The Present Tense

"Below my window in Ross, when I’m working in Ross, for 

example, there at this season, the blossom is out in full now 

– it’s a plum tree, it looks like apple blossom but it’s white – 

and looking at it, instead of saying ‘Oh, that’s nice blossom!’ 

last week looking at it through the window when I’m writing, 

I see it is the whitest, frothiest, blossomest blossom 

that ever could be, and I can see it. 

Things are both more trivial than they ever were, and more 

important than they ever were, and the difference between 

the trivial and the important doesn’t seem to matter."

Dennis Potter discusses his thoughts on mortality, living in the present...

A short extract from the Melvyn Bragg interview with playwright Dennis Potter recorded on 15th March 1994. 

Potter died on the 7th June that same year.

[Meeting House]

(Ashildr is laid out on furs on a bier as The Doctor 

tosses small components out of the Mire helmet.)

EINARR: What's he doing?

CLARA: Saving her, I think.

(Whirr of sonics, then the Doctor holds 

out a small SIM-type device.)

Dr. Disco : 

It's from the Mire helmet. Battlefield medical kit. 

I've reprogrammed it for human beings.

(He places it on Ashildr's forehead 

and it gets absorbed into her.)

EINARR: 

It's gone. It's inside her.

Dr. Disco : 

It's repairing her. It will never stop repairing her, if it works. 

Come on, Ashildr. Come on. The story's not over yet.

EINARR: (weeping and stroking her hair) Daughter, listen to me. This town has lost so much. If we lose you too there'll be nothing left.

(Nothing for a long pause, then Ashildr gasps and opens her eyes briefly.)

EINARR: Ashildr!

Dr. Disco : She'll be conscious in a day, up and about in three. No swimming for a week. Now, we're going to need a longboat and some of your best rowers. We're two days' sail from the Tardis.

Come on, Clara.

EINARR: Wait, no. She'll want to see you when she wakes.

Dr. Disco : Oh, no. Well, she'll, she'll see me often enough once she understands.

EINARR: Understands what?

Dr. Disco : Second dose.

(He throws another SIM card to Einarr.)

EINARR: Will she need to take this?

Dr. Disco : No, no, no, it's not for her.

CLARA: Then who's it for?

Dr. Disco : Er, whoever she wants.

ASHILDR: (sotto) Doctor, thank you.

Dr. Disco : Oh, don't thank me yet, Ashildr. Not yet.

(The Doctor and Clara leave.)

[Forest]

(Walking towards the Tardis.)

CLARA: Okay, it's official. Silence is even worse 

in a Scottish accent. Are you going to tell me 

what you're brooding about?

Dr. Disco : 

It won't stop, the repair kit I put inside Ashildr, 

not ever. It'll just keep fixing her

.

CLARA: Well, good.

Dr. Disco : 

I'm not sure, but it's entirely possible 

she has lost the ability to die.

CLARA: The ability?

Dr. Disco : 

Oh, Dying is an ability, believe me. 

Barring accidents, she may now be functionally immortal.

(He unlocks the Tardis.)

CLARA: 

If the repair kit never stops working, 

then why did you give her two?

Dr. Disco : 

Immortality isn't Living Forever. 

That's not what it feels like. 

Immortality is everybody else dying. 

She might meet someone 

she can't bear to lose. 

That happens, I believe.

[Tardis]

Dr. Disco : I was angry. I was emotional. Just possibly, I have made a terrible mistake. Maybe even a tidal wave.

(The Tardis dematerialises.)

Dr. Disco : 

Time will tell, it always does.

CLARA: 

Whatever you did for Ashildr, 

I think she deserved it.

Dr. Disco : 

Yes. Yes, she did. But Ashildr isn't just Human any more. There's a little piece of alien inside her, so in a way, she's --

In a way, she's A Hybrid.

(After that allusion to the concept introduced in The Witch's Familiar, we are treated to a representation of Ashildr standing against the passing of more time than a normal human would experience without ageing. Days, seasons, years. She stops smiling and becomes stern.)