Some stories are about monsters, some are about impossible planets, and some are about the rather more dangerous territory of memory, belonging and the places we still think of as home.
In this episode of Sophie Aldred’s Ace Odyssey, we welcome one of Doctor Who’s most distinctive writers, Rona Munro whose contribution to the programme spans almost thirty years, two television eras and two very different Doctors.
Rona wrote Survival, the final story broadcast during Doctor Who’s original television run in 1989. It was not intended to become the final classic Doctor Who story, but history gave it that distinction, and its closing image of the Doctor and Ace walking away together has acquired an extraordinary emotional resonance.
Nearly three decades later, Rona returned to the programme with The Eaters of Light, written for Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor. Set in Roman-era Scotland, it is another story concerned with lost children, divided communities, ancient memory and the ways in which the past refuses to remain comfortably in the past. Rona became the first writer to contribute to both the twentieth- and twenty-first-century television incarnations of Doctor Who.
Rona’s work beyond Doctor Who is equally remarkable. She is one of Britain’s most celebrated playwrights, with works including Bold Girls, Iron, The Last Witch and the acclaimed James Plays trilogy. Her writing is frequently concerned with people caught between history and the present, between the lives they have inherited and the lives they might yet make for themselves.
And then there is the rose.
Somewhere aboard the Nosferatu 2.5, Sophie encounters a story about a rose. A small, apparently simple thing that becomes rather more difficult to explain the longer one thinks about it. It is a story about memory, homesickness and the peculiar ways in which an object, a place or a recollection can become charged with everything we have lost.
We shall say no more about where that story leads.
Alongside Rona, the Ffantaface introduces Martin Spellacey, whose own relationship with Doctor Who has been both deeply personal and professionally transformative. Martin’s love of the programme has taken him from being a fan to working on the convention circuit, where he now assists some of the stars of the Whoniverse. His story is a reminder that Doctor Who does not simply exist on television or in audio studios: it lives in friendships, communities, careers, memories and the extraordinary connections made between people who might otherwise never have met.
This is an episode about the things stories leave behind, and the things they bring home with them.
Sophie Aldred's Ace Odyssey stars Sophie Aldred with James Showers as Hobbes.
Special Guests- Rona Munro & Martin Spellacey.
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Music by Graeme Allan
Sound Effects & Sound Design by Gavin Rymill
Programme Assistant Liz Whitmore
Based on a short story by Soula Carmichael
Written, Produced and Directed by Paul Carmichael
You can follow Graeme Allan on Bluesky @graemeallan and listen to more of his music at www.youtube.com/brassbandit
You can follow Gavin Rymill on Twitter & Bluesky @themindrobber, and you can watch his superb Dr.Who series Terry Nation Army on www.youtube.com/dalek6388
You can follow Paul Carmichael on Bluesky @paulcarmichaeluk and on Threads @paul.carmichael.1213
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