Fiction Reviews
Doctor Who: Jubilee
(2026) Robert Shearman, BBC Books, £12.99, pbk, 240pp, ISBN 978-1-785-94958-6
Here we have one of Big Finish's most acclaimed and atmospheric Doctor Who audio dramas now re-imagined in prose by its original author, Robert Shearman. The Doctor and the Daleks. Have you never thought they are really both the exact same thing? It is time to celebrate! Let all the citizens of the glorious English Empire come together and give thanks to that mysterious soldier in time and space known only as the Doctor. For 100 years ago he destroyed a Dalek invasion force without mercy and became the saviour of us all. We have just one real Dalek left. Kept alive in the Tower of London, all these years our prisoner. And tomorrow we are going to blow it up, just for you! So put up your Dalek bunting and raise a glass of Dalek Juice. Who knows, there may be a special guest in attendance – the Doctor himself! Oh, you lucky people! Time to get this party started…
Remember the ending of Star Trek: The Search for Spock, when the crew of the Enterprise rush round a resurrected Spock? Years ago, I remember Dr. Allan Stroud telling me about the reaction of his students when he introduces Robert Shearman to them, and he only has to say one word, Dalek and I can imagine his students rushing around Shearman, such is the love held for that episode from the revived Doctor Who when it returned to our TV screens in 2005 with Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor. But did you know that episode had its beginnings in an earlier Big Finish audio adventure called Jubilee starring Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor (Shearman’s favourite Doctor with whom to work, and the easiest to write for, he says in his dedication)?
Unlike most writers involved with Doctor Who, this version of Jubilee gives Shearman four bites of the cherry – he wrote the original audio drama, he wrote the script for Dalek, he wrote the Target/BBC book version of Dalek, and now he is back turning Jubilee into a novel. But Shearman being Shearman there is no point in writing a straight version of the audio adventure – what works for the ears, doesn’t always work for the eyes. There is little point in taking an audioplay and expanding the scene-setting and dialogue with some description, and Shearman is too good a writer to fall into the trap.
But what of the story? Well, it is told over thirteen chapters which start after a slightly revised Shakespearian sonnet, rewritten by the Arts Council of the English Empire – all praise the glorious English Empire! Here, we are in a world where England is the dominant world power thanks to its use of Dalek technology when a Dalek invasion was thwarted, and now it is Jubilee time with all the hoo-ha of street parties and parades, and the continued torture of the sole surviving Dalek, which is kept prisoner in the Tower of London. That’s where the story starts, inside the head of that lone Dalek, whose world-view has changed after decades of pain and torture and solitude and being separated from the Dalek-hive where death, and destruction and domination is everything. Except this time, the celebrations will conclude with the death of this final Dalek as the Jubilee celebrations will finish with it being blown up.
Enter the Sixth Doctor and his companion, academic historian, Evelyn Smythe, but wait a minute, there seems to already be a Doctor in this world, and he’s just the latest in a long line of Doctors. How can this be? And how can there be other Daleks trundling around when they were defeated and the last one is locked up in the Tower? This English Empire is ruled by dictator Nigel Rochester who thinks he isn’t really a dictator, and dreams of another life where he sells fruit for a living, while his wife, Miriam, dreams of Nigel being dead, and the Dalek in charge of everything. In this world, people are nameless fodder, women are oppressed and the English Empire has warped into a society worthy of being ruled by the Daleks.
The strength of Jubilee is Shearman’s writing, his satirical take on nationalism, his dark humour, and really getting inside the head of the lone Dalek and Evelyn whose historical worldview is turned on its head by the differences that have happened in what would have been her lifetime in her own world. The Sixth Doctor is more than a Time Lord in a garish costume. He is conflicted, especially seeing what has happened to this world, to the last Dalek, and how Daleks in general have been reduced to toys, playthings, a joke, far removed from the embodiment of evil he has always fought against. If the Daleks are reduced to almost nothing, what does that do to him?
Even if you haven’t heard the original audio version, you will love this, for its updates, refinement, differences. A five out of five job. Four strikes, and you can rest easy, Robert Shearman, put your pen or mouse down, this will more than do.
Ian Hunter
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