Leela and the Fourth Doctor meet Marie Curie at a pivotal moment in her life while Amelia Pond finds out that her new therapist is an old ‘friend’ of the Raggedy Man…

Louise Jameson pulls double duty on the double length ‘A Ghost of Alchemy’ and it stands out as a very different pace and style of story. There’s a chase in the centre of it, a literal radioactive hot potato but the story is ultimately far more than that. President Harding (Harry Myers in good, slightly archly bumbling form) and First Lady Florence Harding (Susan Penhaligon having a whale of a time as the power both behind and frequently on the throne) and Professor Browman (Nicholas Farrell) all take turns with the radium, and all orbit Marie Cure (Holly Jackson Walters) like electrons round an atom. Mrs Mattie Maloney (Penelope Rawlins) wants to help. Browman wants to end the idea of women being doctors forever. The Doctor and Leela are along for the ride that peaks with a rooftop train chase and some neat scarf-fu but is centred somewhere much more nuanced.

Jameson uses the four part story to study the incredible pressures Curie faced and the rampaging ferocity that still exists today, just with slightly different facial hair and a whole bunch of sock puppet social media accounts. Jackson Walters does a fantastic job of playing the visceral discomfort Curie felt, and the portrayal of social anxiety and sexism in Curie’s plot never fails to impress. The additional characters only serve to focus this even more, with Farrell’s Bowman and Akshay Khanna’s Doctor Rushton giving us two different perspectives on the same entitled, grumpy, panicked approach the establishment has to anything approaching progress. Penelope Rawlins is great too as Mattie Maloney, Marie Curie’s handler, who both wants the best for her and needs her to perform. A genius, a tragedy no one can see unfolding, a walking societal catalyst and a terrified, determined woman who wants nothing more than to back down until at last, she doesn’t. Jackson Walters is great and anchors the entire story with Jameson and Tom Baker’s TARDIS crew as enthusiastic assistants to one of history’s all-time greats.

The key to the story is the near impossible balance it and Curie both strike. The villains initially present as almost cartoonish but Khanna’s Rushton and his off-hand suggestion of medicine for ‘hysteria’ is just the polite face of Browman’s terrified hatred. Farrell’s work as Curie’s self-appointed nemesis initially presents as a little blunt but then you remember the context it’s presented in, and the persistent environment of broad-spectrum bigotry and sexism. There are a lot of Browmans, even now, and not enough Marie Curies.

The hope here is hard fought for but lands all the harder for it. Leela is a great lens to view Curie’s life through, and the portrayal of the Hardings as (mostly) benevolent spy-masters is tremendous fun. What stays with you though is Jackson Walters as Marie Curie. Brilliant, terrified, determined and writing her name across the world regardless of what other people think. A complex portrayal of a complex human, approached in a surprising and very successful way.

‘Fairies at the Bottom of the Garden’ is lighter in tone but packs no less of a punch. Karissa Hamilton-Bannis’ script visits the years between Amy Pond’s disastrous initial encounter with the Eleventh Doctor and her eventual journeys with him. The off-hand psychological trauma of the Doctor bouncing off her life, coupled with the vast tragedies she’d already had to endure and the hormonal baseball bat of adolescence have made Amy very angry with nowhere to put it. At their wits end, her guardians send her to a new therapist. Missy.

Jameson and Hamilton-Bannis’ scripts couldn’t be more different in every way but one: their refusal to let their female leads be written off as just one thing. Both these stories are populated by complex women and driven by their struggles to connect with a world that doesn’t know how to deal with them. The pairing of Amy and Missy is particularly inspired in this regard, as a woman who knows the Doctor all too well finds herself locking intellectual swords with a woman furious she doesn’t know him well enough.

The script is littered with neat ideas, in particular the note that Missy keeps tracks on every one of the Doctor’s companions ‘because you never know when you might need a hostage’. I also particularly liked that she shares the Doctor’s ability to turn up in the right place at the wrong time and Missy’s seething frustration at having to get there ‘the long way round’ is matched only by her wide-eyed cheery joy at getting someone to play with.

Michelle Gomez is such fun in the role and is matched beat for beat by the wonderful Caitlin Blackwood. Blackwood, returning to the role she originated, is fantastic as a sparky, furious Amy who wants to do Something but isn’t quite sure what. Her not-quite friendship with Missy teaches both women crucial lessons and the script and direction bounce and spark along with the glee of a recently set fire that Missy was Nowhere Near And She Will Call Her Lawyers If You Don’t Believe Her.

There’s some great support too, especially from John Rayment as Conor, Amy’s reluctantly designated adult and Homer Todiwala, Abi Harris and Jennifer Tyler in a variety of roles. Rounded out by a welcome and subtle tie in to The Eleventh Hour this is a story that’s light on its feet and tackles big ideas with precision and heart.

Verdict: These stories couldn’t be more different on the surface but go deeper and you see how connected they are. Both are about the brilliant, strange connections and events that happen not just when the Doctor shows up but when we show up for ourselves. Marie Curie, Amy Pond, Leela, even Missy are all the main characters in their stories, no longer just the supporting cast for the Doctor and they, and this collection, are made all the better for it. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart

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