Charley Pollard

[close] Charlotte Elspeth Pollard, or simply Charley, is a fictional character played by India Fisher in a series of audio plays produced by Big Finish Productions, many of which were broadcast on BBC Radio 7, based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. A young woman from 1930 in England, she is a companion of the Eighth Doctor. The canonicity of the audio dramas, like other Doctor Who spin-off media, is open to interpretation.

Charley's final story with the Eighth Doctor was in the play The Girl Who Never Was, however this play ended with the Sixth Doctor's version of the theme tune, leading to much debating as to whether Charley would continue to travel with the Sixth Doctor. The play The Condemned confirms that Charley was indeed rescued by the Sixth Doctor and she continues to travel with this incarnation until Blue Forgotten Planet.

Charley was born on April 15, 1912, the day the Titanic sank, and first appears in the play Storm Warning (2001). Storm takes place in 1930, making her 18 years old at the time. She is born into a well-to-do family; her mother is Lady Louisa Pollard and two sisters, Margaret and Cecelia, are mentioned. Charley and her siblings grow up in a manor house in Hampshire, looked after by servants. However, Charley rebels against this existence and, styling herself an Edwardian adventuress, runs away from home seeking excitement. Making an appointment to meet a young man in Singapore on New Year's Day 1931, she stows away on board the Airship R101 disguised as a male member of the crew. There, she meets the Doctor and together they discover the secret mission the airship is on. At the conclusion of the story, she is rescued from the fated crash of the R101 by the Doctor and taken on board the TARDIS as his newest companion.

Charley's exuberant personality matched the Eighth Doctor's well. She embraced the wonders of the universe that travel with the Doctor showed her and helped the Doctor fight the evils he encountered with courage. She was not only loyal to the Doctor, but also developed romantic feelings for him and eventually confessed them. The Doctor was very fond of Charley, and admitted later that she was his friend and he loved her, but what that meant for a virtually immortal Time Lord was unclear, as the relationship between the two was not a physical one.