Ever fancied being able to dress up all of your favourite Doctors in each other’s clothes, while getting an education about where each outfit comes from and finding out the best ways to cosplay all at the same time? Here’s your chance!
Doctor Who Paper Dolls marries up some really rather nice illustrations by Radio Times artist Ben Morris with trivia about each outfit, with each page consisting of a Doctor model, a couple of outfits, and a couple of different hats or heads to swap over. Each picture is labelled with a few words of varying degrees of success and/or interest. We learn that Sylvester McCoy’s duffle coat was originally only meant to be worn to keep him warm, but he liked it so much that it became part of his everyday costume. We also learn that Peter Capaldi’s sonic sunglasses are “wearable technology that doesn’t spoil the line of a jacket”. Whether or not these titbits are of any use to anyone is totally up for discussion, but at least their inclusion adds a little something to the book as a whole.
Each page is one-sided, so you can cut everything out without worrying about what you’re ruining on the back of the page. Thinking about it, weren’t these things perforated back in the day, so you could just pop each model out by pressing around the edges instead of needing to muck about with scissors? But then again, that’s Doctor Who for you. Plenty of pleasure, but there’s often a hint of frustration in there somewhere. On the subject of practical tips, we might suggest having some sturdy cardboard on hand to reinforce the models with, as the not-quite-thick-enough card that the book is printed on doesn’t quite feel as if it would be able to take too much use before things might start dropping off…
In all honesty, we’re not too sure if paper dolls have really been a “thing” for the last couple of decades (or possibly even longer than that), but we’re fairly certain that a lot of people will have fond memories of many happy hours spent on pastimes like this back in those bleak and dark days before the internet existed. The combination of a well-loved TV show with a fondly-remembered pastime does mean that Doctor Who Paper Dolls provides a nice double dose of nostalgia for older readers, but it’s hard to imagine that younger readers would really be too fussed about the inclusion of the older Doctors. We can certainly see many of todays Who fans being a tad disappointed by the lack of villains. It would be a nice accompaniment to a lazy day of DVD watching and lounging around on the sofa though, especially if you’re one of the old school with youngsters in the family who are into new Who, so we’d still definitely recommend picking up a copy for your rainy day shelf.
DOCTOR WHO PAPER DOLLS / AUTHOR: SIMON GUERRIER, CHRISTEL DEE, BEN MORRIS / PUBLISHER: BBC BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 6TH
