Polly Wright

Polly Wright was a companion to the first and second incarnations of the Doctor.

Early life
Polly was the child of Dr. Edward Wright and his wife, the former Miss Bettingham-Smith. Edward was the second of three sons. His older brother was named Charles, and his younger Randolph. Edward and Bettingham-Smith married about August 1939 and had one son soon thereafter. By 1943, they had their second child, Polly. At this point, the Edward Wright family were known to have lived "in a big, old house in the country". Inasmuch as her extended family were concerned, Polly's paternal grandmother and two uncles were still living at the time of her birth.

By 1944, her father's younger brother, Randolph, had been imprisoned in a Nazi prisoner of war camp, where he subsequently died. By contrast, Edward survived World War II, as he lived long enough to sire three more boys and to tell Polly stories of her uncle.

In her young adulthood, Polly reflected on her parents and said that she'd always "taken them for granted" while she was away from home enjoying herself, but that they were always there for her when she needed them. (CC: Resistance)

Joining the Doctor
Before meeting the Doctor, Polly was a typical 1960s London 20-something, living in Chelsea. She worked as Professor Brett's personal assistant, and was unhappy that WOTAN's typing was faster and more accurate, than hers. She appeared to have an active social life, and to enjoy her time out of work. She met Ben Jackson at one of her favourite haunts, the Inferno nightclub, where, too, they were joined by the First Doctor, who expected to find Dodo there.

When Dodo failed to show by closing time, the threesome went out into the night together and soon became embroiled in the fight against WOTAN. Polly was soon sidelined in that effort, as her mind fell under the control of WOTAN. Ben ultimately helped free her just as WOTAN was destroyed by one of its own War Machines. Returned to her old self, she and Ben rushed to find the Doctor beside an old police box, whereupon she relayed a message: Dodo would be staying in England. Miffed, the Doctor bid the couple adieu. As they walked away, Polly turned round to notice that the Doctor had used a key to enter the police box. Remembering that Ben had found a key that had earlier fallen out of the Doctor's cloak, she dragged Ben back to the police box to see if it would fit. It did. They ended up inside the ship just as it was taking off. (DW: The War Machines)

Early travels with the Doctor
The Doctor first took them to 17th century Cornwall, where they encountered smugglers. (DW: The Smugglers) In 1986 at the South Pole, she helped fight off an invasion by Cybermen from Mondas. At the conclusion of these events, the exhausted Doctor collapsed and went through his first regeneration. (DW: The Tenth Planet) On the planet Vulcan, she adjusted to the Doctor's having changed into a new and younger persona. On Vulcan, she met the Doctor's archenemy, the Daleks. Ben could not quite believe an impersonator had not simply replaced the Doctor; Polly was more open to the possibility that he had changed form. (DW: The Power of the Daleks)

Later travels
Polly was confident, and not afraid to use her feminine wiles. She used her femininity, and attractiveness, to enlist the help of Redcoat Algernon Ffinch while the travellers were in the Scottish Highlands. Polly also encouraged Kirsty McLaren and the other Scots girls to use their femininity to lure Algernon into a pit, where they then took his money, identity disc and a lock of his hair. She struck up a relationship with Ffinch, and teased him whenever they met, calling him 'Algy'. She realised that he had developed an admiration for her. (DW: The Highlanders)

When Polly found herself in Atlantis, she was initially the subject of a failed attempt to convert her into a Fish Person. After the Doctor interrupted the power supply during her operation, she escaped Damon's medical bay and rejoined her friends. (DW: The Underwater Menace)

Despite her beauty, Polly was more than just a pretty face. When the travellers arrived on the the Moonbase in 2070 and had to face the Cybermen, Polly soon realised that the plastic parts of the Cybermen could be attacked using a mixture of solvents. She instantly thought of the way that nail polish is dissolved by nail varnish remover, and concocted a mixture including acetone, benzene, ether and epoxy propane to make a substance (called "Cocktail Polly" by Ben) which was shot at the Cybermen using adapted fire extinguishers. (DW: The Moonbase)

Although Polly enjoyed her adventures, she couldn't hide her desire to stay at home when she got the chance. After an adventure with the alien Chameleons in 1966, the travellers discovered that the TARDIS had come back to London just prior to the date that they had departed. With Ben, Polly left the TARDIS, and returned to her life, appearing never to be missing. (DW: The Faceless Ones)

Life after the Doctor
On New Year's Eve 1986, Ben and Polly once more reunited. Their relationship had not lasted and they had gone on to marry other people. (ST: Mondas Passing) In 1999, the Second Doctor helped Ben meet Polly once more. They both admitted their love for each other. (ST: That Time I Nearly Destroyed the World Whilst Looking for a Dress) In 2010, Sarah Jane Smith stated that Ben and Polly were running an orphanage together in India. (SJA: Death of the Doctor)

Personality
Teasing banter was a typical way for Polly to treat those she was close to. She hid her affection for others, particularly from Ben, behind this façade. The teasing and banter with Ben was part of an ongoing development of their relationship. She was chatting him up when she met him, and she was still chatting him up when they left the TARDIS together. When her friends were in trouble, Polly was completely serious - particularly if Ben was one of those in trouble. In those circumstances Polly would drop the banter and flippancy, and work towards practical solutions. Like the earlier Wright to travel in the TARDIS, she actively hoped to find her way back to her own time period, as when she said, "Please let it be Chelsea, 1966," when guessing what would be outside the TARDIS doors after it landed in Atlantis. (DW: The Underwater Menace) Just as Barbara had done with Ian, Polly left the Doctor with Ben at the earliest possible access to mid-1960s London. (DW: The Faceless Ones)

Nicknames
She was also often called "Poll" by Ben; this was adapted to "Paul" when she was pretending to be a boy in 17th century Cornwall. (DW: The Smugglers) He also described Polly as "our little dolly-rocker duchess" (DW: The Smugglers) or simply "the duchess".

Is "Polly Wright" right?
Like Vicki before her, Polly's surname was never spoken in any televised episode. "Wright" comes to Polly via stories in other media. The first such story to give her the surname was the 1995 novel by Gary Russell, Invasion of the Cat-People, one of the last Virgin Missing Adventures. Once BBC Books took back the original novel license from Virgin, it then became effectively "house policy" of the BBC Past Doctor Adventures line to call her "Polly Wright", as evidenced by both Steve Lyons' and Mark Gatiss' usage in their 1997 offerings, The Murder Game and ''The Roundheads. ''

Prior to this, the name was the subject of speculation.

In the introduction to Cat-People, Russell made his case for the surname, claiming that "Wright" was used in the audition script Anneke Wills and others read while vying for the part of Polly. Indeed, David J. Howe, et al, seem to have unearthed the audition script for their First Doctor Handbook, and it does indeed include the character identifying herself as "Polly Wright" in a phone conversation. However, the name never made it into the recording of The War Machines. It's unclear why the name surname was dropped, but it can be imagined it might have been because of a previous companion. Had she been called "Polly Wright" in 1966, viewers might well have wondered whether she was related to Barbara Wright, last seen on television just a year earlier.

The matter became more complicated during the John Nathan-Turner era, thanks to Doctor Who non-fiction author, Jean-Marc Lofficier. In both 1981's The Doctor Who Programme Guide and 1992's The Universal Databank, he referred to her as "Polly Lopez". This surname was the result of not one but two misunderstandings on his part, both having to do with episode two of The Faceless Ones. As the cliffhanger to part one suggested, Anneke Wills was not then playing Polly, but a duplicate created by the Chameleons. At the start of part two of the story, the Doctor asked Anneke Wills' character her name, to which she replied, "Michele Leuppi, from Zurich". This name was later confirmed in the serial's novelisation. What Lofficier heard, though, was "Lopez", and he believed, for reasons obscure, that this was the surname of the real Polly. Thus the name "Polly Lopez" came to be used in two of the most popular Doctor Who reference works to bookend the 1980s.

Then, in a 1993 Myth Makers interview with Nick Briggs, Wills confided that Polly's surname was "Bettingham-Smith". However, in her 2007 autobiography Self-Portrait, Wills recanted, saying that her character had no surname and was simply "Polly".

All of these questions seem to have been resolved by the 2009 Big Finish Productions audio story, Resistance. In that play, she encounters what she believes is her patrilineal uncle, Randolph Wright. The Second Doctor dispenses with the possible relationship to Barbara by revealing that, in independently deducing Randolph was her uncle, he considered the fact that "Wright was a very common name". Later, it is revealed that "Bettingham-Smith" is actually her mother's maiden name. Finally she is directly called "Polly Wright" in the play — several times by the Doctor himself.