By Tom Baker with James Goss

BBC Books, out January 24

 

When the Doctor, Harry Sullivan and Sarah Jane Smith holiday on a remote Scottish island, their recreation is interrupted by feral scarecrows and the arrival of the devil himself.

Ever since I read the article about Doctor Who Meets Scratchman in Doctor Who Magazine #379 I’ve been intrigued about this abandoned  movie idea. Based on a script by Tom Baker, Ian Marter (Harry Sullivan) and director James Hill, the frankly bonkers 4th Doctor story sounded just one step too far from realistically being produced, but now we get to read it in expanded form by Baker. The author’s last fiction piece was his 1999 fable The Boy Who Kicked Pigs, but this is of greater interest, being his only credited Doctor Who writing.

Now simply Scratchman (we’ve dropped Doctor Who Meets…) the story has been expanded from the original script (held by the BFI) to a scale more befitting of a novel by Baker and his co-writer James Goss, who has previously adapted the Douglas Adams stories City of Death, The Pirate Planet and The Krikkitmen. But this is far less Adams’ Hitch-Hiker’s than Phillip Hinchcliffe Gothic horror in its approach.

We begin with the trial of a Time Lord – though two regenerations earlier than that one – with Baker T’s Doctor being quizzed by the Zero Nun. His life is in the balance and he recalls a tale to the gathered Gallifreyans in first person narrative, blurring that line between Tom and Doctor 4 even further. Is this the first time that a Doctor has narrated in first person since Tom’s erroneous “I stepped from the TARDIS” on the Genesis of the Daleks LP? It certainly helps make the story more immediate, though it does make things a little muddy when the Doctor has to recall events where he wasn’t present.

The novel is split into two fairly even parts; The Long Night is about the village that isn’t quite right, while Scratchman follows the descent into hell and meeting the eponymous villain. The first half feels very The Android Invasion or Terror of the Zygons before it morphs into the final act of John Carpenter’s The Fog as the marauding scarecrows try to break into a church. Harry and Sarah separately complete their own tasks to aid the Doctor, who has concocted a machine to stop the animated straw men, and there’s a comfortable, familiar between them – Harry very much the bumbling butt of the jokes, in his duffle coat, spouting lots of ‘old girl’ epithets.

Because of references in the story we know that this is set after The Android Invasion (which marked his last on-screen appearance) and The Hand of Fear.

The style becomes more fantastical in part two, with a chatty cab driver to the afterlife, a lizard torturer and an attack by a Cyberman. By the time the Doctor faces off against Scratchman and you’ve processed just what’s going on, the travellers are dropped into a giant pinball machine, which in turn is invaded by chess pieces and skittles.

Clearly this novel is a long way from what might have been filmable in the mid-70s; one imagines that had it happened then it would have had the feel and budget of a Hammer fantasy via Ken Russell. It’s great that it now has a second life in a new form rather than just languishing as an unmade script.

Verdict: Tom Baker writing Doctor Who – and that’s all you need to know. I doubt Scratchman would have been a good film, but as a book it’s a wacky, fun throwback to 70s ideas and the golden age of Tom Baker’s tenure. For this reviewer, Tom, Lis and Ian were the definitive TARDIS team, and what a joy to revisit that dynamic once more. 8/10

Nick Joy