How the Toymaker was modernised

Updated: Apr 23

The Toymaker for many years was a villain from one standalone Doctor Who story back in the William Hartnell era, which had never returned. Yet the idea of the Toymaker himself is compelling and mysterious enough to stay in people’s memories and leave an imprint upon Doctor Who forever, especially given the mysterious nature of the original story with it being lost. Eventually, the Toymaker would reemerge with Neil Patrick Harris playing the role in the Giggle, and I would like to look at the evolution of the Toymaker and his role within Doctor Who history.

The original story the Toymaker features in was written by Brian Hayles and came out in 1966. The authorship of the story is rather contentious, with alterations made by both Donald Tosh and Gerry Davis during a rather tricky period of Doctor Who’s history in the transition between production teams. What becomes obvious when looking at the original is that the Toymaker didn’t become legendary at all because of the quality of the story, It was the quality of the idea and the presence of Michael Gough that managed to transcend it. There is an idea and image of the Toymaker from surviving images that sticks inside your head when you first see him and learn about the Toymaker that I reckon is more influential than the story itself.

I love the idea of the Toymaker as this immortal and eternal being who simply views others as his playthings. It makes sense as a figure with endless time to pass that he would use others and the mortality and suffering of their lives for his own entertainment, which makes him a rather thrillingly sadistic figure. There is an unpredictability to the Toymaker as someone with immense power where you don’t know what his limits are, which makes him incredibly fearful and dangerous. The ability for him to turn those who lose his games into his toys and playthings creates fearful stakes, is a great concept, and turns him into a truly menacing character. There is a compelling fearlessness to him with an eternal age and an ambiguity about his origins and history that I like. He has a surreal sense of magic and power about him that makes him a captivating character.

I think it’s Michael Gough and his performance as the Toymaker that does bring him to life. There is a menacing, and treacherous quality to his performance, which works. The childish and petty nature of the Toymaker rigging his games, and the way Michael Gough plays that, brings an immaturity and sense of impatience as an immortal character that really makes sense. He wants to win at all costs and that makes him a very entertaining character to watch and a strong match for William Hartnell’s Doctor.

Yet the story of the Celestial Toymaker itself is very weak. In fact, it’s quite frankly boring. It should be a very interesting story and it sets up very dangerous stakes. However, it never really uses its creative premise or the Toymaker himself as a villain, to its full advantage. It feels like you have the bare bones and basics of a story, but there is no creative imagination and vision to expand and develop beyond the blueprint, which is a real disappointment. With a world created entirely by the Toymaker, there is a lot of potential where the story could go in any direction. You could have a story with the Doctor, Steven, and Dodo fighting for their lives and the Toymaker entertainingly throwing them into peril and manipulating everything to his advantage. The situations aren’t creative or scary enough to make the story worthwhile. The games and challenges they are thrown into are simply uninteresting, uninspired, and dull.

You spend four episodes with Steven and Dodo tediously playing the same games and the story does not progress at all, which makes it feel stagnated as the characters are stuck in the same position. It feels like they’re stuck in a loop of a never-evolving situation that restricts the story and makes it incredibly predictable. Beyond that, despite the Toymaker being the main menace, he feels like a background character and is utterly wasted. You want to see the limits of his evil and power on display, but we’re denied that. The story spends more time on his pawns and toys, which aren’t nearly as interesting and don’t challenge the characters. The performances from the pawns of the Toymaker can only serve the story so much and don’t hold much menace with their stupidity and how mindlessly irritating they are with the comical performances. The Toymaker himself does have an interesting past and history with the Doctor but the nature of that and the mystery of the power he holds, and his abilities isn’t really explored until the final episode of the story. The Toymaker clearly had potential, but the use of him and the concept at play is rather disappointing.

The Toymaker has often been a difficult villain to bring back, especially as time progresses, as he comes from one of the most racist Doctor Who stories. The use of a very alarming racial slur would have been enough to give it that reputation, but the Toymaker himself is also a bit of a racist vilification when you look at him. The term “Celestial” has historically been used as a slur for Chinese people. Given the Mandarin-style costume, it’s easy to see why the original version of the Toymaker hasn’t aged well. The Toymaker very much fits into the gross Fu Manchu stereotype and evil mastermind trope that has been sadly perpetuated across media, largely coming from the foundations of the Fu Manchu novels. The prejudice and fear of Asian culture and the idea of “yellow peril” is largely baked into this image and, as such, unfortunately, baked into the Toymaker as a creation as well. It seems to be largely unintentional, as Michael Gough does play the part as white and isn’t made up to look Chinese. He does have a very magician kind of image though and there is a history of magicians, primarily Chung Ling Soo, taking on the classically oriental image which is probably what the Toymaker was more based around. This is a kind of icky appropriation of culture that doesn’t sit well with me, regardless. The Mandarin costume and Celestial descriptor were never truly intended as defining parts of the Toymaker as a villain. However, their existence as elements, cultural biases and the sloppiness and lack of clarity of the writing allowed tropes and harmful ideas to become iconic parts of the Toymaker and for racism to be baked into the Toymaker’s creation.

The Toymaker was planned for a return and to go up against the Sixth Doctor played by Colin Baker in Season 23 for a story called the Nightmare Fair written by Graham Williams. This never materialised with the show being put on hiatus and when it returned the Season 23 we got was different from initially planned. It was adapted by John Ainsworth for Big Finish, with John Bailee playing the Toymaker. John Bailee takes on the dominant role of the Toymaker well with a childish relish to him I like, but it’s not much of an improvement on the original story and certainly isn’t a good enough story or idea to justify a return for the character.

Similar to the Celestial Toymaker, the best scenes in the Nightmare Fair are the interactions between the Doctor and the Toymaker and the intellectual relationship. With Colin Baker’s dominance and moral authority, there are some nice moments. However, the story doesn’t have much to offer; the Blackpool setting does not do much to enhance the scare factor of the story and the arcade games feel more like a poorly slapped on gimmick than a genuine attempt to update the Toymaker for a 1980s audience. It’s an overlong slog that’s poorly paced with a lot of unnecessary explanations and it does not add anything significant to the Toymaker as a threat and character with no real reason to bring him back.

However, this adaptation opened the door for David Bailee to return as the Toymaker in a Companion Chronicles story featuring Charley Pollard and written by John Dorney with Solitaire. I think this is a story that really shows the potential in the Toymaker as a character and does something incredibly interesting with him with a wonderful setup of a story. I love the idea of Charley being trapped and confined in a toyshop. There is an incredibly creepy and eerie vibe in the environment and it homes in on the best parts of the Toymaker. Through this, David Bailee succeeds with his relish and enjoyment of evil and a great childish quality. I like the cunning deviousness that David Bailee has as this clever mastermind but has a petty sense of anger under the surface as a bad loser, which is interesting. Charley’s interactions with the Toymaker are great and you have vulnerable stakes with her trying to figure things out without the Doctor. The games themselves have more of a cost and danger and a lot of rewarding twists and revelations trying to uncover the overall endpoint. I think Charley’s frustration and anger trying to get to the bottom of the mystery creates a situation with tension, and the Toymaker is a strong menace for Charley. The trouble is, though, that this version of the Toymaker still comes with the baggage of racist stereotypes that unfortunately defines them.

The Toymaker would indeed eventually return to TV during the 60th Anniversary Specials in the Giggle played by the well-known actor Neil Patrick Harris. He managed to bring a new energy to the Toymaker to reinvent him, as Russell T Davies was able to shred him of his racist origins. A 57-year gap between appearances is a very long time, but the 60th Anniversary feels like a thematically fitting time to bring back a villain from the William Hartnell era of the show. Beyond this there is a wonderful chemistry and match between David Tennant and Neil Patrick Harris as actors as the story plays on the long sense of history and rivalry between the Doctor and the Toymaker in a very familiar way which heightens and develops the stakes of the Giggle.

The story manages to redefine the Toymaker, modernise them and shred them of their unintentionally racist elements in a way which re-contextualises them. The change of the Mandarin costume and stripping them of the “Celestial” aspect was going to be an obvious necessity and need for a more sensitive 2023 audience. However, the way the Toymaker takes on characters with the 1920s Toyshop owner, the band leader and the World War 1 pilot establishes him disappearing into roles as a part of them in a way which re-contextualises his original appearance with more clarity. The story also manages to acknowledge the racist aspects of the past of the Toymaker in a very clever way. The way the Toymaker plays with accents, characters and race as a mockery frames those aspects in a way that makes him villainous as he uses race as a negative form of vengeful attack upon people. It was a helpful way to change the Toymaker to fit a modern audience and retain the most interesting aspects of them as a villain.

I think the image of the Toymaker as a 1920s Toyshop owner has a much creepier vibe and feel to it anyway and plays into much more disturbing imagery and ideas. I love the way Neil Patrick Harris personifies and brings the Toymaker as a villain to life. He is able to look at the potential of the character and remould them based on their talents and skills as an actor as a way to inject a different energy into them and create a worthy villain. For me, the Giggle is defined by the menace and presence of the Toymaker as a villain and character, and would be a much lesser story without him. The success of a Doctor Who story is often made by an entertaining and thrilling enemy, and that is certainly the case with the Giggle and the Toymaker. I really like the unsettling and sinister vibe with which Neil Patrick Harris portrays the part and the horrible evil under the surface of his performance. There is a subtlety and dangerous menace to the Toymaker that I love. There is a calculating side, a powerful side and childish and petty aspect that is consistent and tracks with the Michael Gough version of the character, and yet Neil Patrick Harris is able to inject him with his own energy.

The Toymaker enjoys playing with people’s emotions and rubbing people the wrong way, but the playful energy of a child during the Spice Girls music sequence has a vivid and chaotic vibe that feels fun whilst also being cruel and dangerously psychotic. Neil Patrick Harris can underplay things, but he has the power to dial his performance up and create something unpredictable, which is most interesting for the Toymaker as a creation. It gives the Toymaker a chaotic carelessness towards the lives of others, feeling like he has the right to play with people’s lives with such high-spirited humour and unconcern. It sells the powerful status of the Toymaker and their childishness. Their simple and narrow-minded mindset focused on the rules of the game and unconcern for the complexity of morality and values and the benefits of using their powers for good makes them a challenging villain. Their opposite sense of values and apathy means they are difficult to reason with, which creates an excellent rivalry between the Doctor and the Toymaker. The concept gives the mind of an underdeveloped child great power to play with, which is a creepy and very dangerous idea.

The plot involving Stooky Bill is something that aligns and fits with the Toymaker very well, the creepiness and horror of dolls and toys has an unnerving evil. The Giggle plays with the Toymaker’s domain in a way in which the original story never did. The spook factor and creepiness of Stooky Sue and the Stooky Babbies is far beyond any of the scares of the original story. I also think the way Banerjee has been turned into a puppet gives a humanity to the Toymaker’s victims, playing his games for their survival with a disturbing tragedy that was clearly missing from the Celestial Toymaker story. I think the lack of science fiction rules for the Toymaker as a godlike and fantasy figure creates very high stakes and a fitting villain for the Fourteenth Doctor’s final story and feels refreshing compared to what the Doctor has faced in previous years.

The Toymaker isn’t just modernised through updated attitudes though, but in the story Russell T Davies decides to tell. The story is clearly a commentary on the individualism of humanity through COVID and how susceptible people can be to the fear of conspiracy theories. It tackles the hatred of 21st Century internet culture with real insight and intelligence. The Toymaker sees everything as a game and humanity as their toys to play with. He sees current human culture and the hatred and violence of human nature as an opportunity for his personal amusement. The story tackles the Toymaker in a way to tie him into the fears of social media outrage in a relatable statement.

I think overall the Toymaker as a character and a villain has always had a lot of merit. The original Celestial Toymaker story is very uninspired, but Michael Gough gives the villain a lot of presence and the idea is a wonderful concept. It is unfortunate that the villain has come along with a lot of racist and uncomfortable ideas which have been perpetrated over the years. However, Neil Patrick Harris has managed to redefine the character, modernise and breathe new life into them in a rather extraordinary way. The Giggle explores and mines the main concepts and ideas in a way the original story never took advantage of and the years' history between the Doctor and the Toymaker is well personified. The idea and impression of the Toymaker as a villain is finally fully delivered within the show with rewarding menace. With the Daleks, the Cybermen, the Master and the Time Lords constantly returning, it feels refreshing for the Toymaker to get a second chance.