Disturbing The Dust

Lungbarrow’s attic is like a fairy tale forest. The giant furniture recalls when we are little and can only just see over the top of the table at what Mum is doing for tea. I once saw an opera production in which a character regressed to childhood, dreaming she was ascending to Heaven. In answer to this, a white staircase at the side of the stage was suddenly replaced by a giant version of the same staircase. The character became a child again, climbing this mountainous slope one big step at a time. It was an unforgettable and radiant image. Lungbarrow’s not so radiant, but you get the idea...

In the original version, it was Ace who went through the looking glass into the House’s past. As a visual reference, I copied the Tenniel illustration of Alice climbing over the mantle into the glass and substituted our Perivale heroine with her Ace jacket on.

When I worked at Woodlands at BBC White City, our open-plan office was right next to the reference library. One lunchtime I found an old copy of Spotlight from the 1930s with a portrait of a young and dapper comedy actor called Billy Hartnell. I’d suggested we use it as a basis for a framed picture which the Doctor would uncover and hurriedly hide again in fright.

The garden itself is another Gallifreyan timepiece with the statue of Rassilon as its centre.

The Drudges are the ultimate evolved form of Lungbarrow’s furniture. Living wooden servants who tend to the day-to-day needs of the House. We had debates in the tv production office as to whether they should be male or female. Ben suggested (it’s always Ben) that they should be one of each, but you’d never be quite sure which was which. At this point, Ace had dubbed them Grim and Grimmer. I’d always seen them as fearsome wooden Victorian governesses, but Daryl Joyce’s illustrations show them as quite beautiful objects. Which is, of course, quite correct. Why should furniture be ugly?