Iris Wildthyme

Iris Wildthyme was a renegade Time Lady who encountered the Doctor on a number of occasions.

Origins
Iris' origins were unknown but Iris claimed that she was a Time Lady and grew up on Gallifrey in the House of Aunts. (EDA: The Scarlet Empress)

Iris later told of her true origins as a member of a race known as the Clockworks which originated in the Obverse. The Clockworks kept the multiverse structured and orderly. Iris found this way of life dull, so she rebelled and stole the bus. (EDA: The Blue Angel, BFIW: The Land of Wonder).

Adventures in the multiverse
Iris once proposed to the Doctor in Venice, when she appeared to be a woman in her 60s with long white hair that reached to the ground. (EDA: The Scarlet Empress)

Iris was part of the Sisterhood of Karn for a couple of years and was one of those present crying 'Death!' when the Fourth Doctor paid Karn a visit. (PDA: Verdigris)

Under the alias Brenda Soobie, Iris visited 1960s Las Vegas where she met the Eighth Doctor, along with his companions Fitz Kreiner and Anji Kapoor. It was also here where she met Noel Coward for the first time. (EDA: Mad Dogs and Englishmen)

Iris, with her companion Tom, visited Earth and aided the Third Doctor in defeating Verdigris. (PDA: Verdigris) In the same incarnation, Iris also met the Eighth Doctor and Samantha Jones. Iris ate a Kaled mutant during this period and regenerated. (EDA: The Scarlet Empress)

Iris' next incarnation met the Eighth Doctor in Paris, 1934 and also in the Obverse. (ST: Femme Fatale, EDA: The Blue Angel)

In her sixth incarnation, Iris had an adventure with the Doctor's fifth incarnation on Artaris. (BFA: Excelis Dawns) Iris travelled to Artaris again where she met Bernice Summerfield. (BFBS: The Plague Herds of Excelis) After this adventure, Iris dropped the drunken Bernice on a starship to take her home. (BFBS: The Dance of the Dead) She decided to take a drink in Bianca's Bar where she met the Sixth Doctor and faced Bianca, Iris' evil future self, who attempted to steal her remaining regenerations. (BFA: The Wormery)

Iris travelled back to Earth where she met her old companion Tom and his friend Panda, both of whom joined Iris in her travels. (BFIW: Wildthyme at Large)

After Iris lost Panda when he jumped into a rift to save the multiverse (BFIW: The Panda Invasion), she spent many years searching for him and eventually turned to Santa Claus for help. Iris and Santa found that Santa's ex-wife, Mary Christmas had kidnapped Panda. Iris used Clockwork technology to regress Mary's mind to a time when she and Santa were happy together. She then left with Panda for new adventures. (BFIW: The Claws of Santa)

After dropping Panda off somewhere to complete a mission for her, Iris met Jo Jones while on Earth in 2010 and took her to meet the Third Doctor. After this, Jo and Iris began to travel together. (CC: Find and Replace)

The first seven incarnations of Iris faced Morbius in the Death Zone, facing aliens such as the Quarks and the Zarbi. (BFA: Excelis Dawns, EDA: The Scarlet Empress)

Other information

 * Many of the experiences Iris claims as hers are very similar to the Doctor's own. In some cases she vividly remembers the First Doctor's first trip to Skaro as being part of her own past rather than his. Among the explanations she has offered for this are the possibility that she is an alternate universe's equivalent of the Doctor or that she is a creation of Faction Paradox. In truth, Iris has a metafictional awareness of the fact that she is a parody of the Doctor, and is consequently madly in love with him. (DWM: DWM 289)


 * Shortly after the departure of Jo Grant, the Doctor suggested that he and Iris should travel together in his TARDIS, and she proposed. He quickly withdrew the suggestion. (PDA: Verdigris)


 * In an interview, Panda told Unreality SF that “She certainly used to mumble on when in her cups about the ‘crisp clear mornings in the mountains of Gallifrey’ but recently I think we've got closer to the truth with the Obverse and the Clockworks and all that." Given this information, it is safe to assume that she survived the Last Great Time War, if she was ever involved in it at all.

Iris's incarnations

 * The Edith Sitwell Iris - Iris' first incarnation.
 * The Shirley Bassey Iris - Known in this incarnation as Brenda Soobie while in 1960's Las Vegas, she met the Eighth Doctor, along with his companions Fitz Kreiner and Anji Kapoor. It was also here she met Noel Coward for the first time. (EDA: Mad Dogs and Englishmen)
 * The Beryl Reid Iris - Encountered the Eighth Doctor and Sam Jones on Hyspero (EDA: The Scarlet Empress), as well as the Third Doctor on Earth (PDA: Verdigris)
 * The Barbarella Iris - Iris regenerated into this incarnation after eating a Kaled mutant. She later encountered the Eighth Doctor in the Obverse. (EDA: The Blue Angel)
 * The Fifth Iris - This incarnation is not mentioned in any media and can only be distinguished because it is explicitly stated that the Barbarella Iris is her fourth incarnation and that the Katy Manning Iris is the sixth.
 * The Katy Manning Iris - Iris' sixth and current incarnation. She left a handbag, which later became a mythical treasure, on the planet of Artemis and became a nun for a while before encountering the Fifth Doctor (BFA: Excelis Dawns). She encountered the Doctor again in his sixth incarnation at Bianca's Bar (BFA: The Wormery). Since then, she has been travelling the universe with her friend, Panda. By the time of this incarnation, she was at least 900 years old. (BFIW: The Two Irises)
 * Uspecified Future Incarnation(s?) - At least one of Iris's future Incarnations were part of a group consisting of Seven of Iris' selves sent to the Death Zone in a plot by Morbius to gain Rassilon's gift of immortality. (EDA: The Scarlet Empress)

Others

 * The Dan Hogarth Iris - Iris' fake seventh and male incarnation. He isn't actually a future incarnation of Iris Wildthyme, merely a projection generated by Iris Wildthyme's TARDIS. (BFIW: The Two Irises)
 * Bianca - Bianca acted as Iris' equivalent of the Valeyard and owned a club created from her own TARDIS. (BFA: The Wormery)

Iris's TARDIS

 * See separate article.

Iris's companions

 * Captain Turner, who left Iris after only one trip to marry a sort of weretiger. (ST: Old Flames)
 * Timmy, Iris referred to him as her "glamorous assistant". (EDA: The Scarlet Empress)
 * Iris mentioned Gary as another of her previous companions. (EDA: The Scarlet Empress)
 * Jeremy, who helped her end the Dalek invasion of Earth. (EDA: The Scarlet Empress)
 * Iris refers to one of her former companions as "an obtuse shape-shifter who loved nothing better than to spend much of his time as a lippy and garrulous penguin" (who most likely is Frobisher). (EDA: The Scarlet Empress)
 * Flossie and Fritter joined Iris following the adventure with the Doctor and Noel Coward. (EDA: Mad Dogs and Englishmen)

Jenny
Traffic warden, (suggested she's a lesbian), used to get diarrhea whenever they went through the vortex.

Martha
Is a poodle from Dog World. (EDA: Mad Dogs and Englishmen)

Tom
Tom (is also gay) and his talking panda travelled with Iris for some time, before he returned to Earth, Iris came looking for Tom once more. (BFIW: Wildthyme at Large)

Panda
He looks like a stuffed panda, likes more than a drop of alcohol (any really) and was a freelance journalist in 1972. He continued to travel with Iris even after Tom departed. (BFIW: The Land of Wonder)

Behind the scenes

 * Iris Wildthyme can be described as a meta-fictional character, able to comment on the world she is in, and on the Doctor's own adventures from a point of view removed from the normal narrative structures. Iris first appeared in novels by Paul Magrs outside of the Doctor Who Universe, making her a crossover character. The "old woman" Iris Wildthyme appears like actor Beryl Reid (who has guest-starred on Doctor Who). On audio, Katy Manning supplies the voice for the character; her image is usually also used to depict the character, as on the cover of Iris Wildthyme and the Celestial Omnibus.
 * Along with Bernice Summerfield, Wildthyme is one of the more prolific Doctor Who universe characters to, as of date, never appear on screen.
 * The Edith Sitwell Iris - Iris' first incarnation, has been designated "off limits" by Obverse Books.