Subterfuge (audio story)
Subterfuge was the two hundred and sixty second story in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Helen Goldwyn and featured Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor, Ian McNeice as Winston Churchill and Rufus Hound as the Monk. It was the third in a trilogy of stories pitting the Seventh Doctor against another rogue Time Lord.
Set during the 1945 general election, the story was released just four months after the general election in 2019. Cast and crew observed a certain contemporary vibe present in the script. Samuel Clemens, the director, noted that, while the story does not necessarily pass specific comments or judgements, it used its historical setting to reflect aspects of the real-world political climate as it was around the time of release. (BFX: Subterfuge)
Publisher's summary[[edit] | edit source]
London, 1945. Winston Churchill campaigns for re-election. His new strategic adviser assures him that Britain has a bright future under his continued leadership. It’s a vote he can’t possibly lose. But the Doctor knows that he must.
The Monk is meddling, altering history for his own selfish ends. With spies and aliens in the mix, Winston realises victory may not be so simple. But at least he can trust his old friend... can’t he?
Plot[[edit] | edit source]
Part one[[edit] | edit source]
The day before the election, Churchill delivers a well-received speech in Trafalgar Square with the help of the Monk, who is going by Simon Saunders and acting as a political advisor. The Doctor emerges from the sewers to save Churchill and his retinue when a bomb goes off, taking control of the situation to the Monk's irritation.
Two days before the election, Churchill dismisses the Monk, who is coaching him on how to campaign without undermining Attlee, so that he can speak with Lesley Kulcade of MI5 and his assistant, Agent Alicia Dowan, about a German spy in the organisation who is planning on escaping the country. Afterwards, the Doctor visits Churchill and inquires about how his campaign is going so well, knowing that Churchill is not supposed to be re-elected, but they are interrupted when Alicia is found injured at the bottom of the stairs and the portraits of previous Prime Ministers have disappeared. The Doctor notes that the walls seem to have been blasted with incredible heat, although his sonic screwdriver detects no evidence that the paintings were destroyed.
Alicia tells the Doctor that she heard a buzzing sound and passed out and is interrupted by the Monk, who claims that he is interfering in the timeline for the betterment of Earth despite the election being a fixed point in time and threatens to assassinate Churchill if the Doctor tries to stop him. The Doctor learns from Churchill that Kulcade is investigating the recent theft of various national treasures, crimes which are being kept from the public, and goes with him, the Monk and Alicia to MI5. They are caught in traffic, however, as Edward has crashed his truck whilst transporting an unexploded Luftwaffe bomb he has been blackmailed into digging up. Alicia claims not to recognise him and the Doctor saves him from the truck before finding the ticking bomb, which the Monk locks him inside with.
Part two[[edit] | edit source]
Alicia defuses the bomb, which she recognises as a SC250, and Churchill has the Monk escort her home at the Doctor's suggestion when she claims to be feeling unwell. Walking down a dark alley, the pair are stopped by a mugger with a gun, but Alicia fights him and he runs off with his sleeve on fire. They instead go to the Monk's residence where he shoots her with a stun gun and imprisons her. She fails to escape using atomic adjutation, a power which the Monk has rendered moot by altering the structure of the bars, and the Monk deduces that she is a stranded Cindran.
Edward heads to a bombsite and alters the electrical signals in the brain of a policeman to get him to help recover another bomb. Once they have dug one up, he takes it to his underground Cindran spacecraft via a storm drain and System alerts him to the fact that the spacecraft's stem energy will fail in approximately 24 hours.
Churchill introduces the Doctor to Kulcade and informs him of the spy in MI5, whom the Doctor suspects could be connected to the inexplicable thefts due to the crimes seeming to be a way of hurting the United Kingdom before they leave. He finds a bug in Kulcade's lamp and leaves Churchill with notes on his speech whilst he and Kulcade visit Alicia, the only other person to have access to the office. Finding her home empty, the Doctor heads back to Churchill, unaware that the Monk is holding her captive in the hopes of exploiting her powers and to prevent her from causing panic when her spacecraft is ready to take her away from Earth. She again tries to use her power and the Monk screams.
Part three[[edit] | edit source]
The Monk stuns Alicia and returns to the Doctor and Churchill, who have restored the condemnations of socialism and attack on Attlee by reference to the Gestapo to Churchill's speech. Upon receiving a message from his secretary that Westminster Police have received a tip-off about a bombing in Central London, Churchill shows the Doctor and the Monk his file on the theft of numerous bombs around the city by a group of youths, one of whom the Monk recognises as the young man Alicia claimed not to have recognised at the truck crash site. Despite the warning, the Doctor and the Monk agree that Churchill's speech must go ahead.
Kulcade meets with Edward, who knows him as "Mr Smith", and demands to know his sister Alicia's location and why the two of them were spying on him, an accusation that he denies. Edward refuses to continue putting the bombs into position until Alicia has been found and Kulcade warns him that he will not hand over the siblings' parents' crystal unless he obeys. Beneath Aldwych tube station, Edward gets the bombs ready and the Doctor, having learnt from a borstal boy that Edward often goes into the sewers, comes across him and Kulcade. The Doctor gets away, but not before confirming that Kulcade is the Nazi spy.
Alicia awakens and breaks out using the Monk's stun gun, discovering that the Monk has been selling the art that Kulcade has been having Alicia steal with her powers. The Monk traps her once again and goes to salvage Churchill's campaign after hearing his speech on the radio. Meanwhile, the Doctor finds the Cindran spaceship is held at gunpoint by Edward until the ship's stem energy begins to fail prematurely, distressing Edward. The Doctor screams as Edward loses control of his powers because of his emotional response.
Part four[[edit] | edit source]
The Doctor prolongs the life of the stem energy with his sonic screwdriver and warns Edward that he and Alicia will need a new stem crystal to get away from Earth, meaning Edward will have to steal the one in Kulcade's possession. Whilst Edward fails to find it in Kulcade's office, the Doctor evacuates two offices and a department store ahead of the imminent bombings and gets Churchill to safety following his speech. Churchill has Alicia under citizen's arrest, having found her locked in the Monk's residence and been told by him that she is the MI5 spy.
The Doctor informs Churchill of Kulcade's treachery and sends him to Westminster to deal with the emergency, enlisting the exonerated Alicia's help in defusing the rest of the bombs before she leaves. He discovers microfilm in Kulcade's office with all of Kulcade's plans and hurries to Westminster with Alicia to save Churchill from bombs planted beneath the building. Alicia uses her power to start moving the bombs to her and Edward's spaceship to be used as fuel and the Monk stops Kulcade from leaving the country by aeroplane, shooting him. The Doctor gets Churchill and the Cabinet to safety and the area is cordoned off due to supposed gas explosions.
Alicia and Edward leave Earth thanks to the Doctor returning the stem crystal, which he found with the microfilm, to them. The Monk returns the bound Kulcade to London in the hopes of being rewarded and is instead arrested for fraud, deception, art theft and treason, but he manages to escape and disappear. The Doctor visits Churchill weeks later, following Attlee's landslide victory, and tries to explain that he had to ensure that Churchill lost the election per established history. Churchill does not accept this, however, and declares that this incarnation of the Doctor is not his friend.
Cast[[edit] | edit source]
- The Doctor - Sylvester McCoy
- Churchill - Ian McNeice
- The Meddling Monk - Rufus Hound
- Lesley Kulcade - Brian Capron
- Alicia Dowan / Churchill's Secretary / Operator - Mimi Ndiweni
- Edward Dowan - Philip Labey
- Policeman / Mugger / Broadcaster / System - Jonathan Forbes
- Secretary 2 / Landlord / Borstal Boy / Driver - James Joyce
Crew[[edit] | edit source]
- Cover Art - Simon Holub
- Director - Samuel Clemens
- Executive Producers - Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs
- Music and Sound Design - Steve Foxon
- Producers - Emma Haigh and David Richardson
- Script Editor - Matt Fitton
- Writer - Helen Goldwyn
Worldbuilding[[edit] | edit source]
- Attlee's style, according to the Monk, is modest and understated.
- The outcome of the 1945 general election is a fixed point in time.
- Alicia Dowan is a data analyst.
- Alicia has signed the Official Secrets Act.
- The Monk met Lesley Kulcade at a fundraiser at Kensington Palace in 1944.
- According to MI6, classified information was regularly fed to Germany throughout the Double-Cross Operation.
- The Treason Act is new.
- Churchill last met the Seventh Doctor in 1936 during "that business with Mrs Simpson".
- The Monk wrote for The Times as a political analyst.
- The SC250 is a bomb.
- Alicia lives near Carlton Gardens.
- Churchill does not approve of socialism.
- Westminster Police receive a tip-off.
- The Monk claims to have burnt himself whilst making cheese on toast.
- The Earl of Harchester is interested in buying the portraits from 10 Downing Street.
Notes[[edit] | edit source]
- This features the first appearance for both Winston Churchill and Rufus Hound's Monk in Big Finish's monthly range, although each had previously made numerous appearances in other ranges.
- From Churchill's perspective, the story acts as a kind of sequel to Churchill Victorious, the final story in The Churchill Years: Volume Two.
- No precise date is given in-universe but the Doctor's mention of Japan indicates that the Pacific War is still going on. In the real world, the polls opened on 5 July 1945 - thereby setting the bulk of the story on 4 July - and the result was declared on 26 July. The story at least acknowledges this period of delay.
- Director Sam Clemens also had a role in directing Churchill's following audio appearance, Operation: Hellfire in The Third Doctor Adventures: Volume Six, released two months later. Although Hellfire was primarily directed by Nicholas Briggs, Ian McNeice recorded his lines at a separate date from the rest of the cast under Clemens' direction. Clemens also voiced the character of Hegley in that story. (BFX: Operation: Hellfire)
- This story was recorded on 10 & 11 September 2019 and 13 January 2020 at The Moat Studios and WideBuddah.
Continuity[[edit] | edit source]
- Churchill and the Doctor both note that, from the latter's perspective, their previous meeting was in 1936 during "that business with Mrs Simpson." (PROSE: The Lost Diaries of Winston Spencer Churchill) Churchill, meanwhile, met many other Doctors between 1936 and the 1945 election:
- The Second Doctor in 1915 (PROSE: Players)
- The Third Doctor in 1943. (AUDIO: Operation: Hellfire)
- The Sixth Doctor in 1899 and 1936 (PROSE: Players) and subsequently in 1944. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)
- The Eighth Doctor in 1940. (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour)
- The Ninth Doctor in 1939, (AUDIO: The Oncoming Storm) 1941, (AUDIO: Human Conflict) 1942. (AUDIO: I Was Churchill's Double) and on VE Day. (PROSE: The Lost Diaries of Winston Spencer Churchill)
- The Tenth Doctor in 1941 (AUDIO: Hounded) and also on VE Day. (AUDIO: Churchill Victorious)
- The Eleventh Doctor in 1936 (COMIC: The Eagle of the Reich) and 1941. (TV: Victory of the Daleks)
- The Twelfth Doctor, via phone call, in 1941. (COMIC: The Instruments of War)
- An unspecified incarnation, between the First and Sixth, after the Dunkirk evacuations in 1940. (AUDIO: The Ultimate Adventure)
- Churchill enters the election campaign full of confidence (AUDIO: Churchill Victorious) and is embittered by the result. (AUDIO: Living History)
External links[[edit] | edit source]
- Official Subterfuge page at bigfinish.com
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