The Vanity Box (audio story)

 was the following one-part story comprising part of the ninety-seventh release in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Paul Magrs and featured Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor and Bonnie Langford as Melanie Bush.

Publisher's summary
A strange beauty parlour has opened its doors for business in a dowdy Salford terrace circa 1965. Monsieur Coiffure is the talk of the street with his fabulous make-overs. When the Doctor arrives, however, he knows at once that there's been some unnatural titivation going on.

Plot
The Doctor and Mel arrive in 1965 Salford to rest after defeating the Wishing Beast. Whilst the Doctor goes for a drink at the Sailor's End, Mel goes to Lily's corner shop and hears from Bessy about Monsieur Coiffure's Vanity Box salon, which she has left looking several decades younger. The Doctor observes the reactions to Bessy when she enters the pub and, suspecting that something strange is going on, goes with Mel to investigate, finding Lily rejuvenated by a box put over her head.

Monsieur Coiffure sends the Doctor and Mel away, so they visit the gossipy Nesta who agrees to put the Doctor in drag so that he can return to the salon as a customer in need of a makeover. When Monsieur Coiffure places the Vanity Box on his head, the Doctor realises that it is the box containing the Wishing Beast, which has been feeding on psychic energy and shortening people's lives. It struggles to feed on him because of his long life and the Doctor and Mel take the damaged box back to the TARDIS.

The Doctor makes a tear in spacetime through which he throws the box into the Time Vortex, sending it along the TARDIS's recent path to the asteroid where he and Mel first encountered it in the distant past. Mel argues that the Doctor could have prevented what will happen to Maria, Eliza and Daniel Applewhite, but he denies this and takes her back to the Sailor's End. They find that the make-overs have worn off and the Doctor asks Mel what she would have wished for from the Wishing Beast; she says that she would have wished for more time to travel with him.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Colin Baker
 * Melanie Bush - Bonnie Langford
 * Nesta Trubshaw - Diana Flacks
 * Winnie / Lily - Christine Moore
 * Bessy / Barmaid - Rachel Laurence
 * Monsieur Coffure / The Wishing Beast - Toby Longworth

Crew

 * Cover Art - Simon Holub
 * Director - John Ainsworth
 * Executive Producers - Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs
 * Music - Andy Hardwick
 * Producer - Sharon Gosling
 * Script Editor - Alan Barnes
 * Sound Design - Gareth Jenkins
 * Written - Paul Magrs

Worldbuilding

 * The TARDIS materialises on Warren Street.
 * Mel refers to Ready Steady Go!, Carnaby Street and L. S. Lowry.
 * The Doctor orders a pint of blackcurrant squash with water rather than soda in The Sailor's End.
 * The Vanity Box used to be owned by Reenie Scallop, who was decapitated.
 * Nesta has chocolate bourbons.
 * While disguised as a "provincial dolly bird," the Doctor tells Monsieur Coiffure that "two Yanks helped me up the statue in Piccadilly Gardens" on VE Night on 8 May 1945.
 * The Doctor buys a milk stout for Nesta in the Sailor's End.
 * Bessy Tippington was born in 1909.

Continuity

 * The Vanity Box takes places immediately after the events of AUDIO: The Wishing Beast, from the Doctor and Mel's perspective. However, those events have not taken place from the perspective of the Wishing Beast.
 * The Doctor previously visited 1965 on three occasions during his first incarnation. (TV: The Massacre, The Daleks' Master Plan; PROSE: The Meeting) He would later do so again during his eighth (PROSE: The Space Age) and eleventh incarnations. (AUDIO: Blackout)
 * The Doctor previously disguised himself as a woman on two occasions during his second incarnation (TV: The Highlanders; AUDIO: The Glorious Revolution) and once during his third incarnation. (TV: The Green Death)
 * The Doctor returned to Salford in his ninth incarnation. (PROSE: Have You Seen This Man?)