Alex Kingston’s novel about River Song and Melody Malone is out now (read our review here). Based on a storyline by Kingston and Jacqueline Rayner, the story is an enjoyable romp in multiple locations in time and space. Shortly before publication Paul Simpson chatted with the author about playing and now writing River and Melody…

 

The book comes across as a great deal of fun.

Towards the end it gets very, what I would just describe as wibbly wobbly timey wimey but I think the fans don’t mind that because that’s standard Doctor Who really!

When I was recording the entire book for the audio publication it was interesting because the sound editor who I was working with immediately jumped on all of the inconsistencies. I was like, ‘No no no, leave it leave it, that’s one of the Easter eggs that have been put in!’. I hope that’s also something that the fans will go ‘Huh, hang on a minute’!

I have to say I’m very happy because reading it, I can absolutely picture every moment in my mind’s eye. It’s very visual, it’s very easy to imagine, particularly if you love these characters and understand the genre – and also because we’ve already established, for example, Stormcage. It’s very easy for the readers, I hope, to be able to immediately have all of those visual references in their heads when they’re reading it. The same with Melody Malone.

It’s lovely if somebody who isn’t au fait with this genre picks up the book and reads it but that isn’t who I was necessarily intending this for. One of the reasons why I wanted to do it was because I’ve had conversations with fans at conventions asking if I would ever consider putting River’s further adventures in book form. It was something that I could see there was a potential value to but I never really knew how to start going down that road. So it was fabulous when I was approached more formally because that gave me the impetus to go ‘Yes’.

I think it’s also just important for people to read – it doesn’t matter what the subject matter is really, but just to enjoy reading. I’ve even found during the last lockdown of the past year and a half, I’ve really enjoyed and engaged with reading again because I’ve had the time to. I hope that other people have found that joy as well during all of this.

How did the approach happen? Was it to your agent or to you?

Initially, it wasn’t to me because they didn’t know how to get to me. It was to my agent. Within Curtis Brown, who I’m represented by, they have a big literary department so I was taken on by a literary agent there who then formalised everything. But I think it was Penguin who got in contact with them initially and found me out.

Then I remember it so clearly, I was walking my dog in Richmond Park which I was doing every single day – I think anyone with a dog suddenly wanted to exercise – and I had this phone call. I was talking to [BBC Books Publishing DIrector] Albert [DePetrillo] initially. He broached what they were wanting to do potentially and asked me what I thought. Initially I just said, ‘Well, I think this is fantastic because River Song is a character who has so many different roads that she can go down that haven’t been explored.’ She is a loving partner in adventures with any of the Doctors, she also has an association with Captain Jack Harkness which hasn’t actually properly fully been explored, she’s a time travelling archaeologist, a professor of archaeology and she has this alter ego – Melody Malone who is a private detective.

I thought there’s so much potential here and so I was just throwing things around and talking about River Song. Initially I was saying I’d like to do something that was historical, that used her archaeological skills alongside her ability to time travel. It hadn’t even occurred to me about Melody Malone and they said, ‘We were thinking of doing a Melody Malone story, we thought that might be the way in.’ So, I said ‘That’s absolutely fine.’

I suppose because Melody was a character that I only played in one episode, she didn’t feel as close to me as River – of course I’ve also done so many of the Big Finish audio stories with River that she is the closest to me in a sense. So when it was suggested that maybe we could write a private eye story instead I was happy to go with that but then, when there was actually the notion of maybe blending the two somehow and merging both, that got me really excited. I didn’t know quite how we could possibly do it and pull it off but I think we have. And I like the ‘Dear diary’ form, that’s very clever and it feels right.

The diary’s established already…

The very first episode.

In terms of the Melody material, it’s hard boiled private eye; is that a genre you like?

I do actually. I’m kind of happy with how Melody evolved and grew, and obviously that was within that episode [The Angels Take Manhattan], even down to her patter, the way she speaks and the fact that because she’s still River, she’s not fully New York American at all. She’s English but speaks with the same intonation and rhythms as private dicks in New York City. Even River picks up on that and she’s like ‘Why do you talk in that weird way?’ I like that about her. It’s a little bit off.

I’ve never really understood how a so-called Transatlantic accent works because you’re either not English to English or not American to Americans…

Yes, I know, it’s absolutely true. When I speak with my regular English accent, Americans think I’m from Boston! I’ve got a feeling that that was something that Steven originally had decided and I’m quite happy to go with that. Because she’s sort of made up, in River’s head in a sense, she’s still River but with this gloss of being some sort of private detective.

You’ve had little bits of that investigative side in the Big Finish stories, been one or two episodes where quite clearly River is an investigator rather than an archaeologist time travelling whatever…

Yes exactly. In fact I just recorded one where I’m exactly that.

Do you think that’s a line that could be expanded more or is it something that’s actually better, almost, to keep it to Melody?

Well, I think if some of the Big Finish writers chose to do more of a Melody Malone story that’s something that could be incorporated within their box sets. They could have Melody Malone Investigates or whatever alongside their River Song Diaries. But because they haven’t dipped their toe into that idea yet, I think it’s just a way for River’s story to be told slightly differently.

Also, what I think it does, in a sense, is it helps all of the other cast and the other characters. It gives them more to do because if River comes in just as River, she very much dominates and knows all the answers, and it doesn’t give any of the other characters a chance to tell their own stories. Whereas if everybody’s trying to figure it out all together, including River Song, I think that just opens it up a little more for any of the other characters.

When she’s a catalyst rather than just the explainer, the know-it-all.

Yes.

You’ve played her now for thirteen or fourteen years…

Something like that, yes.

Do you still find her a challenge to play?

No not at a challenge at all, a joy, a dream. It’s literally just putting on my favourite clothes in the morning. Considering I only thought she was going to be in this two episode story arc, I wasn’t aware of having to go on a particular journey to find her. I think Steven had written the story so well and had left these clues and threads dangling at the end, and I suppose because I thought that that was it, that there would be no more of this character, when I was playing in those first two episodes, I really wanted to tap into the fact that there was this relationship. That there was something between [River and the Doctor] that would never ever be told or revealed because of her demise and would leave the Doctor hanging, not knowing.

I suppose I really wanted to play as much as I could, within the script, that there was this extraordinary connection but it was only one-sided and how sad that was. I think that already established the real skeleton of the character for me. And then we were just able to flesh it out over the years.

Were there things from that original two-parter that you’d do slightly differently now, if you’d known that she was going to be recurring as opposed to a guest character?

This is so interesting that you say this because this is why Steven never tells us what he’s doing or he didn’t – he never used to tell us what actually was going on.

I remember him saying to me, about six weeks before we filmed the big reveal about who River actually was to Rory and Amy and the Doctor, that he knew it all along but he didn’t want me or any of us to know because it might change our performances. We would have that at the back of our minds all the time. I really applaud him for that.

I’ve worked on previous jobs where, for example, we’ve been filming scenes and I’ve been reacting in certain ways because I know the whole, and then producers for whatever reasons have cut scenes out. I’ve then found that immensely frustrating because if I had known that those scenes wouldn’t have existed, I would have made different choices in the scenes that did exist. But with Doctor Who that never concerned me. I was never worried, I totally trusted Steven.

I think you have to play in the moment because in life you don’t know what’s coming, round the corner. Sometimes you might go, ‘Oh my God, if I’d known that then would I have behaved differently or reacted differently?’. Well, that’s how we live our lives all the time.

Sometimes it will help not knowing, to be honest, it’s a real help for an actor.

Most actors and I’ve spoken to over the years have been as you are, that it’s better not to know but on something like that where a backstory is so intrusive then maybe you do need it.

Ultimately it comes down to editing as well. If you have an exceptional editor, they will know, they’ll have had conversations with the director, so they will ultimately know how to piece and sew things together to make you seem a convincing character, and the character and the choices you make are seen to be along the lines or on par with what’s going on in the story.

Just the use of reverses can make such a difference.

Yes.

In terms of the book, what did you find most challenging?

Well actually what I found most challenging was when I had to record the audio because I did it in two days and it was eight hours straight of just reading reading reading and playing all the characters. Being River and Melody, that was fine, but trying to find accents for all the characters, male and female, that felt right and then remain consistent with those accents! I had so many accents in my head. When they’re all together, it was… oh my God! And also using accents that you’re not then going to be accused of being offensive, that was very challenging.

One thing I did initially find quite difficult to get my head round was because everything that I’ve done with River up until now has been in the present – even with the audio recordings she’s in the present, so people are listening in the moment – in this, River’s speaking in the past tense, as it were. I wanted to reverse that so River is in the past tense. It is in the present tense and it’s more like Melody’s writing it, like it’s her novel.

That I found a challenge because I just kept thinking, “Well, if she’s writing it then it means that surely she survived whatever the danger is” and that’s not as exciting. Then we worked out a way that she’s writing it but she’s writing it in the present, as if it’s her letter to her mum, to Amy. It was not easy for me to have River writing her diary as it were, rather than living the experience.

Now things are starting to open up again, what’s up next for you? Have you finished on A Discovery of Witches?

I’ve finished on that, and I’m doing a lot of self tapes at the moment with the hope that one of them will click and that will be my next job. There’s a lot hanging at the moment in the air. The positive is, there’s a lot of content coming out. I literally am every week taping one or two things so that’s very positive.

I’ve had an offer for something, it’s a guest role in an episode of something which is not big but it could have the potential to recur every now and then – and that’s a lot of fun. It’s in the genre wheelhouse so if we can make that work, that would be great to do.

 

The Ruby’s Curse is out now in hardback, and on audio, read by Alex Kingston.