin to gather around the Doctor, Billy arrives on his horse and offers him a ride to safety. Whilst fleeing, he realises that the playing card bequeathed to him by Sir Nikolas is actually a biological storage device capable of absorbing the DNA imprint of anyone in contact with it. Arriving at Doctor Holywell's shop, the Doctor burns the playing card to prevent the spirits from following him, thus wiping the DNA stored and evading the ghasts.
He keeps the card safe for later as Hannah reenters the shop, wearing same pair of boots as Billy. The Doctor soon notices and leads her to confess that she is on Earth to hunt Carthok of Daodalus as he was responsible for the murder of her parents.
From a bush outside, Turlough and Jasper witness lights in the attic of Nikolas's house. Breaking in, they enter a room with blood-stained walls and a pungent smell of rotting flesh. They are caught wading through the human debris by Nikolas who emits an electric charge, immediately melting Jasper's weapon. He shackles them in the attic with the rest of the 'disappeared' men. After receiving the address from Poltrot, The Doctor and Hannah enter the house and are confronted by Valentine and reveal him to be Carthok. Hannah attempts to shoot him, but is overpowered and led into the chamber.
Valentine explains that he aims to harvest the minds of those he captures and use them to regenerate his crashed spaceship. He only reappears every 30 years and uses the stimulus of his victims to directly repair the craft. As Hannah threatens him again, he shoots her and shackles her inside the chamber. He then states that he needs only one more mind to repair the ship and sees it fit that Hannah, who has suffered his wrath before, should be the final sacrifice,
Dr Holywell observes the increasing lights from outside the house. He breaks down the door and arrives in the chamber, handing the Doctor his coat. He watches as Hannah begins to be possessed by the machine. The Doctor attempts to initiate a ruse by playing up the Wisden Almanack to be an object of great power. Intent on finding it, Valentine grabs the coat and begins to rummage through it. Quickly seeing the misconception, he throws it to the side but not before touching the wiped card with his bare hand. Without his realising, the card begins to download and store his biological data.
Hannah, now given the chance to escape the chamber, decides to stay on and urges every past victim of Sir Nikolas' to hone in on the card. The spirits begin to stir one last time, stronger and louder than ever before; the spirits of thousands of men, spanning centuries, are taking revenge on their executioner. The spirits overwhelm Valentine, pouring into his body until his skin becomes hollow and he crumples to the floor, dead.
Unable to save Hannah, the survivors flee the house as the spaceship explodes in a spectacular fashion. They say their goodbyes at Dr Holywell's home and leave the occulist as confused as before.
Cast
- The Doctor - Peter Davison
- Turlough - Mark Strickson
- Henry Gaunt - Nicholas Briggs
- Quincy Flowers / Ned Cotton - David Walliams
- Edmund Carteret - Jonathan Rigby
- Jasper Jeake - Mark Gatiss
- Poltrot / Major Billy Lovemore / Librarian - Jez Fielder
- Sir Nikolas Valentine - David Ryall
- Dr Samuel Holywell - Steven Wickham
- Hannah Fry - Julia Dalkin
References
- Hannah is given brandy to settle her nerves.
- The Doctor gives Turlough his 1928 edition of the Wisden Almanack.
- The Doctor considers cricket to be "the greatest game in the universe", and gives Turlough an extended lecture about it.
- The Doctor and Valentine play patience.
- The Doctor jokes that he is ‘here to read the meter’.
- Jasper learned of Edmund's death from Mother Connitt.
Notes
- This story was originally released on CD and cassette. It is now available as a download, as well as to stream on Spotify.
- This audio drama was recorded on 26 and 27 June 1999 at the Nu Groove Studios, London.
- This story is set between the television stories Resurrection of the Daleks and Planet of Fire.
- The title of the story comes from a type of a horror theatre invented in France around 1700.[1] Later, Gatiss put this word in a line for Charles Dickens in his first TV story The Unquiet Dead.
- The idea for the story originated from a card-game sketch that was written by Gatiss and Jeremy Dyson and featured in The League of Gentlemen in 2000/2001.[1]
- Gatiss's idea for a disguised highwayman comes from the film The Wicked Lady.[1]
- Nick Briggs suggested to use the line from the script The Architect of Pain as the title. Other working titles included Chamber of Blood and Restoration.[1]
- Gatiss did a lot of research into the way people spoke in the 17th century. But it was not used in the final version because it was too hard to understand for modern listeners.[1]
- Alistair Lock's soundtrack to the story was released on CD in Music from the New Audio Adventures Volume 1, alongside the scores for The Fearmonger, The Marian Conspiracy and The Spectre of Lanyon Moor.
- It is the first Big Finish audio story to feature only one incarnation of the Doctor which in this case is the fifth, making him the first Doctor to have a Big Finish story where there is only the one actor playing the Doctor.
- Julia Dalkin is credited as Julia Deakin both on the Big Finish website and in The Big Finish Companion: Volume 1.
- The story begins on the day that William of Orange died: 8 March 1702.
Continuity
- Turlough enjoyed studying history at Brendon Public School on Earth in 1983. (TV: Mawdryn Undead)
- The Doctor finds a cricket ball and a ball of string in his pocket. (TV: Four to Doomsday)
- The Doctor tells Turlough that he has seen — and was very impressed by — a Type 70 TARDIS. (AUDIO: The Sirens of Time)
- Turlough complains when he has to save Hannah, saying that "this really isn't me at all". He would later save Peri Brown, protesting "Earthlings". (TV: Planet of Fire)
External links
- Official Phantasmagoria page at bigfinish.com
- Phantasmagoria at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
- DisContinuity for Phantasmagoria at Tetrapyriarbus - The DisContinuity Guide
