By Roy Mathur, on 2026-03-02, at 23:53:45 to 01:11:36 GMT, for Captain Roy's Rusty Rocket Radio Show
Notable Cast: Seventh Doctor: Sylvester McCoy, Companion: Ace: Sophie Aldred, Nord (idiotic biker): Daniel Peacock; co-writer of The Comic Strip Presents...: The Yob, Ringmaster: Ricco Ross; United States Colonial Marine Corps Private Frost in Aliens, Captain Cook: Thomas Patrick McKenna; generally played poshos, Mags (angry goth girl): Jessica Martin; Queen's voice in Voyage of the Damned, Deadbeat (manager): Chris Jury; Eric Catchpole in Lovejoy, Chief Clown (creepy whiteface): Ian Reddington; Basset (18th century duelist) in Highlander pertubed at drunk Conner's repeated ability to survive stabbing, shooting, etc.
Director: Alan Wareing
Writer: Stephen Wyatt
Producer: John Nathan-Turner
Location: Warmwell Quarry, Dorset, BBC Elstree 1988
Broadcast: Story 151, serial 4, season 25 (finale), following Silver Nemesis (603), 4 x c. 25 min, 14 Dec 1988--4 Jan 1989
Media: Target novelization by Stephen Wyatt 1989, VHS 2000, DVD 2012, 2013, Blu-ray 2024, BBC iPlayer since 1 Nov 2023
The UK no. 1 single was Cliff Richard's ghastly, sugary Xmas hit, Mistletoe and Wine. I hated it then and I hate it now. The bloody thing stayed in the charts for three weeks, only to be replaced by the bloody-curdling New Year's Day hit, Especially for You by Jason and Kylie for a further three weeks. I must have been in Hell. In fact, this story started at 19:35, right after TOTP ending with Cliff.
The Doctor and Ace are invited to the hippy "Psychic Circus" on Segonax, where it has made it's home, much to the natives displeasure, based on a couple of small-minded stall holders. They also meet Nord, an obnoxious, aggressive biker. The circus is sinister, sparsely staffed and attended. The Doctor and Ace, along with other participants including Nord, Captain Cook and Mags, and Whizz Kid are told they must entertain the audience on pain of death.
Some staff like Bellboy and Flowerchild try to escape, but are hunted by surveillance kites and the Chief Clown and his clown robots. Seeking refuge in their old bus, Flowerchild is killed by the robot Bus Conductor. The Doctor and Ace are also on the run and narrowly escape a giant laser robot. We find out from Deadbeat nearby, that he was once called Kingpin and managed the hippy circus, which had come seeking power, but instead became inthralled to it. Ace finds Flowerchild's spiral earring and keeps it as a badge. The Chief Clown is suspicious when he sees this and chases Ace in the big top, until she hides with Bellboy who also sees the badge, but is confused. He gives gives her the remote control for the giant robot. The Doctor discovers Ace and Bellboy's hiding place. The Chief Clown finds them and Bellboy sacrifices himself to cause a diversion, allowing them to escape. Ace finds Kingpin's psychic eye talisman on the bus. She is almost killed by the Bus Conductor, but instructions from recovering Kingpin allow her to stop him by pressing a button on its head.
Cook, with the aid of moonlight transforms Mags into a werewolf, the Doctor performs a acrobatic act and Cooks turns her on him, whereupon she instead kills Cook.
The Doctor believes the sole audience, a family of three, are the gods of Ragnarok. He is called and enters their temple (the "Dark Circus"), which exists in parallel with the circus. It is a type of Romanesque arena, perhaps implying that the gods have been doing this a long time and in a lot of places. There, he is forced to entertain them.
Meanwhile, Ace, Kingpin, and Mags are on the run from the Chief Clown. Ace uses Bellboy's remote to blast the robots and shoot him in the head. They try to get the talisman to the Doctor, but are intercepted by zombie Cook, reanimated by the gods, who takes it from Kingpin and throws it into an abyss with a glowing eye at the bottom, then drops himself in.
The Gods tire of the Doctor's antics and blast him, whereupon he retreives the talisman buried in the sand and reflects the beams back, destroys the temple and calmly walks away from the collapsing tent as pink energy blows a hole through it. The Doctor and Ace say goodbye to Mags and Kingpin, who decide to continue the circus elsewhere.
The Hip Hop dad rap patter of the Ringmaster is unbearable, though the faint background record scratching is okay. Poor Ricco Ross, I'd be embarrassed saying those lines.
Ace again has an action-packed and fraught-with-peril adventure, while McCoy shows off his physical prowess accrued as a stuntman in The Ken Campbell Roadshow.
The little-Englanders---sorry---Little-Segonaxians reminded me of the coarse Androgums of The Two Doctors.
With a name like "Captain Cook", the safari suit, the pith helmet, and the upper crust accent, and trafficking sexy, exotic Mags from her home werewolf planet, he represents a typical colonial exploiter.
Clowns are terrifying, as are robot clowns (maybe moreso). Whiteface, misaligned eyebrow Reddington is exceedingly creepy as the Clown. The rest of the acting, by necessity of story in the case of the staff, is dull.
Robots feature heavily, which I like, but they are represented by comedically bad costumes and props.The three statue-like gods are also a bit bulbous and rubber foamy.
The idea of a hippy circus is bizarrely old-fashioned for a story broadcast at the end of the 80s. There's even a manager in buckskins and a much smaller BBC budget version of Ken Kesey and his Merry Band of Pranksters school bus from the 60s.
I can't help but think of Barry B. Longyear's much better and absolutely fascinating Circus World anthology I read back in the 80s. It is about a circus ship crashing into a remote planet and how their society develops.
For a season finale set in a circus, amongst colourful characters, on a sunny and sandy planet, thanks to a story that required half the cast to act subdued under the control of the gods, this a rather dull adventure. It could have been better, had the action been not been confined largely to the last episode.
In Howe, Walker, and Stammer's Handbook: The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to the Production of Doctor Who, on p. 713, Sylvester McCoy says, "...because of the asbestos scare at the BBC --- we had to [record the studio scenes in a] tent at Elstree. The camera broke down, we had to stop every time a car went by or a bird whistled. Amazing."
Very off-topic, but relevant to me as someone with Tourette's, here is an update to what I said in 599 about fellow person with Tourette's, John Davidson, BAFTAs award winning biopic, I Swear. Back then, I said that I didn't want to review it because it stars an actor without Tourette's. My view hasn't changed in the interim, instead this is about Davidson's outburst at the BAFTAs when he used racially explicit and extremely hurtful language. It was an unintentional and unavoidable action for Davidson who has coprolalia, a somewhat rare symptom of Tourette's.
What did not help is the BBC not editing it out immediately, though the producers say they didn't initially hear it. (I edit out non-offensive vocal tics from my own pods). Unfortunately, host and actor Alan Cumming and later Davidson himself, both used the word "if", as in "if" anyone felt slurred, in statements explaining the incident, when there is no "if" about it. Of course the language is offensive and people are always right to take offence at it. To reiterate, it was, however, unintentional and, more importantly, unavoidable.
The clumsy responses from all involved aside and as much as Tourette's has a long history and is fairly well known, many people still do not fully understand it. Even medical professionals get this wrong. I was misdiagnosed by a psychiatrist in the 70s, until my diagnosis at the Radcliffe around 2017. In later years, I even had a physiotherapist laughingly tell me how he and his friends would mock a fellow kid with the condition at school.
Many years ago, I was confronted my a man in an airport spewing aggressive racist language. Even then, I knew something was wrong and that this wasn't the usual crap brown people are subject to. His friends also quickly apologised and explained and I shrugged it off. They, as far as I remember, did not use the word "if". What I'm saying is, sometimes an unconditional apology is necessary before an explanation because every situation is different and the public may not understand Tourette's.