ABSTRACT
The Girl in the Fireplace takes the Doctor and his companions, Rose and Mickey, and to an encounter with a little girl who grows up to be an exceptionally beautiful and creative woman, an idealised version of Madame de Pompadour, a figure of legend. Whereas all Doctor Who episodes have “monsters” or “evils” of some kind as antagonists which have to be overcome, some of them also explore experiences and examples of the exceptionally good or beautiful. In a moment of high romance, the Doctor, coming like a knight riding to the rescue on a white horse, jumps through a huge wall mirror into the ballroom. In Vincent and the Doctor, the show takes its audience to see the work of the artist Van Gogh in the Musee Dorsay in Paris, and to visit him in a village near Arles over 100 years ago, a year before his death.
