Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Christopher Eccleston, Billie Piper, Jack Ayres, Camille Coduri, Beverley Klein, Harry Myers, Dan Starkey.
The voices in our head are ones to which often guide us and steer us from trouble, they warn of the temptations, the moments that will knock us sideways, the ones that allow us to keep a clear conscious; it may be instinctive, it might be just common sense, but the voice of reason and respect is there to keep us from being foolish and a social pain.
There is though the flip side, the overpowering urge to let your foot dangle above the canyon and just fall, the what if? The why not? It lasts for a second and by the time you have given into the urge you have already been tested and found to be lacking in decorum, in sense, and whether it is because you have knocked over a stack of beans carefully curated by a person with an eye for detail, or because you just cannot keep the thought of saying the unthinkable to those you love, consider that there is a part of you that wanted to do it and damn the fallout…that you have a voice in you, destructive and selfish that says, “Dare You”.
Written by Lisa McMullin, the ninth doctor adventure with Rose Tyler, Dare You, is to be considered as one of those that allows the listener to feel a kind of special bond with those that surround themselves with the Doctor, not just a companion, but the entire human race, because it understands the self-destructive streak that runs through us all, but one that when played out as a drama is endearing, a little concerning, but all together a fun episode in the life of mad man in the blue box.
To capture something that is inside us and exaggerating the feeling, of placing the words spoken by a childish like alien is an enjoyable way to confront our own reasoning, we may never actually admit to it but the amount of times we have done something so bizarrely stupid and inconvenient to another person is driven by a single, reckless thought of chaos. In this Lisa McMullin treats the listener to what is arguably a reflection of themselves, and it is one that the cast appear to throw themselves into with energy and heart.
The unexpected though comes with how far the script will push the ever-cool Christopher Eccleston in his depiction of the ninth incarnation of the traveller from Gallifrey; the genuine smile of seeing humanity for the children they are at times, shattered by an entity, a creature of anarchy, of misunderstanding, and the way it almost drowns the logic and judgement from the Timelord.
It is in the darkness that we see just how a person of such intensity can descend into a void, into the black pits of despair, leading to the erasure of the self.
A wonderfully engaging tale that offers a sense of togetherness, of being fallible and knowing others are just as capable of being the same; Dare You to feel the voice and to defy it.
Ian D. Hall