Blustering Time Lord meddler the Doctor and his friend Mel are ambushed by fellow Time Lord The Rani, and as his TARDIS crashes he is mortally wounded and forced to regenerate. His new persona starts out highly eccentric, scatter-brained and confused – but as his personality settles, it become unclear how much of this is real, and how much obfuscation of his real agenda. Teaming up with Ace, a teenager from the 1980s who had already become lost in time and has a penchant for high explosives, he soon begins to tie up plans and schemes he’d started lifetimes ago…
Splendid Chaps is a year-long celebration of Doctor Who‘s fiftieth anniversary: eleven live performances recorded as podcasts in which your brains will be fed, your funny bones tickled, and your hearts opened (yes, both of them!). Our seventh episode in our main series discusses the Seventh and final Doctor of what we now call the classic era, played by variety performer and actor Sylvester McCoy. Famous for escapology, spoon playing and putting ferrets down his trousers, McCoy’s casting raised a few eyebrows, but his performance changed many doubters’ minds – especially when combined with Sophie Aldred as Ace, and under the new direction provided by the incoming production team under Andrew Cartmell. Of course, no-one knew that the program’s days were numbered…
We’re also looking at the theme of “religion” in Doctor Who. The Doctor has been all across space and time and encountered zealots, fanatics, kindly priests, and beings who believed themselves to be gods or demons or the devil himself. But what does the program say about religion, faith and belief? Is the Doctor Who universe truly a rational one in which the supernatural is really just advanced science, or is The Beast really the Devil? Is faith worthwhile, and if so, what does the Doctor believe?
Hosts Ben McKenzie, John Richards and Petra Elliott are joined by guests including writer and game designer Paul Callaghan, comedian and television writer Dave Bloustien, and for our discussion of religion, the Reverend Dr Avril Hannah-Jones, Uniting Church minister and founder of the Church of the Latter Day Geek (as seen on Adam Hills In Gordon Street Tonight)! Plus a very special musical performance from the one and only Lee Zachariah accompanied by the two and only Adam Rudegeair, and all the usual prizes and surprises!
Space: The Public Bar, 238 Victoria Street, North Melbourne (opposite Victoria Markets)
Time: Sunday, July 14; recording starts 5 PM
Accessibility: This venue is wheelchair accessible.
Tickets: $15 (plus booking fee where applicable)
Bookings: via trybooking.com or at the door (subject to availability)
Podcast: “Seven/Religion” released in two parts on the 23rd (part one) and 30th (part two) of July, 2013.