CONFESSIONAL DIAL
“The Party” (Setting the Scene) It was the middle of 2013 and with the 50th Anniversary of the Doctor Who coming up and Dallas and I wondered if we could concoct something ‘special’ to do for an event the Doctor Who Club of Australia was preparing to celebrate the occasion. The basic concept we came up with, if possible, was to: i. Somehow, include DWCA members in the activity. ii. Include all the (then) Doctors. iii. Do it with minimum / no cost. iv. Require only a small commitment in time and effort from club members. We liked scriptwriting, and thought a short humourous script / play would be the most appealing; but the drawback with a script is that it would involve a lot of extra work for the actors (i.e. club members) remembering their lines etc. Eventually we decided upon a script idea and a format which could meet all the above criteria. The script idea we came up with was that the current Doctor (Number 11) would try to organise a party involving all other Doctors to celebrate the special occasion. We decided to call the play — The Party. For the format, we planned the proceedings as follows: i. The actor playing the 11th Doctor is on stage throughout, surreptitiously reading his script from a laptop (shades of Jon Pertwee). He would be inviting, by phone, the other Doctors to come along to a party.
ii. One other character would make a brief appearance on stage, the Doctor's current companion, so the person who would play her would have to learn a few lines. iii. Hand held microphones, would be available in another room for the other actors to be able to read off their scripts as the their characters answered the 11th Doctor's phone calls. These other actors would be playing the other Doctors, also a couple of companions plus The Moff and RTD. [Dallas: Yes we decided to break the 'fourth wall' in our script for comedic effect.]
This way, we felt that we could manage to work to our original constraints (as above). We decided that we could add in a few sound effects as we found the venue has this capability. Things such as; phone ringing, TARDIS sounds and explosions (it always go better with an explosion or three!) We set about writing the script, doing the sound effects and getting people to volunteer to be involved. Then we sent the script off to everyone, even though most would only need to read from it. We felt that the actors should have the chance to read it and get to know the plot, not just arrive on the day and be given a script. We even managed to arrange a run-through, in a empty room at the venue, early on the day. We also organised a TARDIS cake, to be available at the end of the play, for all the people who attended to have a piece to celebrate the anniversary in style. We hope you can picture the scene and enjoy, once more, the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of our favourite show. The following is the script of the play as presented on the day.
☼
Roger Reynolds
Doctor Who is copyright to the BBC. Copyright of all other material contained within returns to the
contributor on publication. No attempt is made to supercede any copyright. Views expressed within are those of the writer and not necessarily held by the editors.