DOCTOR WHO: Fury From the Deep
The Stage Production (Theatre Royal, Portsmouth)

Almost every televised Doctor Who adventure has its own unique atmosphere, to the extent that as fans, we can often determine the identity of any story from a randomly chosen fifteen second clip. It's an extremely important element of the series' uniqueness. Consider that the same cannot be said of Star Trek: The Next Generation, for example, where the vast majority of episodes all blur into one homogenous mass. The same people trapped on the same set in the same costumes going through the same motions accompanied by the same sound effects and virtually identical music.

For this reason, every completely missing Doctor Who story is a unique atmosphere denied to those of us who didn't catch it first time around. Despite the wealth of audios, the brilliance of many novelisations and the ingenuity of reconstructions, the truth remains that we may never see their like again.

Except in the case of Fury From The Deep, on Saturday 30^th March 2002, members of TIMELESS, The Temporal Renovators and John Sewell's prospective Portsmouth group did.

To help raise money for the renovation of their regular production base, the New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth, at the instigation of their director Rob Thrush and with the permission of the BBC and original author Victor Pemberton, Dramatis Personae summoned the Fury once more.

The empty unlit set was built outward from a large semicircular flat and onto the undressed topmost portion of this flat was projected a series of black and white images beginning with a variation of a very familiar title sequence. Although the music that accompanied this sequence was familiar, the face within the sequence was new. The projection continued with a beach, a sound effect and the arrival of a 1960's British Police Telephone Box. Its doors opened and three people emerged, the one whose face we'd seen moments earlier being, of course, the Doctor and the others his companions, Jamie and Victoria. I shall tell you more about them later. They investigated a pipeline running up the beach, as they could hear a sound, like a heart beat, within it. As the Doctor tampered with an inspection hatch, the circular crosshairs of the telescopic sight of a rifle was superimposed over the image. Three shots rang out, the characters fell and the image faded away.

As the stage lights came on, the audience discovered the set was now populated by an assortment of characters in grey utility shirts and trousers, busily operating consoles and exchanging clipboards. This is the control centre of a natural gas pumping and refining operation and lying on the floor in an untidy heap are the bodies of the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria, stood over by a lone security guard. They have, of course, merely been rendered unconscious and with the help of an antidote, they recover in time to be questioned about their activities on the beach.

This is the first time we get to see several of the main characters interact on stage. At this point, although there is some loss of contact with the offshore drilling rigs, the refinery staff still believe themselves in control and so most of the tension comes from the Doctor and company's apprehension at finding themselves captives once again.

Nick Scovell's interpretation of the Doctor is ideal. He doesn't attempt to impersonate Patrick Troughton's television performance, but makes just as much impact at all the key moments and smoothly convinces us that perhaps he was the Doctor all along.

It's immediately clear that John-Paul McCrohon understands Jamie's role as comic foil to the Doctor and smoothly balances this with bringing out Jamie's strong but unspoken feelings for Victoria, all whilst wearing a highlander's kilt as though it were perfectly normal. His accent, one foot in Scotland and the other in resolute intelligibility, seemed effortless.

Laura Ford as Victoria is the most markedly different from the television original, eschewing Deborah Watling's energetic querulousness for a more isolated and aloof character. As Victoria is harbouring doubts about her situation in life at this point in her travels, this is both appropriate and effective, if difficult for those of us familiar with the original to adjust to. I might also just mention that she screams beautifully.

However well portrayed the travellers may be, if the inhabitants of wherever they arrive lack conviction, the story will lack immediacy and be uninvolving, resulting in a passive and indifferent audience. I was thus surprised by how initially laid back the performance of David Head as the supposedly no nonsense refinery controller Robson was. His aggressive responses to even the tiniest suggestion that things could be handled differently reassured me otherwise and his rapid descent into foaming madness as events spiral out of his control was shockingly powerful.

Tim Skedge plays Harris, Robson's deputy and has the difficult task of keeping his character visible and yet firmly in Robson's shadow until the point at which he has to take control from his superior. He does this mainly by playing up Harris' concern for his wife who is mysteriously taken ill when he asks her to retrieve a file he needs to prove to Robson there are problems with the gas flow through the pipeline.

Norwegian consultant Van Lutyens is the person who most questions Robson's approach and whilst male on television, is here played by Juno Hollyhock. The Norwegian accent didn't seem to be a problem for her, but I understand from the programme that the key impeller shaft sequence in which the character appears to die was. For this sequence the majority of the stage was in darkness save for an underlit ladder stood alongside the empty stage left theatre boxes. The box at the top of the ladder becomes the shaft entrance and Van Lutyens and soon after, the Doctor, descend into it to investigate the heart beat sound coming from below, lit by little more than the torches they carry. The Doctor survives, of course, but Van Lutyens is dragged off stage at the base of the ladder by a green tendrilled mass, leaving just a torch illuminating a bare patch of floor. This sequence, involving, as it does, a twenty foot ladder, may have been given greater tension by Juno Hollyhock's fear of heights.

Also having to overcome a phobia in the course of her performance is Carol Bagshaw as Harris' wife, Maggie. Her character comes into contact with a tendril of seaweed placed in the missing file and, as the Doctor deduces, intended for Harris. The apparent illness that results is the menace from the bottom of the sea taking possession of her and calling her to it, out at sea. This is ably played as a loss of composure and energy, giving way to an absence of both visible emotion and vocal inflection. Since bringing a large amount of water on stage is neither practical nor particularly desirable, her departure is projected on screen and the actress, not exactly comfortable around water, had to calmly and without flinching walk out into the sea until invisible to camera.

Aside from the scenes on the beach and the opening titles and closing credits for both acts, the projected film is used to portray all events out at sea bar one. These scenes include the crew members of the drilling rigs, either already possessed or locked in their control rooms, like Chief Baxter played by regular Doctor Who television guest star Michael Sheard, and unable to defend themselves. Other film projected scenes would have been near impossible to achieve on stage, especially the possessed Robson abducting Victoria and taking her out to one of the drilling rigs by helicopter, pursued by the Doctor and Jamie in a boat.

This scene continues on stage, the light level low, as our heroes search the seemingly deserted rig for Victoria and find the possessed and weed encrusted missing personnel closing in on them. The unconscious Victoria awakens and screams and the three run from the scene.

They continue their escape on screen in a marvellous comedy scene as the Doctor desperately struggles to get to grips with the controls of Robson's helicopter.

Although the helicopter interior is real, the helicopter's perilously dangerous flight from the rig is not, having been rendered effectively enough for the audience by computer graphics.

Also effective was the music. It wasn't especially composed for this production, nor was it the original soundtrack music, which, as far as I know, does not exist independently of the dialogue and sound effects. It's by Geoffrey Burgon and actually comes from two 1970's stories with Tom Baker as the Doctor. Appropriately, these are Terror Of The Zygons, which features drilling rigs being attacked and someone on a beach being shot and The Seeds Of Doom where a man is taken over by a green tendrilled creature determined to overtake the human the race.

The intelligence controlling Robson, Maggie Harris and the others has to be thwarted in its attempt to take the Earth from humanity, but the question becomes how. The weed had attempted to attack Victoria in the base oxygen store (an area to the side of the main set, illuminated by a spotlight) but had retreated. A weed sample being studied by the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria in a tank fed with a supply of gas had grown and reared up as if to attack, but had suddenly shrank back. This was obviously a puppet operated from behind the tank, but given menace by the reactions of the cast. The Doctor concludes the weed colony has an aversion to oxygen.

Until Harris steps in to convince her, however, the newly arrived gas company executive Megan Jones has difficulty believing the claims of this eccentric stranger. Sheila Birt plays Megan with a mix of business like efficiency with regard to the refinery and great concern for Robson, in whom she has absolute faith. It is only after attempting to talk to Robson in the early stages of his possession that she begins to believe what the others have been telling her. Her shocked reaction at the change in Robson is impressive.

The Doctor is also in for a shock, as his attempt to drive the weed creature back with oxygen fails. As the creature closes in, all seems lost and Victoria lets rip a piercing scream. The creature hurriedly backs away and the Doctor realises his mistake.

Soon the crew have recorded Victoria's screams and are playing them, greatly amplified, down the pipeline. It is not long before the lights on the monitor panel in the centre of the set come back on and the various rigs are in communication on the screen again. The no longer possessed Van Lutyens, Maggie Harris and Robson return, none the worse for their experiences. Indeed, Robson's new understanding of how having no control feels, has made him more agreeable and everyone is jubilant.

Everyone except Victoria.

The production ends with a beautiful scene, as the Doctor acknowledges what Victoria has decided, but is having difficulty saying. She no longer wants to travel with him and Jamie. The Doctor arranges for her to stay with the Harris's. Jamie is unwilling to let her go and the Doctor tries to calm him but instead Jamie becomes sullen. The Doctor's final line, "I was fond of her too, Jamie.", which Nick Scovell starts to deliver angrily but switches to a gentler tone, had perhaps even more power here than in the televised original and the scene brought a lump to the throat and a tear to the eye for many.

© Tim Farr, 2002