Doctor Who – Short Trips

#8.10. I Am The Master ~ 10/10

◆ An Introduction

‘Solitary Confinement’ was something of a disappointment – the third episode managed to be one of the worst things I’ve listened to all year – so, understandably, I have been itching for a script which really does the Master justice.

My recent delve into the long line of ‘Short Trips’ has proved fruitful, as I happened upon a little gem written by the man himself.

Sit down, relax, and listen to the voice of your Master!

◆ Publisher’s Summary

There is a message for you. It comes from a long way, from a dying world. No, not a dying world. A killed world. And the message is from the killer.

Please attend carefully. The message that follows is vital to your future…

However much longer that may be.

◆ The “Decayed” Master

Who better to write a character study of “Old Crispy” than the actor who played him? Geoffrey Beevers knows this burnt, decaying husk like the back of his hand. I must admit that my favourite part of this episode was the beginning; the Master talks about how people react to his appearance with horror, about how he likes to hide inside dressing gowns and scare people out of their wits! He comes across as fiercely intelligent, but totally unhinged: he is perfectly written.

Geoffrey Beevers delivers one of his finest performances in ‘I Am The Master’. Listening to him is like having golden syrup poured into your ears; his voice is rich and soothing, making him perfect for audio work. Put simply, the Master will have you hanging off his every word…

People think it must be fun to be the Master. Oh, he finds fun where he can, but being trapped in a burnt, decaying husk is no fun, believe him. You look at all those strong, healthy bodies passing by and you think, “I want a piece of that,” even though they aren’t generally worthy of hosting him; never elegant or charming enough. It’s more difficult to find the right body than you think: you have only to say, “would your body suit me, do you think?” then people run away for some reason… or something annoying happens, like the arrival of the Doctor. You end up feeling discontent with everything, and just a bit violent and angry underneath! It’s easy to blame your parents – you should have seen his mum and dad on Gallifrey – but what’s the point? You just want to smash everything up… and actually, that’s where the real fun begins. You’ve got to have a laugh after all, or you’d go insane, and it’s important not to go insane… no one had better call him insane! If you’re going to smash everything up, you might as well do it on a grand scale, and to do that you’ve got to exercise a bit of power, the Master has found. Of course, it’s easy enough to frighten people looking like he does; people might be looking at the dressing gown, hanging on the bedroom door in the dark, and not realise, at first, that he is hanging inside it. They may leap out of bed, and find his skeletal hand is on the door knob before their hand can reach it. All good fun, you might think, but such games are surely for children: to do something really scary, you need real power! One of the problems the Master has found is that power decays: you can rule a galaxy for a generation or two, but then people lose interest in being tortured, or the Doctor turns up and it all changes. Things change all the time, so it’s hard to hold onto power, even for as little as a thousand years. And as a Time Lord, you already know it’s all going to go wrong in the end, so it takes all the fun out of it. Be assured: being able to visit the future, as well as the past, takes all the interest out of the present. Why do the goodies – as their tiresome self-reference has it – always have to win? It really isn’t fair. Who constructed this universe so the good things always triumph in the end? That’s not to say there isn’t lots of lovely dark energy in the universe – 70%, in fact – and dark matter, and no end of black holes swallowing up the light, and he’s very happy about that. But why do all the interesting things happen around the stars and in the light? That’s where the complicated life-forms develop. The Master has lots of stories he could tell: there was the time he was a master-chef, that was fun: poisoned no end of people! Meat was his speciality; he enjoys the way different species of animal like to eat each other, especially in fine restaurants. Or the time he gave master-classes in music, wonderful music: burnt people’s ears off when they heard it!

◆ Earworms

Geoffrey Beevers has more than proven himself to be a damn good writer, but this section might be on the shorter side: this bite-sized outing is a gorgeous little character study of the Master, and I’ve unpacked all those little details already.

There is something genuinely chilling about the concept of a villain becoming bored, because it suggests that everyone has either been enslaved or murdered. It seems the Master got so bored on Glox that he decided to start his own podcast… but even something that mundane can be turned to his advantage.

The earworm was a special time transmitter which came bundled with the Master’s little transmission. It could transport the listener’s essence to his location: it just requires you to concentrate for a moment and visualise the inside of his TARDIS. Anyone effected by the earworm will also find that they have morphed into a replica of the burnt, decaying husk the Master calls a body; effectively meaning he can use you as a decoy, whenever he needs a rapid exit.

◆ Sound Design

David Roocroft appears to have done the sound design for several many of the ‘Short Trips’, but I think his work on this masterpiece – pun intended – is particularly noteworthy.

As the earworm takes effect, you can hear the Master’s voice in the background repeating lines of dialogue from his television outings;

• “I am the Master, and you will obey me…”

• “A new body…”

◆ Conclusion

“You know about earworms, don’t you?”

Planet Glox has been decimated for over one hundred years. Listen carefully, because the Master is going to tell you how he did it!

Geoffrey Beevers has been playing Old Crispy for quite some time, but listening to this bite-sized adventure proves he understands him perfectly. Listen to the Master gleefully describe how he murdered his way up the Gloxian hierarchy, before taking control as a tyrannical despot; he decimated this world’s bio-diversity by pumping red chemicals into the soil, and making sure most of its wildlife went extinct!

‘I Am The Master’ is an immaculate character study of the Decayed Master, brought to us by the man who plays him. Considering this only costs £2.99 from the BigFinish site, I can highly recommend adding it to your basket.