Just One Trip

The Doctor meets Shakespeare. When you write it down, it just seems such an obvious thing to do. So, when The Shakespeare Code was revealed as an episode of the new series expectations were high for this season’s “celebrity historical” that followed in the footsteps of The Unquiet Dead (Charles Dickens) and Tooth and Claw (Queen Victoria). He may have been a newcomer to the series but writer, Gareth Roberts, is a Doctor Who stalwart of old and he was given the task of bringing a Shakespearean story to life. So, using the mystery of the lost play “Love’s Labour’s Won” as a basis we were treated to a tale of alien witches, the Globe theatre, the Bard and Martha’s first trip aboard the TARDIS.

It was a real feast for the eyes with location shooting in both Warwick and the reconstructed Globe itself.  Both were used to great effect with the street scenes and a genuine, tangible atmosphere being created for the action on and around the stage.  Coupled with a number of matt paintings of vistas over 16th century London, this episode managed to create one of the most visually stunning installments of Doctor Who ever, perhaps even exceeding The Empty Child’s depictions of the Blitz.  More goodness, albeit with a slice of cheesiness, for the three witches’ prosthetic make-up and the costumes, which the BBC seem to be able to delivery with regular ease.

Being easy on the eye is one thing but what of the rest of the story.  Well, the tale of the Carrionites being from the dawn of time and banished into exile only to try and return via planet Earth is becoming a familiar conceit (immediate thoughts went to the Racnoss and the Gelth before them) but still managed to be engaging.  The use of the lost play was quite clever and the opportunity to intertwine a little real history with Who mythology is rarely wasted.  The two main guest stars were Dean Lennox Kelly and Christina Cole, playing Shakespeare and Lilith.  The former was cleverly cast as the Bard was portrayed as a pop star/man-of-the-people type figure and rose to the occasion with a memorable performance.  However, Ms Cole stole the show for me as the main witch who, thankfully, for most of the story, was devoid of witch-y make-up.  In pleasing, human form Lilith was quietly understated in her evil intentions and her encounter with the Doctor was noteworthy for its edge-of-your-seat tenseness.
The Doctor and Martha relationship progressed in an interesting and unexpected way.  “Just the one trip” was supposed to be a simple exercise for the Doctor before returning his new companion home but, as is the way of these things, the duo were distracted by the goings on in the Globe and realised there was a problem to solve.  Martha is proving herself worthy as a travelling companion, rushing to help those in need and facing down evil with little need of encouragement.  The Doctor’s behaviour is a little atypical though, being a little dismissive of Martha when she saw the psychic paper in action for the first time and being downright rude to her (and wonderfully oblivious to it) when sharing the bed.  There were a couple of references to Rose, which were welcome because there would be nothing worse than ignoring her very existence and pretending everything was fine.  As David Tennant said in Doctor Who Confidential, behaving a little out of character is a very realistic mannerism, especially for someone dealing with loss.

Gareth Roberts’s script was chock full of the predicatble Shakespearean quotes but it was all quite cleverly handled with a build-up of repartee between the two main men.  Some criticisms have been forthcoming about the apparent crowbarring of the these lines into the dialogue but when you think that there is a fairly significant part of the audience who will have little to no knowledge of these works then I think their more obvious use here is thoroughly justified, well, they certainly got laughs from me.  The final scene was a stroke of genius too, with one of the perils of time travel being revealed as, coming face-to-face with Elizabeth I, the Doctor was recognised by the Queen who immediately had him sentenced to death for some un-named misdermeanor from her past, but his future, and he was pursued back to TARDIS.

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Tags: Christina-Cole, Confidential, David Tennant, Dean-Lennox-Kelly, Doctor Who, Elizabeth-I, Freema-Agyeman, Martha-Jones, Shakespeare, TARDIS, Witches