...ish (audio story)

...ish
Doctor:	Sixth Doctor
Companion(s):	Peri
Main enemy:	Warren, The Ish
Main setting:	Articulate Worlds
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	Phil Pascoe
Director:	Nicholas Briggs
Producer:	Jason Haigh-Ellery and Gary Russell
Music:	Neil Clappison
Sound:	Neil Clappison
Cover by:	Clayton Hickman
Release details
Number of parts:	4
Release number:	35
Release date:	29 August 2002
Format:	2 CDs Download
Production code:	6Z/B
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-90365-473-6 (physical) ISBN 978-1-84435-742-0 (digital)
Main Range
← Previous	Spare Parts
Next →	The Rapture
Production order
← Previous	The Sandman
Next →	Spare Parts

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...ish was the thirty-fifth story in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Phil Pascoe and featured Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor and Nicola Bryant as Peri Brown.

This was the second audio story to feature this line up of companion and Doctor. Pascoe's story idea was picked up after he pitched it to them during one of their 'open door days', where they allowed unsolicited stories to be pitched. To date, it is Pascoe's only contribution to audio-based Doctor Who.

Publisher's summary

A conference of lexicographers: bromides in tweed. But the leading expert in the field is found dead by her own hand — and by her hologlyphic assistant. Is he responsible? Does the death fit any conventional definitions? Can the Sixth Doctor realise who wrote the suicide note and why, exactly, it was riddled with spelling errors?

Peri should help out, but there's a guy. Someone who loves language even more than the Doctor. Maybe, she realises, enough to kill for. Or perhaps just enough to ask her out to dinner. Unless, of course, he's already spoken for...

Is it madness? Seeking transcendence in the complete lexicon? Having the right words on the tip of your tongue but never quite knowing when to use them?

If so, how?

Plot

Part One

The word "ish"- well, almost a word- is discussed by Book. Professor Osefa de Palabra Hftzbrn is accosted by a man about a recent paper. She gets inside and summons Book, who she then complains to about changes to the proceedings. A man has left a short message for Osefa, who continues editing her speech. Meanwhile, the Doctor arrives with Peri Brown. The Doctor explains that the conference they've arrived at is to put together the Lexicon, the largest collection of words and their definitions in existence.

The Doctor meets Cawdrey, who organised this event, and Peri claims to be the Doctor's translator. Cawdrey says Osefa has mentioned the Doctor many times. Peri wanders off, ordering lunch, and meets Warren. The Doctor talks with Cawdrey about the stress on the holders of the conference, and the pair go to Osefa's rooms, but find her dead, apparently by her own hand.

Book talks to himself, still trying to work out the word "...ish". Meanwhile, Peri and Warren keep talking, bonding over how difficult academics can be, and the idea that words are meant to be spoken. Warren says words can speak people into existence. The Doctor finds Osefa's suicide note, words mysteriously jumbled. He seems to believe it isn't a suicide. Warren explains that Book is the intelligence of the Lexicon, and that he has no freedom, as well as that they have an "information economy" here. Cawdrey explains to the Doctor that Book is a hologlyph, and the Doctor thinks he's gone rogue. They decide not to call the police about Osefa's death unless they can't find the killer on their own.

Warren shows Peri to Book's office, and hacks into his computer, swapping a couple words to get his attention. They hide under the desk as Book comes in. Warren suggests killing Book, and shows himself, only for Book to threaten to kill the pair himself.

Part Two

Book malfunctions. The Doctor finds failures from within the computer systems, but can see Book's workspace, which is full of seemingly deliberate mistakes. They're anagrams in fact, which solve to read "Warren", who Cawdrey says is an evil disruptor of all linguistic study. Peri tells Warren to leave Book alone, just as a message comes through from Cawdrey, asking all uninvited visitors to report to the faculty offices. Warren goes to investigate, and Peri talks further to Book, who tells her of the types of words he knows.

Cawdrey addresses the visitors, welcoming them to the symposium, and introduces the Doctor. Peri questions Book's ability to understand the words he supposedly "knows", and Book says he "won't tell if you don't". The Doctor finishes his speech with a joke, then returns to Cawdrey, who tells the Doctor that he includes his corporate sponsor's trademarks and brands in the Lexicon, but those trademarks and the like were "eaten up" in the systems failure. The Doctor insists they need to talk to Book, who at that moment is telling Peri that he is having trouble remembering things.

Cawdrey says that the words that Book, who is a database, stores, come from many sources. The Doctor examines Osefa's body, noting that the Lexicon is unaffected in the system failures. The Doctor is able to use Osefa's recent memories to create a quasi-hologlyph of her. Book explains to Peri that he sometimes travels to other worlds to collect inactive vocabulary, and that he will never be able to stop collecting words as they're always changing. In his most recent expedition, he went to an unremarkable planet with Osefa. Osefa is describing the same thing to the Doctor and Cawdrey, talking about the culture of the planet.

Something "collected" Book, he says; something undefined. Something Peri worries was collected into the Lexicon. The Osefa-glyph turns off. Book tells Peri that the Lexicon is supposed to be used by people asking him for them. To make this easier on Book, Osefa came up with an idea: she opened an interface between the real world and the Lexisphere. The Doctor is looking through Osefa's notes, which refer to "LT" many times: Lexical Transcendence. Cawdrey is shocked, as transcendentalism is a "lunatic" fringe theory. The Doctor thinks he'll able to access the Lexisphere, which is essentially Book's mind. Peri is already inside, and suddenly finds herself trapped after hearing Book say "ish".

Cawdrey answers the phone to Book's voice whispering "ish", which the entire conference begins chanting.

Part Three

Warren finds Peri in the Lexisphere, and they escape. Peri finds Book repeating "ish", over and over, faster and faster...

The Doctor tries to figure out why everyone is repeating the word, but his questions are met only with "ish". The Doctor and Cawdrey think it's a technological virus, and Cawdrey thinks Warren is behind this. Peri tells Warren that there's something in the Lexisphere, and he goes back in to investigate. Book talks about the suicide note, which he corrected. He continues glitching. Cawdrey says the entire campus is affected, and pages of textbooks and anything else written are too- there are typos everywhere, and they are becoming nonsense.

Cawdrey says Osefa's note is changing. Peri finds the Doctor, and he explains that they're trying to figure out the meaning of the word, and keep repeating it until it becomes meaningless. So, their minds switch off. Warren is in the Lexisphere, and begins to think about "ish", too. Peri tells the Doctor about Warren going back into the Lexisphere. The Doctor suggests thinking of the campus as a multilingual phrasebook. This "virus", if it is a virus, is searching through the book, ignoring languages like architecture and reality and birdsong because those aren't what it's looking for.

Book talks to the hologlyph version of Osefa, who is talking about lexical transcendentalism: the search for the mythical longest word in the cosmos. One that is very long and thus has no known meaning. The Doctor says such a word would cause meaning itself to collapse. The Doctor thinks Book found a surviving fragment of this word, this "Omniverbum", and this fragment is "the ish". Cawdrey reappears, and the Doctor gives him a sort of earpiece that filters out instances of the ish, so they don't start repeating it like everyone else. The Doctor goes to find Book. Cawdrey refuses to believe that a word can be alive, and Peri tries to shut down the lexisphere. On the monitors appear the word "ish", and yet they're still not infected.

The Doctor returns to "where it really all started", and Book is there. He tells the Doctor that he found out nothing about the omniverbum, and that language is hollow and pointless. It was this realisation that drove Osefa to suicide. Meanwhile, the Osefa hologlyph is trying to work, and then Book appears. He's saying "ish", and Osefa's notes change. Warren appears, telling the Doctor that the ish is the future. Peri tries to get Cawdrey to help her, but he is panicking. Peri calms him down. Warren insists that people are just playing with "ish", that freedom would come with the destruction of language: with the omniverbum.

Part Four

The Doctor and Book escape while Warren meets hologlyph Osefa. The Doctor begins destroying remote projectors, as they're essential to Warren's plan. Book seems able to stay sane as long as he stays away from the word "ish". Peri takes out her earpiece, realising that they were getting infected anyway. The Doctor figures out that the ish hasn't left campus because it wants Book. It wants the Lexicon. The Doctor thinks rewriting the Lexicon will save them.

Warren tries to convince Osefa that the "ish" is the natural conclusion of the work of the Lexicon. Cawdrey reveals to Peri that Warren is a hologlyph, an appendix. He's connected to the lexisphere, and he was programmed by Cawdrey to be interested in language, which led him to many different conferences, studying words. Peri and Cawdrey keep trying to shut the lexisphere down. Osefa decides to tell a story instead of her usual speech- a story about the Doctor. Book suggests that the omniverbum is the length of the universe, only ending when the universe dies, and the Doctor replies that the omniverbum is drawing in other words. The conference-goers are it's snack, and Book is it's main course.

Warren appears to Peri and Cawdrey. Peri begins succumbing to the ish, and Warren tells Cawdrey that Osefa knew about Warren, but let him keep going, knowing that Cawdrey was too useless to help otherwise. Osefa speaks about the Doctor's ability to defeat evil using language, but speculates that he may fail when faced with something that lived in language. The Doctor arrives and destabilises Warren by changing the language he runs on, with the ish abandoning him. Looking for a new host, the ish enters the Doctor's mind.

The ish seems to be after the omniverbum- its home. The Doctor tries to convince the ish to let him return it back to where Book collected it from, but it doesn't agree. Peri is becoming infected too, and now the Doctor is the only one safe. Book talks to Osefa, or the closest definition he has- her hologlyph. The Doctor realises that the ish feeds on one word at a time, so it wouldn't know what to choose if they give it conflicting alternatives- American versus English words. The ish begins to lose control. Peri, Cawdrey, and Warren are no longer under the ish's control.

The omniverbum is breaking through. They run. Warren dematerialises, desperate to make his plan succeed: to bring the omniverbum back. The English language is too vast, though, vaster than the omniverbum, so the Doctor asks Book to use the Lexicon to stop the omniverbum, which succeeds, but destroys the Lexicon by doing so. The conference-goers begins returning to sanity. The ish isn't alive anymore, not properly. Warren has been taken by the ish, and Cawdrey cannot speak, ever again.

Osefa has returned as her hologlyph is here to stay, and she and Book have a job lined up. They have to start again, but slower, without the technology they had before. The Doctor and Peri depart.

Cast

• The Doctor — Colin Baker
• Peri Brown — Nicola Bryant
• Book — Moray Treadwell
• Professor Osefa de Palabra Hftzbrn — Marie Collett
• Warren — Chris Eley
• Symposiarch Cawdrey — Oliver Hume
• Annoying Delegate/Robot Waiter — Nicholas Briggs

Worldbuilding

Technology

• The Doctor uses Transgalactic Babel Masters to block the word "ish" from being spoken.

References

• Cawdrey mentions that Warren "spoonerised" the newsletter of the proper speaking society. Spoonerising something refers to swapping the first letters of two words, after the Oxford don Spooner, who famously often got his letters mixed up. For example, a spoonerism of "You have missed all my history lectures" is "You have hissed all my mystery lectures" Spoonerism.
• Warren calls the Doctor the man with the "coat of many colours", referencing Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat Joseph_and_the_Amazing_Technicolor_Dreamcoat.

Language

• English is the language of Geoffrey Chaucer and Shakespeare
• The Doctor thinks little of Merriam Webster

People

• Peri says her major in college is botany. Maybe.
• Osefa's species has an unusually strong hippocampus which can recall recent memories, even after death, for some time.

Gallery

• 

  Original CD cover

• 

  Illustration preview by Martin Geraghty in DWM 321

Notes

• The Doctor makes an aborted reference to an encyclopaedia that was too heavy to lift that "ran from DAL to--", a nod to Terry Nation's apocryphal claim that the name of the Daleks was inspired by an encyclopaedia volume running from DAL to LEK.
• This audio drama was recorded on 6 and 8 March 2002 at the Moat Studios.
• This story is set between Revelation of the Daleks and The Trial of a Time Lord.
  • This story's Big Finish page does not state a chronological placement in relation to other Big Finish stories, as the sentence for it has been left unfinished. However, the production code of this story being 6Z/B would indicate a setting after Whispers of Terror, its production code being 6Z/A, and before The Reaping, its production code being 6Z/C.
• In Part 2, while the Doctor is addressing the symposium, he remarks, "And, he looked at me and said: 'Sausage? Sausage?!'" A reference to the third episode of Blackadder the Third, "Ink and Incapability", which features Dr Samuel Johnson, the progenitor of the original dictionary. In the original episode, the exclamation comes at his discovery that he's left the word "sausage" out of his final edition.
• The processing sounds heard in Part 2, while Peri is talking with Book, contain the distinctive bootup noise of the titular Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. As heard on both radio and seen on television.
• This story is set between Revelation of the Daleks and The Trial of a Time Lord.
• This story was originally released on CD. It is now available as a download, as well as to stream on Spotify.

Continuity

• Peri refers to her botany course and her stepfather Howard Foster. (TV: Planet of Fire)
• The Third Doctor demonstrated the Delphon eyebrow language to Liz Shaw when they first met, saying, "Hello". This took place soon after he had finished regenerating and was testing out his new eyebrows. (TV: Spearhead from Space)

External links

• Official ...ish page at bigfinish.com; note that it is out of print and is available as download only.
• ...ish at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• DisContinuity for ...ish at Tetrapyriarbus - The DisContinuity Guide