Defending Doctor Who

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Rendering the modern age: Russian emigré Louis Lozowick’s iconic 1925 lithograph New York ‘Pardon me for using my imagination,’ grumbles 34-year-old Doctor Who fanatic Toby Hadoke, a man whose love of the time-travelling Tardis and its bescarfed occupants has been targeted by many a teenage bully (plus his own wife). In this perfectly paced 80-minute show, Hadoke passionately defends it to everyone else. After all, the Doctor has helped him to escape from the realities of a tricky, fatherless childhood, pull girls and become a good dad to his young son.

But for all the cosy rites of passage material, it’s actually Hadoke’s nerdy knack for retaining arcane trivia that provides the biggest, guiltiest laughs. Hadoke has watched every episode from 1963’s An Unearthly Child to those of Tennant and Tate, so fact fans can wallow in the number of seconds of set wobblage, the height you have to be to be a Cyberman (and a Dalek), and the names of ‘actors’ who donned The Horns Of Nimon. In truth, comic paeans to fandom have bred sillier and more ingenious shows than this – Will Smith’s anally retentive deliberations over Marillion, for instance, or the last Edinburgh offering from lovably desperate superhero nut Seymour Mace. But it’s hard not to be swept up by the likeable Hadoke and his sincere hymn of praise ‘to a programme I genuinely believe makes the world a better place’. Just don’t mention Star Wars

Sharon Lougher Until Sat, Sat mats 3.30pm, £15, £12.50 concs. Tel: 0844 847 1608.

Toby Hadoke: Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf
Arts Theatre
Great Newport Street, WC2H 7JB