Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Jodie Whittaker, Bradley Walsh, Tosin Cole, Mandip Gill, Eleanor Wallwork, Kevin Eldon, Christian Rubeck, Lisa Stokke, Sharon D. Clarke.
Myths and legends are constantly interwoven with the fabric of life, it is in the race memory of us all which sees nursery rhymes as a constant source of bonding between parent and child, stories which captivate the memory with stringer force than anything we might read as adults. It is the fear of something other than perceived reality, of the existence of trolls and dark forests, of monsters and brave souls which we seek assurance from; it is the trepidation and the resolution of such stories which pave the way for all other stories to exist and take shape, the concern of what lies beyond the mirror’s reflection.
The more we desecrate the world, cut down forests, see the woods as nothing more than taking up space in a concrete world, the less chance there is for those myths to survive, we find ourselves at a crossroads in which the power of the legend is threatened, the understanding that the darkness and mystery have a reason to be, to remind us that whatever lurks in those trees, It Takes You Away to a place which is beyond our sight.
When the writers of Doctor Who concentrate on this aspect of story-telling, they do it well, in a similar vein to the previous episode of The Witchfinders, It Takes You Away deals with a subject in which we have collectively forgotten what it means to fear the unknown, so concerned in our ways of material gain we have become somewhat immune, distant, to the thought of what lays under the bed at night, what dwells in the forest and what secrets our hearts search for when we lose that person who means the world to us, what realities we would destroy to bring them back.
If The Witchfinders was the moment in which Jodie Whittaker came of age as The Doctor, then the lead up to this particular episode has been about how extraordinary Bradley Walsh has been as the grieving widower Graham, in this episode all those moments lost to him have taken on greater meaning and with one conversation, one powerful slice of time, Graham could be seen as being one of the great male companions of all time for the show. A position that has rarely been explored due to the very nature of the previous incarnations of the Doctor being masculine, there is after all little reason to have many men within the boundaries of the show.
It Takes You Away, life, death, love, all have their power to make us leave, but none so much as the myths and legends that bind us as a species, it is in the end stories that make us travel further that we could ever believe.
Ian D. Hall