Brave New Words: Theatre as Magic in "The Shakespeare Code"

Abstract

BBC's cult classic TV series Doctor Who's season 3 episode 2 titled "The Shakespeare Code" draws a canonical link from William Shakespeare's plays to fantasy fiction and science fiction to the extent of making the bard borrow words and lines from J. K. Rowling and an alien species disguised as witches. Reminiscent of the French feminist theorists' discourse on écriture feminine and its infinite, fluid and constantly a-changing nature, Lilith, Mother Doomfinger and Mother Bloodtide, who are an all-female alien species called the Carrionites, assume the form of hags and create an energy convertor by using the right words (Shakespeare’s plays) and shapes (The Globe Theatre) to alter reality and open a portal for the rest of their species. They tell Peter Streete, the architect, how to design The Globe Theatre and William Shakespeare how to end his lost play Love’s Labour's Won. They use not only their cauldron but also The Globe in the fashion of Julia Kristeva's chora to cast a spell to bring annihilation. The fluidity of women's language provides a fluidity of genrefication, in that Shakespeare makes use of Rowling's writing to fight back the Carrionites' writing. Not to mention the fluidity of time and space, which allows the Carrionites, banished into Deep Darkness by the Eternals, to escape their imprisonment and almost invade the earth.