The Tertiary Console Room: Review - Doctor Who

"Who can really say whether the things we think of as real and meaningful even exist except in our own minds?"

In Light City, the State permeates everything. It controls its citizens' lives through meaningless phrases like "happiness through acceptance", and individuality is outlawed and original thought is a crime. Conformity is rewarded and any form of deviancy from the accepted normality of the enforced routine is punished with total personality revision, ensuring that the offender will never know what they have done. In a world such as this, can anyone be sure of who they really are? Questions are the ultimate sin and all good members of the proletarian will fall in line, happy to embrace their place and enjoy their State licensed broadcast hours of infotainment in reward, which tell the tale of a strange adventurer and his redoubtable companions...

Stories based around the dystopian nightmare of an all-powerful State are an area of fiction that has been explored meticulously throughout both literary and cinematic avenues from George Orwell to The Matrix and countless others. Stories of this type often, ironically, conform to archetypal conventions where an idealist becomes aware of the totalitarian regime and fuelled with indignation attempts to open the eyes of those around him, too blind to see the truth that they are slaves to the will of the State. It is also a theme that many Doctor Who writers have used as the basis for their stories throughout its various forms of media, with the happiness through acceptance line being particularly reminiscent of 1988's The Happiness Patrol and its ubiquitous "happiness will prevail" tagline. So with a basic idea that has been delved into thoroughly before, what can Jim Mortimore bring to the idea with his first script for Big Finish? By challenging expectations and playing against the conformity of the typical standards of a Doctor Who adventure, he has produced an inimitable play of complexity and passion that showcases the evolution and the might of ideas themselves.

With The Natural History Of Fear, Mortimore presents the society of Light City where the control of the State is so supreme that its population believe themselves free as they willingly accept conformity and obedience. But, as the story is quick to point out, it is context which is the most crucial aspect of meaning and Mortimore is quick to subvert expectations by defining his story almost from the beginning as a conceptual play where the central idea and themes become more important than traditional narrative devices such as characters or plot. What drives the story is how such an insular society that works hard to maintain a status quo, can be so affected by the introduction of an outside stimulus. By taking a synchronic approach to the setting, Light City is depicted over a short period of time only but it is sufficient to demonstrate the widespread and radical effect a single idea can have throughout its population.

In enforcing the character of the city, the characters are defined by their function within society rather than their non-existent individuality. Therefore the people either are either nameless proles or have titles that reflect their role such as the Editor, the Conscience or the DJ. Mortimore uses these ideas to show how the purpose of the position can be more important to the State than the individual who is performing it - with the nature of personality revision being what it is in Light City anyone could find themselves revised into one of these titles of authority and this is shown through the story in the way that the role of certain actors changes with the development of the plot. The way the State treats the notion of revision so lightly is utterly horrifying as they think nothing of consigning as many as necessary to having their personalities, memories and attitudes destroyed and rebuilt to ensure the equilibrium is maintained. But it has become part of their routine, a hideous custom that is accepted without question because questions themselves are prohibited as they lead to knowledge, which leads to freedom which leads to unhappiness. This is only one chain of events that are designed to condition the society to conventionality but it shows how this habituation is so embedded within the social foundations of Light City. Mortimore shows the uniformity throughout the city well with the constant repetition of the morning speech by the "voice of Light City" telling the population that each and every day - except for their Jubilee - is "high productivity day" and the frequency with which this is continuously emphasised throughout the drama shrewdly tugs the listener into the same cycle, so when it is broken the effect is even more startling.

There is a strong structure to the play with Mortimore using each of the episodes to explore a different aspect of the society through different functions. The first is a representation of how the oppressive nature of the State can effect the ordinary citizen, represented principally by India Fisher's character. The sudden way she turns on her husband early in the play when he inadvertently asks a simple question of her demonstrates how deep-rooted the laws of the State are. As he is taken away, her acceptance of the personality revision which will come to her too is so total that she believes it is the only way that she will gain happiness again away from the perverse ideas of contravention her husband has influenced her with. The husband's suicide in the name of love is one of the play's most powerful moments and yet his passionate ravings against the rights that the State has denied its people cuts into the dark underbelly of Light City and serves as the best way possible to draw the listener into the unfolding drama.

The second episode expands on the part of the Conscience, as played by Conrad Westmaas. The Conscience's role is not to think but to offer guidance and ensure obedience but it seems even he has become effected by the idea that existence in Light City is harshly limited by the unfair State and revolution is in the air. The Editor, played by Paul McGann, is perhaps the most intriguing function of them all. His role is only ever defined in the broadest of terms - "an Editor edits" - but it is the most crucial part within the play. From the assured, confident manner McGann portrays him initially, it is a downward spiral as the very idea of revolution forces the Editor down a path of obsession which he believes will protect the State he loves, however his course of action changes him irrevocably so in doing so the reality around him changes and he who was one of the State's greatest protectors paradoxically becomes its greatest threat as he fanatically tries to destroy the group who hope to restore the hero to life within Light City and lead them to revolution.

The complexity of The Natural History Of Fear comes from the fact that every word and sound has meaning beyond its superficial appearance. Mortimore's script is so densely packed with implied meaning that repeated listening will show the route towards enlightenment and understanding is clearly running throughout the drama but because it lurks slyly just beneath the surface it works so much the better. Mortimore's dialogue is sharp and intricate, reflecting the complex themes of the play which lends some scenes a degree of impenetrability due to their intensity. The humming top, which features on the story's excellently simple cover, symbolises perfectly the nature of the State as when it is in action it can appear to be an object at rest as it moves so quickly that you cannot perceive the change. Light City is the same, a society that appears to be stagnating yet is ultimately in flux as it moves towards its next social upheaval that will change it forever and again the idea of the process being more important than the results is emphasised. The irony is that the creating force that shaped the State is the force that will also destroy it.

As the licensed infotainment is effectively Doctor Who itself - with clips of stories ranging from Neverland to The Creed Of The Kromon forming part of the backdrop of the story, complete with a strangely familiar yet unlike theme - Mortimore suggests an interesting subtext relating to the fandom of the series itself. The DJ's cataloguing of infotainment files is perhaps the most blatant example of this, with talk of "eight basic era types" or Axons being filed under 'A' while Zarbi will go under 'Z', but it can be argued that this extends to the whole Light City scenario, that the stagnation of nostalgia cannot go on forever and that sooner or later there will be another major upheaval. The fact that The Natural History Of Fear was written and recorded some considerable time before the announcement of Russell T. Davies' new television series of Doctor Who makes Mortimore's ideas all the more prescient, especially given that there will inevitably be a reluctance to embrace the irrevocable change in the current landscape that the new episodes will herald.

The relationship of the listener to The Natural History Of Fear is in many ways similar to the society it portrays. You feel that the script loves you and wants you to accept it, which leads you to make certain assumptions about its nature given the medium involved. The fact that Mortimore's script is packed with such conviction facilitates this, but it is filled with the subtlest of misdirection which conceals its shocking finale but also subverts its audiences' expectations, defining a new context for the truth as the process that is so important within Light City as the truth about it is shown to be something far different to what its characters and its audience suspected. Whether this is a good thing or not will depend on an individual's perspective - on a dramatic level it breaks one of the most fundamental assumptions about what we hear but this is due to the listener bringing certain presumptions about the story with them given its status as a Doctor Who play. Mortimore takes great delight in shattering this and demonstrating the enormous extent that the Doctor's influence can have. This isn't the first time that a surprise development such as this has been done in a Big Finish production, as it echoes at least two separate instances both in a Doctor Who context and an entry in a spin-off range, but with The Natural History Of Fear the ending does not undermine the story but strengthens its resolve by demonstrably showing that the context of the perception is crucial to gaining true comprehension.

While the nature of the story shows that Big Finish was right not to credit the performers with their character names, it makes it extremely difficult to assess each one on an individual basis. The familiar voices of the regulars ensure a degree of familiarity within this strange environment, with McGann in especially scintillating form and Conrad Westmaas showing much more range and depth as the Conscience than he did in his debut as C'rizz, although there is still a touch of histrionics when he's required to emote seriously. The remainder of the cast are collectively good - with the actor who played the husband to India Fisher during the first episode particularly worthy of praise, given the power of his impassioned but unheard cries against the injustice of the State.

The Natural History Of Fear benefits tremendously from Mortimore's own sound design and music, which is rich and intense. As the writer of the story, Mortimore knows exactly how he wants everything to sound which has created a deeply involving aural terrain that is heavily layered and really gives the sense of the environment of Light City through its many nuances. As Light City is filled with monitoring devices, much of the scenes are shown as recordings and the sudden switching between a very clear and precise sound to a much more subdued one, demonstrating the change of perspective as we go from observing the initial action to someone watching the same scene. Mortimore makes the technology of the city appear very antiquated despite its technological advancement which shows the level of progressive stagnation within the State and it is this attention to detail which helps to make the story so absorbing as it is a perfect match for the powerful storytelling of the central narrative.

Within the context of Doctor Who, The Natural History Of Fear is a uniquely innovative story but its almost complete subversion of the conventions of the series means that it will inevitably be loved and loathed in equal measures. Mortimore's story is the work of a fiercely creative mind and the resulting dark masterpiece is a sublime work of art.