Only in Doctor Who could a story like “Lost and Found” exist. To begin with it is utterly bonkers and completely off the wall, it is also a very sweet tale of a child searching for a lost toy Bear…
Narrated by Anneke Wills (Polly Wright) she tells the tale of when she Ben and the Second Doctor arrived in 1948 London, a post war wasteland trying to rebuild, buoyed by the British Spirit of Keep Calm & Carry On, Polly reminisces about the time her mother brought her on a day trip to Henrick’s department store and she lost her toy bear. The Doctor on the other hand has become rather obsessed with a tin of baked beans that he has found in the bomb site. In no other show could you have a race of sentient baked beans, no other show would be brave enough to try it, no other show would even consider it – but in the context of Lost and Found, and especially the Second Doctor, it works perfectly, because the Doctor believes in them, no season 17 style lampoon, no Moffat era post modernism, just a truth and realism to a bizarre situation.
In Henricks’ department store the two plot strands come together beautifully as The Doctor tries to aid the Baked Beans, Ben & Polly go looking for Polly’s long lost bear. Anneke Wills is truly heartbreaking as Polly – what could have become a story about the perils of crossing ones own time stream is told as a story about acceptance of loss and giving it context to a child -its sweet and it is rather beautiful.
Another great release in the Short Trips range and further proof that not all stories in the much lauded “infinitely variable format” have been told yet. Bear with me old beans while I give this 9/10.
Written by Ed Watkinson
Synopsis
Doctor Who: Short Trips Monthly is a series of new short stories read by an original cast member.
The post-war London of 1948 is rebuilding, the people are recovering, and Ben and Polly have arrived with an old friend with a new face. But they’re not the only visitors. A very different kind of war is being fought, in a department store, and they are in the middle of it…
Producer Ian Atkins
Script Editor Ian Atkins
Executive Producers Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs
Written By: Penelope Faith
Directed By: Lisa Bowerman
Cast
Anneke Wills (Narrator)