Dromcarr Banshee, Confidential

Unfinished Business, Doctor Who, Dr. Who, Chris Eccleston, Christopher Eccleston, Doctor who Fiction

Dromcarr Banshee started with the idea of writing a story set in Ireland. On the RDWF forum the ideas of either Banshee or the Children of Lir were suggested. I have never really liked the Children of Lir as a story so I went with Banshee. The story was also meant to be historical, but I couldn’t quite get a story together that worked.

Then I watched the film High Spirits, possibly one of the worst pieces of hokum set in Ireland for decades, with every bad cliché possible in it. I decided to look up the castle it was set in to see if it would do as a location. It didn’t. Unfortunately, there is very little detail about Dromore Castle, Askeaton, Killarney, County Kerry. It doesn’t help that there are at least a dozen more places in Ireland called Dromore. The name comes from the Irish Droim Mór meaning "large ridge”. There are a lot of large ridges in Ireland. The castle isn’t especially remarkable,

But its setting, beside a rather lovely lake with mountains and forests, gave a bit more inspiration. But I decided to abandon real locations and make one up. Dromcarr Castle thus came to pass.

I can’t quite remember where I got the names of Anthony-Patterson Mathers and Angela Sullivan from, but it is absolutely not true that Andrew Lloyd Webber was in my mind at the time. Yes, he is a West End impressario, yes, he has been on TV reality shows, yes, he helped choose a Eurovision song. But that’s all just coincidence. Really, it is.

The A-list of real celebrities at the party was a fun bit. Getting a balance of old and young was the hardest bit. My favourite song was written by Cole Porter in the 1920s. What I know about current charts could go on a definitive stamp. So the likes of Webber and Cameron Macintosh were easy. Derek Jacobi, Patrick Stewart, Sean Connery, household names. People like Tessa Dahl or Gemma Arterton needed a bit of research. Oddly enough, for somebody over 40, I DO know about Ricky Wilson of the Kaiser Chiefs. And I’ve adored Ewan Macgregor since he was in Moulin Rouge and I’ve seen his programmes about crossing continents on motor bikes.

I don’t think, incidentally, that either Ricky or Ewan have any hearing problems due to loud music or loud bikes. But prolonged exposure to noise is known to change the way we hear things. And the trio of elderly actors might well have hearing issues by their age, but it in no way disables them from being superstars.

Sharp readers, of course, will recognise five Doctor Who guest stars in the celebs.

Derek Jacobi – Professor Yana
Felicity Kendal – Lady Eddison
Zoe Wannamaker – Cassandra
Michelle Ryan – Lady Christina De Souza
Jason Connery – Jondar (Vengeance on Varos)

The full list of the celebrities in order of appearance are:-

Helen Mirren, Derek Jacobi and Ricky Wilson at the buffet.

Rupert Everett, Chris Evans, (I meant the DJ, not Captain America!) Colin Firth and Ewan McGregor wearing clothes like The Doctor’s.

Patrick Stewart, Zoe Wannamaker, Felicity Kendal, Sean Connery AND Jason Connery, Tessa Dahl and Gemma Arterton all listening to Rory talk about The Doctor along with Lord Henry Mouncharles.

Michelle Ryan, sharing a room with Amy.

Cameron Macintosh and Andrew Lloyd Webber are near Amy and Rory at dinner.

Lord Henry Mountcharles is the coolest Lord in the history of the aristocracy. His family demesne is Slane Castle, which any rock fan or festival regular will know as one of the big venues for open air concerts in the British Isles because Henry loves music and wants it that way.

There really is no clear idea of what a banshee really is, except that they are said to scream in the night when somebody is due to die. That’s about it. So my idea that they are creatures made of sound, who thrive on sound, is as good a guess as any. Being able to trap them by recording them is at least as feasible as towing a planet with a TARDIS.

I wrote this story between Rory coming into Doctor Who in Vampires of Venice and his death in Cold Blood. I then wasn’t at all sure how it would fit into a sequence which I wanted to be AFTER the end of Matt’s first series as The Doctor. I thought about rewriting or switching this to the first story in the set, then continuing without Rory afterwards. I decided to wait to find out what was happening in the last episodes, and as the storyline pans out, everything is fine with this except that Amy is sharing a room with Michelle Ryan and Rory is with The Doctor. This is a bit odd since they are now married. But I didn’t want to rewrite that section and it is only a small point.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095304/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slane_Castle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banshee