The Haunting Of Thomas Brewster
Young Thomas Brewster hasn’t exactly led a charmed life. Orphaned at the age of five, he winds up in the London workhouses and is eventually handed off to a vile man who forces young men into a life of virtual slavery, searching the banks of the Thames for valuable cargo thrown overboard by corrupt boat skippers who don’t want to pay taxes on what they’re carrying (or smuggling). But from his mother’s funeral onward, there have been two constants in Thomas’ life (aside from suffering): his mother’s ghost speaks to him, and he keeps seeing a tall blue box whose occupants keep asking after him. When he finally meets these two people – a man called the Doctor and a girl named Nyssa – they seem pleasant enough, but they’re an obstacle to his plans. His mother’s ghost has given Thomas instructions to build a time machine to change the future – an act which she assures him will reunite them at last. And when Thomas’ makeshift time machine isn’t enough to change history to his mother’s liking, she tells him to steal the Doctor’s TARDIS instead…
written by Jonathan Morris
directed by Barnaby Edwards
music by Simon RobinsonCast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Leslie Ash (Mother), Christian Coulson (Robert McIntosh), John Pickard (Thomas Brewster), Barry McCarthy (Creek), Sid Mitchell (Pickens), Trevor Cooper (Shanks)
Timeline: between Renaissance Of The Daleks and The Boy That Time Forgot
LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green