The Dark Husband (David Quantick)

 The release for March 2008 is "The Dark Husband" which has been written by David Quantick. Quantick is chiefly known as a comedy writer having contributed to shows as The Day Today, Brass Eye, Smack the Pony and Spitting Image. This is the first time, however, that he's written for Doctor Who. This four-part story is directed by Nicholas Briggs and was recorded on 18th and 21st December 2007.

 It has been described by Executive Producer Nicholas Briggs as: 'A four-parter written by the esteemed David Quantick - you may remember his name from the credits of Brass Eye, The Day Today, That Mitchell and Webb Sound... and any number of great comedies. No surprise then that David's story features some brilliant comic dialogue, as well as a very intriguing storyline in which The Doctor plans to do something that he has never, ever contemplated before... '

Seventh Doctor

"The Dark Husband", which features the Seventh Doctor and his companions Ace and Hex, will therefore have quite a humorous streak running through it. But it’s not all laughs for the TARDIS crew.

Leading the guest cast for this story is Danny Webb, who recently starred in ITV's primetime drama Honest, and whose Doctor Who credits include "The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit" on television, and "The Girl Who Never Was" on audio. Also starring are: Katarina Olsson and Sean Connolly. The cast list also includes Andy B Newb and Benny Dawb – these are anagrams of Danny Webb.

Writer David Quantick's has revealed the scope of his adventure. 'Because it's audio we can do anything if we want to... a war involving millions of people on a battlefield the size of a moon! That's something that would never look half as good on television...'

After Hex comes across some holiday brochures in the TARDIS The Doctor and his companions decide to go on holiday to the planet Tuin - the ultimate holiday destination. When there is a week-long respite from a prolonged and bloody war – the Festival of the Twin Moons of Tuin that makes Glastonbury look like a church fete... or so the brochure says.

Ace

The Doctor and Ace are looking for rest and recreation. Hex is looking for the beer tent. But eternal enemies the ginger-haired Ri and the coot-bald Ir are plotting to turn their Festival truce to their own advantage.

However, the Festival starts, all hostilities cease, and the fun begins but The Doctor and his two companions soon discover that the festival has been devastated by a Millennia long war by the two warring tribes, who seem to have something in common that they shouldn't have.

What has processed The Doctor to put himself forward to get married? What is really behind the planets opposing races and why can the war only be resolved and Ri and Ir be saved by the marriage between the Dark Husband and the Shining Wife? But who is the Dark Husband and who is the Shining Wife? What terror awaits them on their wedding night? And how do the lives of billions depend on it?

The Doctor’s two companions, Hex and Ace, soon become more involved in the planets affairs when they become processed by the planet itself and it is revealed that Ace is the Shining Wife and Hex the Dark Husband. The Doctor though deduces that the Ri and the Ir are one of the same race and are all part of the planet.

How is he going to save the Ri and the Ir and also save his two companions from the planets hold on them?

On the Back Cover:

A week-long respite from a prolonged and bloody war, the Festival of the Twin Moons of Tuin makes Glastonbury look like a church fete... or so the brochure says. The Doctor and Ace are looking for rest and recreation. Hex is looking for the beer tent. But eternal enemies the ginger-haired Ri and the coot-bald Ir are plotting to turn their Festival truce to their own advantage. Only the Dark Husband might stop the celebrations turning to horror... but who is the Dark Husband? And what terror awaits him on his wedding night?

If anyone knows any just cause or impediment... speak now. The lives of billions depend on it.

In my life, two things have haunted me. The first is to do with the nature of identity; what makes a person a person? How do good and evil balance each other out? What happens when they don’t?

The second thing is Doctor Who. Which brings us to The Dark Husband, which not only deals with the nature of identity but also looks at one of my favourite aspects of The Doctor’s personality; his apparent inability to go on holiday without everything going really, really wrong…


Director’s Notes: Nicholas Briggs

Comedy in Doctor Who is controversial. That message sings out loud and clear every time I visit a Doctor Who convention or attend a signing. If I ask a group of fans what their favourite kind of story is, they’re more than likely going to tell me that they don’t like Doctor Who when it is ‘trying to be funny’.

So when I took over this Big Finish job and found that Gary Russell had commissioned one of the UK’s foremost comedy writers to write a script for us, I was worried. I needn’t have been. David Quantick is a big Doctor Who fan. He loves the programme – Sylvester McCoy’s era in particular – and he knows that comedy in the show can most effectively come from the inherent oddness of an alien situation. But the key strength of his script was that no matter how good the jokes were, the threat was still there. And in turning a universally acknowledged celebration of love and devotion into something disturbing and dangerous, he is, perhaps, tapping into many people’s deepest fears!