Time Trips: The Anti-Hero Review
Interview: Stella Duffy on Writing the Second Doctor
As has been the norm with this series, I managed to bag an interview with the lovely Stella Duffy (The Book of Lost Things, The Purple Shroud) who has written what appears to be the last in the Time Trips range of e-books. She’s penned a historical Second Doctor adventure called The Anti-Hero and it’s well worth a look. We spoke about the darkness to the Second Doctor, casting companions and researching the Troughton era…
The Time Trips venture by BBC Books asked you to select a favourite Doctor. Was it difficult for you when it came to picking a Doctor? In terms of nailing their dialogue and your knowledge of that era?
Patrick Troughton’s Second Doctor was always ‘my’ Doctor, so no, it wasn’t hard. I also find him one of the more engaging Doctors – there’s an irascibility, a darkness alongside the knowing twinkle that I really like. He’s not easy – and I like that about him.
I thought it was quite interesting that you made the decision to use two companions when all your fellow writers either used one or none at all just because the word-limit you’re given is so tight. Was it a logistics decision or a fondness for Jamie and Zoe or neither?
It was partly logistics – I couldn’t work out who to leave behind or why, and partly that I think three is a great a number for an adventure story. It gives opportunity to raise the stakes, share secrets with one companion and not the other, send someone off on their own mini-adventure (as Zoe does here), while keeping the main thrust of the plot with the Doctor and Jamie.
In four words describe your reaction when that email/phone call/text message/video/carrier pigeon (delete as appropriate) came through saying you were writing a Doctor Who e-book. Or if you were in a meeting but that’s just boring.
Woop! And also – eek!
How much research did you do for your story? Did you find inspiration in a specific story?
I read up on Second Doctor traits – things I’d remembered, things I’d forgotten, his different ways of being with Jamie and with Zoe, and I watched the lost episodes, which I found surprisingly poignant. Perhaps because they had been ‘lost’ for so long. I enjoyed the Salamander doppelganger storyline [in The Enemy of the World – Ed] – I do like a good doppelganger.
Would you consider returning to write a longer adventure, perhaps for a different incarnation?
Yes, please!
And finally, is there any recorder playing?
There is. And it matters.
