The Doctor's Companion Blog

The Shakespeare Code is utterly, utterly perfect, an exquisite jewell set in the heart of Doctordom. The music, the costumes, the Globe (yes its filmed in THE GLOBE THEATRE), the acting are all superb. But it is the writing that is the heart of it. The words are the thing.

In fact it is an elegantly written, play on words.

The Carrionites (‘foul Carrionites’) use words for power. In the past, the Eternals had found the right word to banish them into deep darkness. But Shakespeare, the one true genius, grieving for the death of his son, had had sufficient madness to let them in, with words, new and glittering. Three Carrionites, who settled in All Hallows Street, to hatch their plans.

The plans were to bring the world back to the old ways of blood and magic, so the human race could could then be purged as pestilence. They found the architect, Peter Strete and got him to build the new Globe Theatre, with 14 sides, to their design, not his. When the work was done they snapped his wits.

The Carrionites are immensely powerful beings. They can take the form of humans, generally knarled witches, but also young and beautiful humans such as the form taken sometimes by Lileth, their leader. They can suck words and knowledge from you and kill with a touch. Men to them are as puppets, and using the doll as a DNA replication unit, they can take you over, make you speak words that are not your own or write words you have never seen before.

They were already ensconced and well advanced in their plans, when the Doctor brought Martha on her ‘one short jaunt’ in the Tardis, to watch a play at the Globe. Intrigued by the prospect of seeing the lost play, ‘Loves Labours Won’, he visited Shakespeare at the Elephant Inn, where he witnessed the strange death of Lynley, drowned on land and killed with a blow to the heart. The night had even stranger events, with ‘sweet Dolly Bailey’, killed by fright, and a cackling witch witch seen by Martha from the window, sailing off into the sky.

A visit to Bedlam the following day revealed not only the story of Peter Strete, but also the Carrionite Mother Doomfinger. But the Doctor knows the power of a name, and Doomfinger was banished to the House in All Hallows Street. Meanwhile the Doctor worked out the story, sent Shakespeare to stop the play, and went himself with Martha to visit the Carrionites in their lair.

A superb piece of acting then ensured from both Christina Cole (Lileth) and the Doctor, culminating in Lileth bursting backwards through the windows, and hovering in the air while she used her doll to deadly effect.

But she did not know that the Doctor has two hearts, and Martha was able to bring him back.  Followed by the obligatory running scene, with the Doctor ‘going the wrong way’, before finding the Globe and the stage door.

The transformation scene at the Globe is superb. Heralded by the wonderful Murray Gold music, the theatre spouts pink flames, while the three witches laugh with joy, and Carrionites fly out of the smoke. Now is the time for Wil to show his genius, and reverse the spell. Which he does, along with a bit of help from JK (hopefully she won’t be suing).

One of my favourite scenes in the play however is the one that we never saw. The tragically cut scene where Shakespeare shows that he knows that the Doctor is from another world and Martha is from the future. He recognises himself in the Doctor and senses his loss, his grief and his madness. But unlike the Doctor, he is content where he is, he does not need to travel. “Give me my pen and ink, give me my minds eye and I can go wherever I want.”

It is the heart of the play, the heart of what Shakespeare is, and shows how a human can on occasion match and surpass the Time Lord. It is also actor Dean Lennox Kelly’s finest piece of acting. It should never have been cut. Shame on you!

So there you are. A fabulous piece of writing from Gareth Roberts, backed up with marvelous acting, effects, the whole caboodle. But the final comment on the piece must be the comment made by Jonathan Morris in the Doctor Who Magazine’s golden moments special edition:

“Although life was very different in the sixteenth century, people were just the same. Writers spend all their time in pubs and deliver their scripts having finished them the night before; actors don’t care if their lines make any sense so long as they get to do a big speech and take centre stage, and the only thing audiences ever notice are the special effects”.

The Shakespeare Code can be bought as part of Doctor Who – The Complete Series 3 Box Set [DVD] [2007] or you can get the cheaper ‘Vanilla’ Doctor Who – Series 3 Vol.1 [2007] [DVD] [2005] which just has the first three of the series 3 episodes.