Twenty-Four Doors in December (audio story)
Twenty-Four Doors in December was the first story in the audio anthology In the Bleak Midwinter, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by John Dorney and featured Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, India Fisher as Charlotte Pollard and Jaye Griffiths as Lady Audacity Montague.
Publisher's summary
When the TARDIS lands in London on the first of December the Doctor decides to treat his companions to a proper Christmas holiday...even down to dragging out the Baker Street Advent Calendar.
But elsewhere in the city a department store Santa is starting to have a very unnerving month. He's on a collision course with the time travellers. Is it going to be a Happy Christmas?
Plot
The Doctor takes Charley and Audacity to 107 Baker Street on 1 December in 2003 or 2004 to celebrate Christmas and presents them with an Advent calendar he made several incarnations ago. Audacity, unfamiliar with Advent calendars, opens the first door. Over the coming days, the trio prepare for Christmas and plan a party for the patients at London's children's hospitals, for which Charley and Audacity visit a department store where they decide to drop by Santa Claus's grotto.
Al Norton, a Santa Claus struggling with alcoholism, inexplicably hears Christmas carols. When Isla is brought to his grotto by her father, he recognises her voice as that of the caroller, but she disappears before he can go after her and he takes an early lunch. When Charley and Audacity visit to hire a Santa, Isobel, an elf, directs them to inquire at Great Grottoes Ltd. The Doctor does so and meets Santa Nicholas, who books them in for 22 December.
to be completed
Cast
- The Doctor - Paul McGann
- Charlotte Pollard - India Fisher
- Audacity Montague - Jaye Griffiths
- Al Norton - Jason Watkins
- Santa Nicholas / Father - David Hall
- Isobel / Neighbour - Natalie Gumede
- Isla / Suzanne - Eleanor Bennett
Worldbuilding
- Behind the doors of the Advent calendar are the following:
- 2 December: The fire escape from the staff area of a large department store.
- 3 December: The kitchen door in Baker Street.
- 4 December: The back exit of a double decker bus.
- 5 December: The revolving door at the front of a large department store.
- 6 December: The front entrance of Santa's grotto.
- 7 December: The Great Grottoes Ltd offices.
- 8 December: The door of Al Norton's bedroom.
- Peter Rogers made thirty films based on double entendres.
- Advent calendars were first made several decades after 1812 by German Lutherans or German mothers looking for an excuse to give her children sweets.
- Charley makes a Christmas pudding.
Notes
to be added
Continuity
- The Doctor mentions that he bought 107 Baker Street a few regenerations ago in The Haunting of Thomas Brewster [+]Loading...["The Haunting of Thomas Brewster (audio story)"].
- Charley does not know why she has said that Christmas would not be Christmas without pudding. The Chimes of Midnight [+]Loading...["The Chimes of Midnight (audio story)"]
External links
- Official Twenty-Four Doors in December page at bigfinish.com
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