Iris Wildthyme will shortly be with us once more, in the latest anthology from Obverse Books,
The Perennial Miss Wildthyme (available for
pre-order now). But who is this mysterious woman, who travels the multiverse in an interdimensional double-decker bus, seemingly a TARDIS that happens to be smaller on the inside than the outside? This self-described "Trans-Temporal Adventuress," a batty old mare who's centuries old even when she's young, unstoppably youthful when she's already old and who's best friend is a talking stuffed panda? A woman who has had many faces, who claims to be a Time Lord and yet says she's nothing of the sort. She knows she's a parody of the Doctor and this just makes her love him more. An old, mad fag hag who can't be trusted, who steals others' adventures and rewrites history to make them her own. A character with as many origin stories as she can think of on the spot, who loves a bit of splishy-splashy and is never without a cigarette?
Trying to make sense of Iris's many lives is a fool's errand, as she'd be the first to tell you. And she might warn you about the spoilers, but I doubt it. Here we go anyway...
The First Iris: Iris was
(probably) born on the outskirts of Saga City in the Clockworks of
the Obverse, and was christened Lilith. She lived with her aunts
until she found the wreckage of her magical bus, which she piloted
out of the Obverse and into universes new. (Iris's origins were seen
in the novel
Wildthyme Beyond!)
Other origin stories suggest she actually grew up in similar
circumstances in the wilds of Gallifrey, but this may be a retelling
of her origins fitted to suit the history of the primary
Doctor
Who universe.
Or perhaps the Clockworks and Gallifrey are nothing other than
reflections of the same realm.
Much, much later in her first
life she resembled the poet Edith Sitwell (whose look was not
entirely unlike a female version of the first Doctor). She has been
described as “a very old, imperious Iris... a grand dame glittering
in a carapace of ebon pearls,” (from the
DWM
article
“Bafflement and Devotion”). This version of Iris appeared,
briefly, at the end of the story “Came to Believe” in the
anthology
Wildthyme on Top, and in the later collection
Iris: Fifteen.
The Second Iris: This
incarnation usually goes by the name Brenda Soobie, and is described
as a Scots-Caribbean songstress. She appears physically to resemble
Shirley Bassey, only with a different regional accent, of course.
This version of Iris appeared in the novel
Mad
Dogs and Englishmen (with
the eighth Doctor, after one of the destructions of Gallifrey), and
the multi-Iris story “The Golden Hendecahedron” in
Iris:
Fifteen.
The Third Iris: The
most frequently encountered version of Iris in the BBC books range,
this incarnation is said to look like Beryl Reid. A long-lived,
perpetually middle-aged incarnation, this Iris smokes like a chimney
and carries a laser pistol. It was during this lifespan that Iris
first met her travelling companions Tom, Jenny and Captain Turner,
all of whom she'll travel with again in later life (or lives). This
Iris first appeared in print opposite the fourth Doctor in “Old
Flames” (in the collection
Short
Trips),
and later the third Doctor in the novel
Verdigris
and
the eighth Doctor in
The
Scarlet Empress.
It was after this adventure that she regenerated, with the help of
some Hysperon honey, into her fourth self, having previously been
poisoned by toxic Dalek meat.
The Fourth Iris: One
of Iris's younger incarnations, something she at first enjoyed but
later came to dislike, missing the clout and authority of an older
body. She looks uncannily like Jane Fonda in
Barbarella,
often wearing catsuits and twirling laser pistols about. This Iris
made her first full appearance in the short story “Femme Fatale”
(in
More Short
Trips),
where she described herself as “Iris Mark Six,” but it's now
clear that she is the fourth Iris.
She was the heroine of the collection
Iris Wildthyme of Mars, also appearing in the novel
The Blue Angel,
the charity short story
“Iris Explains” and a few others.
She has worked both for UNIT (briefly) and its Darlington-based
rival, MIAOW. “The Golden Hendecahedron” makes it apparent that this
Iris is the same as the occasionally mentioned “Iris with a long
white braid,” who is simply a much older version of this body. She
later had her appearance changed by the Clockwork canons for selling
fake exercise videos.
The Fifth Iris: A
very little seen incarnation who has so far only appeared in “The
Golden Hendecahedron.” Initially red-haired, into 70s fashions and
with brown eyes, she later started to go grey, and one eye turned
blue after she peaked at a space explosion. She didn't mind, since it
made her look like David Bowie.
The Sixth Iris: Nowadays
the best known Iris, this is the version who appears in
Big Finish's
productions and the bulk of those from
Obverse Books. This version of
Iris was first described as looking like Gracie Fields, but since she
is voiced in all her audio appearances by Katie Manning, she has been
illustrated like that as well. Flamboyant and a heavy drinker, this
is Iris's most famous and incorrigible self. She has appeared with
the fifth Doctor in
Excelis Dawns,
the sixth in
The Wormery and
bumped into the third and eighth in the Companion Chronicles, where
she also teamed up with Jo Jones (nee Grant). Yes, they're both
played by Katy Manning, and no, Iris's previous encounter with Jo in
Verdigris was
not mentioned once. You can't expect that kind of consistency from
Iris.
This
Iris has starred in five series of audios for Big Finish (so far),
travelling with Tom, Captain Turner and Panda at different stages.
She's also the main character of the bulk of the short story
collections. She's most commonly associated with Panda, and
supposedly met him in this lifespan, via Tom. However, he's also been
seen to travel with her fourth self, and was present at her very
first encounter with the bus. It's possible Iris's adventures with
Panda form one big temporal loop. She's been married, had
children and grandchildren, but this was merely the flicker of an
eyelash in her long life.
Possible
Future Irises:
We've
had several brushes with Iris's future selves, and while it must be
stressed that these are only potential futures, these are the Irises
we've met so far, including several from “The Golden
Hendecahedron”:
The
possible seventh Iris looks like Phyllis Diller, never stops talking
and has the loudest, most abrasive laugh of any woman in the cosmos.
She's physically elderly but doesn't dress like it.
The
following Iris is nothing more than a ventriloquist's puppet, cursed
to spend this entire lifespan in this reduced form by the
Gamesmaster.
The
next Iris after this had the physical form of a statuesque black man
in drag, and wore a long, honey-coloured wig. As she said, she may
sometimes be a man, but she's “
always
a
lady.”
The
final future Iris we met in this story was a tall, lisping
incarnation who looked like Carol Channing. She smoked a pipe, wore a
floral suit and was quite commanding.
The
collection
Iris:
Fifteen included
many stories featuring other versions of Iris. One such Iris, in the
story “Gimme Shelter,” had recently regenerated into a teenaged
form with frizzy blonde hair. She wasn't happy about this as she
couldn't get served.
The
story “God Engine Rhapsody” featured an Iris with an American
accent and crimson-and-platinum hair.
A
very sexy version of Iris became involved with MIAOW in “Our Tune.”
She had jet black hair, and ruby red lips that matched her
figure-hugging outfit. This Iris might be the same as one who
featured in a later story, “Ouroboros,” with so-black-it's-purple
hair, a trim figure and green eyes.
“The
Wildthyme Effect” featured an Iris who was based in the sixties,
owned a shop and was “proud to be a woman of means.” I have a
suspicion that this is the same version of Iris who later became a
star making televised recreations of her adventures, and dropped
Panda in favour of the more marketable kangaroo, Hoppy.
The
story “Sams
āra”
sees a new Iris, of Indian looks and accent, born from fire in front
of her startled companion.
It's
possible further incarnations feature in this collection, although
some are given scant description and might be ones we know already.
The piece “Iris at the V&A” describes images of Iris from
various points in her timestream, including some of those above and
more, such as an Iris with bright red hair with the look of,
according to Panda, “a lesbian space pirate," (possibly the fifth Iris, possibly not).
Beyond
this book, we know that seven of Iris's incarnations were present in
the Death Zone due to a plot by the mad Time Lord Morbius. We have
also met two future Irises on audio, although neither is quite the
Iris we know and love.
Dan
Hogarth played a male Iris in the audio adventure
The
Two Irises.
He looked rather dashing in a velvet jacket, and shunned alcohol. This
should've been the first clue: this wasn't really Iris at all, but a
projection by her TARDIS-bus to stand in her place while she was
away. This faux Iris took the name Hillary and settled down to life as
a barkeep in Spain.
Finally,
there's Bianca, voiced by Maria McErlane. Encountered as the villain
of
The Wormery,
this is Iris's final form, her equivalent of the Valeyard. Bianca
guts her bus and turns it into a transdimensional cabaret club,
intending to forcibly bring peace to the universe. She tried to steal
Iris's remaining lives but was defeated, and seemingly faded from
existence.
The Original Iris:
Iris made her first ever appearance in the novel
Marked for Life, part of a run of works set in and around the fictional Phoenix Court. These novels aren't sci-fi or fantasy
per se, but working class, queer fiction with a dollop of magical realism. The original Iris Wildthyme was an elderly lesbian in a relationship with the main character's mother. She had a double-decker bus, of course, but this one was resolutely fixed to one spot. However, this Iris claimed to have lived for hundreds of years, and at the climax of the story, seemingly met her death, only to transform into a baby in what was very clearly a
Doctor Who-inspired regeneration. Baby Iris continued to appear in the Phoenix Court novels, and after many years, the adult Iris appeared in her original universe in the short story "Hospitality" in the collection
Iris: Abroad.
The original Iris was described by other characters as overweight, but was in fact quite tiny, merely swaddled in many, many layers of clothing. The image conjured is of the grandmother in the
Giles cartoons, but with more glamour. Not a Time Lord or a Clockworker, she's earthly but seemingly immortal, compared to Orlando. Is this Iris the version who appears in the Obverse segments of the
Doctor Who novel
The Blue Angel, on a version of Earth that seems at once closer to our own and further away than the one regularly saved by the Doctor? In a strand of the novel that may be less or more real than the Doctor's adventures? And how does she relate to the temporal adventuress who put the Doctor there, living a life in a single old house from which various lodgers come and go?
Who knows who Iris really is. All we know is that there's no point asking her; you can't trust her answers anyway...
With thanks to Paul Magrs, the creator of Iris Wildthyme all those years ago. What wonderful lunacy you started!.jpg)
