Freakshow (audio story)

Freakshow was an audio drama in Big Finish Productions' The Companion Chronicles series. It was initially a digital download exclusively offered to readers of DWM 419, but was later released as part of the The Companion Chronicles: The Specials box set. It starred Mark Strickson as Vislor Turlough.

Publisher's summary
The TARDIS arrives in Arizona 1905, where travelling showman Thaddeus P. Winklemeyer is offering the residents of Buzzard Creek the elixir of life. Winklemeyer also owns a unique carnival, which is full of caged alien creatures. And in Turlough he has found a brand new exhibit...

Part one
''Turlough starts recording himself with an evidence pod handed to him by the Doctor, who walked into his bedroom without knocking and seems to have been testing him since his pact with the Black Guardian was revealed. He begins his testimony.''

The Doctor agrees to take Turlough back to Trion via a zig-zag route intended to throw off the Black Guardian and any of his agents. The TARDIS materialises in 1905 Arizona as a brief stop, but Turlough insists on going outside, angry at the Doctor and Tegan for not trusting him, and walks to Buzzard Creek where he claims to have been robbed and is given Jed Harper's hospitality. Thaddeus P. Winklemeyer arrives in town with his Menagerie of Medical Marvels: Aqua Boy, the Mimic, the Wild Man of Borneo, the Porcupine, the Butterfly and two serpents that Turlough recognises as Sythaks from Palliox.

Winklemeyer claims that the "freaks of nature", whom Turlough deduces are all aliens, will all be restored by his Elixir of Life and feeds it to them, making them all take on human forms. Turlough detects low-level mind control, however, and is able to see that the supposed transformation is just a disguise. In the night, he leaves Jed and his wife's home to make amends with the Doctor and sees the Porcupine inexplicably turn to ash, after which Winklemeyer, who sensed his mind break through his ruse, tells him that he will join his show. A Sythak captures him and locks him in a cage with the Wild Man.

Part two
to be added

Cast

 * Turlough - Mark Strickson
 * Thaddeus P. Winklemeyer / Berman Labazeen - Toby Longworth

Continuity

 * Turlough is working through the personal troubles raised by working for the Black Guardian. (TV: Enlightenment)
 * Turlough comments that Tegan once referred to him as "unreliable" and stated that turning arguments around was something which he was very good at. (TV: Terminus)
 * Turlough refers to Terminus (TV: Terminus) and the Eternal ships. (TV: Enlightenment)
 * The First Doctor, Steven Taylor and Dodo Chaplet previously visited Tombstone in the Arizona Territory in October 1881, where they witnessed the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. (TV: The Gunfighters)
 * The Doctor laments the destruction of his sonic screwdriver by the Terileptil leader in September 1666. (TV: The Visitation)
 * The alien creatures in Thaddeus P. Winklemeyer's freakshow are forced to perform in the same manner as Captain Kybo in Jonathan Jaggers' circus in 1884 (AUDIO: Judoon in Chains) and the Eighth Doctor's Eutermesan companion C'rizz in Jacob Crackles' freakshow in 1851. (AUDIO: Other Lives)

Releases

 * Freakshow was available to readers of Doctor Who Magazine who went to the Big Finish website and entered a code to be found within the magazine. The digital download offer was only available from 3 March to 26 May 2010.
 * Big Finish subsequently reissued the story as part of The Companion Chronicles: The Specials, which was released in August 2011.