Hello Children, Everywhere

"The Doctor and Donna could see that the rabbit was very cross indeed. Then, suddenly, he punched the man straight in the mouth, sending him crashing backwards into the immaculate shrubbery. 'You did a bad thing! You tried to steal!' The rabbit went off bouncing after the man."

Writer: Paul Magrs
Format: Short Story
Released: 1st August 2008
Printed in: Doctor Who Storybook 2009

Featuring: Tenth Doctor, Donna

Synopsis

It is 2025, South East London, and the Doctor and Donna are in a theme park based on the works of children's author Aunty Winnie. The Doctor had expressed his love of the works of Beatrix Potter to Donna and she responded to her childhood delight in the stories of Aunty Winner so he found this place for her. As they explore, the Doctor is amazed at the orderly queueing and good behaviour. That is, until a father sneaks a child onto a ride without paying and a giant rabbit punches him in the mouth. The Doctor steps in to help but the rabbit turns on him.

In the fairytale palace at the heart of the park, the manager, Roger, bemoans the latest disaster. He is further dismayed to find that the giant bunny was immobilised by a visitor with a sonic device. He demands that Donna and the Doctor be brought to him...

Verdict

Well, Hello Children, Everywhere was certainly an interesting read, but not in a good way. My first short story and to be honest, it was pretty awful. The plot was just a shambles right the way through. I didn't like the basis and the illustrations provided showed you just how silly this story was. It was almost like a violent nursery book, that's how bad it was. It never got going and as you can tell from my opening quote, it was somewhat strange. You had rabbits beating people up, teddy bears hurtling people through the air and pixies going around slapping people. Aunty Winnie was a 160 year old women made up of a few brain cells, a foot and a hand which was just ridiculous. And the fact that she had caused all the chaos in her own theme park so she could be left to die was poor. Roger was a clingy character, pretty useless and extremely selfish. He was keeping his aunty alive so he wouldn't be lonely. The idea behind Borace Gamnetyaac was a great one, bringing imagination to life as was done with the creation of the theme park. But the utilisation in the form of jelly wasn't good at all. The banter between the Doctor and Donna was excellent though and extremely typical of what we saw from the pair during Series 4. Brilliant humour as always, but sadly that was the only real positive from this very poor story! It was far too silly.

Rating: 3/10