Written by Juno Dawson, Doctor Who: Redacted was co-produced with the Easter TV show Legend of the Sea Devils, and has been described by producer / director Ella Watts as “very gay, very trans” and sitting “on the left”. of the main broadcast. The BBC Sounds 10-part audio drama follows three best companions making “The Blue Box Files”, a paranormal conspiracy podcast for a specific police box that appears throughout the story. The formulation of their theory suddenly becomes very true when they are drawn into an action-packed alien adventure of their own. Friends are college dropouts who now live in different cities in the UK but stay connected through their hobby podcast. The leader of the gang (and the drama) is a trans woman, Cleo, who works as a theater messenger, lives on a farm in south London and saves on surgery. She is played by trans activist Charlie Craggs, a director in her first role, who describes her casting as “a huge step for the trans community. It is a great honor for me to be part of such a sanctuary for so many. “ Juno Dawson always had Craggs in mind to play her protagonist. “It’s such a force,” says Dawson. “The ‘trans activist’ label can be a club with which trans people can win. It’s a inhuman term, but Charlie uses her voice so cleverly – with humor and honesty. When the casting came, I told Ella: ‘Look, we can either listen to Charlie Craggs or find a trans actor and tell her to play him like Charlie Craggs. “There was some nervousness on the BBC about hiring an untrained person, but I’m very happy we got stuck in our arms.” The founder of the podcast-within-a-podcast is a dedicated “boxspotter” and regular believer Abby (Vigil’s Lois Chimimba), who is bisexual and takes full care of her ailing mother in Glasgow. The line-up is complemented by the skeptical Shawna (Grange Hill Holly Quin-Ankrah), a proud lesbian studying computer science at her local college in Sheffield. Interestingly, this regional diversity is what came first for Dawson. “Being from Bradford itself, I love listening to local accents on the BBC,” she says. “I adore this doctor who has lived his life in Cardiff, Sheffield and Liverpool in recent years. This locality is not enough in the BBC drama, which is often somewhat out of place. So before I even thought about their gender or sexual identity, it was important to me that they were from different parts of the UK. “Shawna was identified in the script as a black or mixed-race woman from the north, while Abby would always be from Glasgow, which is one of my favorite cities.” Juno Dawson: “The doctor who always appealed to LGBTQ + people” Photo: Simone Padovani / Awakening / Getty Images The “three losers”, as they despise themselves, discover that all those who have ever met the Doctor disappear and their very existence has been forgotten. “They are adapted from reality.” Is there an allegorical meaning here? “Somehow,” Dawson says. “The concept of mute or delete is considered part of the online language nowadays. But, I would say to the listener: it’s Doctor Who, do not read too much. “It’s more of a threat to the world.” Ironically, the Blue Box Files are so unsuccessful that our heroines are on the charts, making Cleo, Abby and Shawna the only hope in the world. They must fight against time to reveal the truth and avert the “danger of the end of the world.” As the drama unfolds, they join in with celebrities – OK, voices – mostly, the 13th Doctor herself (Jodie Whittaker). Also reprinting Doctor Who spin-off roles are Rani Chandra (Anjli Mohindra) of The Sarah Jane Adventures and Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave), Petronella Osgood (Ingrid Oliver) and Madame Vastra (Doon Mackichan) of UNIT. In addition to Time Lord allies, some well-known monsters are also appearing. “It was so exciting to play with these favorite characters,” says Dawson. “It’s like borrowing someone else’s toy box. If you put the games back in good shape, you can just go crazy. I was in the next room as Jodi was recording my dialogue and I admit I cried. I never cry! “I never thought that in a million years I would see the Doctor reading the dialogue I had written to them.” But the podcast is not only full of cameos, it also nods to Who’s stories past and present. Tardis companions Martha, Ryan, Graham and Yaz are controlled by name. The same goes for the previous details of the TV plot, such as the diet company Adipose Industries and the moment when an entire hospital was teleported to the moon by talking space rhinos. Not that Dawson wanted the podcast to be just to please the cleaners. “I did not want it to be too heavy to serve the fans,” he says. “The reason Doctor Who has been running for almost 60 years is because he always kept the door open to new fans. Especially with every new Doctor, there is an invitation to come and join the party. But there are Easter eggs and small recalls. The girls have a podcast that explores the myth of the Doctor, so it makes sense to look for clues. At the same time he tells his own story. You do not need to have seen a lot of Doctor Who to understand Redacted. ” The narrative of the high stakes is cleverly intertwined with the personal lives of the three. Abby may have a controlled friend (“baby man”) hiding in the background, but she and Shawna have a sweet romantic entanglement – they will not want to. Despite the fact that the Cleo class clown insisted that she was “only here for the chassis, my baby”, we learn that her mother kicked her out when she started changing into adolescence, but now she is seriously ill and trying to reconcile. “It’s hard not to feel Cleo’s character,” Craggs said. “You have to be some kind of sociopath to not sympathize with what she goes through with her mom.” Dawson agrees: “I wanted to point out that Cleo had a difficult old life, but, like Charlie, she has developed thick skin to hide her pain. This is something that Russell T Davies did very well. If you make people’s lives feel real and multi-layered, then, in a way, science fiction also seems more real. There is something delicious about seeing a Yeti on the subway or a Dalek passing over the Tower Bridge. It is extremely mixed with the usual. “I wanted the characters to feel like your neighbors.” Many of the doctor’s companions have been oppressed or marginalized, even if they were not outwardly queer She wrote the script for four of the 10 episodes, with the rest credited to young writers – again, with a strong emphasis on diversity and locality. With Redacted, best-selling author Dawson becomes the first openly trans major lead author of the Doctor Who franchise. For a lifelong Whovian who calls the show “her first love”, this is a big deal. “When I saw Bonnie Langford [who played companion Mel] “As a child, I decided I wanted to be her,” he says. “And then came Sophie Aldred as Ace, an even stronger character who killed Daleks with a baseball bat. Long before I realized I was a girl, I knew I was Mel and Ace. The show has a huge impact on me, so it’s a privilege to put my own little flag in the landscape. “ Whittaker has been thrilled to work with Dawson and Craggs, saying “their energy is an ace”. Redacted is, indeed, irresistibly sparkling. The characters are powered by protein shakes and oat milk latte. The episodes run at a rate of 20 minutes. The dark plot of the conspiracy is fueled by a script that shouts with the language Drag Race and gags for extraterrestrial penises in jars. Harry Styles is hailed as an “honorary lesbian”. The culture “Live, laugh, love” and the up-and-coming people who leave voice messages are unbearably ridiculed. It’s like a science fiction remix of Mae Martin’s Feel Good. Ή It’s A Sin with aliens also saying “La!”. Therefore, a storm falls. “I was nervous because the fans are so passionate,” says Dawson. “I was also a critical fan. But the people were incredibly positive. This applies to both the queer and the trans community. Many of the messages I get on the Internet are from people who say, “I feel like I’m being seen.” Doctor Who has been flirting with the gay subtitle for a long time. Since its relaunch in 2005, queer characters include Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) and Madame Vastra wife Jenny Flint, but just five years ago the franchise introduced its first LGBTQ + full-time partner, Bill Potts (played by Pearl Mackie). Whittaker quickly followed her as the doctor’s first female incarnation – recently revealing her feelings for her partner Yaz (Mandip Gill). The show received an Allly Award at the PinkNews Awards 2017 for its “long-term LGBT integration”. Now that the Redacted cast and crew of different queer women are saving the universe, it’s another step forward for representation. “Doctor Who has always addressed LGBTQ + people,” says Dawson. “There is something so resilient about the idea that if you live a slightly boring life, this person in a blue box can take you on an adventure in time and space. Many of the Doctor’s assistants have been oppressed or marginalized, even if they were not outwardly queer. So, to take this subject and make it text, that means a lot. We no longer need to transfer it. “We can have three queer women in front and in the center.” Doctor Who: Redacted is available on BBC Sounds, with new episodes every Sunday.
