The Ones Who Stand In The Lobby At Omelas

I write down all my interesting dreams in a notebook, and I give the best ones titles. Early this morning I dreamt one that I immediately entitled The Ones Who Stand In The Lobby At Omelas:

I'd been invited to the opening of this massive skyscraper designed by an utterly wanky architect who always put whimsical things like rubber ducks or teddy bears on the very pinnacle of his buildings. In this one, it had a massive pillar base so the 'ground floor' lobby was like 50 storeys off the ground.

I'm mingling with all the yacking hipster cunts at the reception in the lobby, when apocalyptic floods break out all across the Earth. All the others flee into the main part of the building, but I just stand there as hordes of desperate survivors come stampeding up the stairs from outside and press themselves against the impenetrable lobby doors. They're all just getting crushed to death and everyone is drowning outside.

I could open the doors, and there are lifts, which I could send down to rescue more people, or I could go down there myself.

Or I could go into the main part of the building and survive luxuriously, but I'd be shut in the building with hipster cunts for the rest of my life. And they'd taunt me for not acting in accordance with my principles.

If I let the hordes in, there wouldn't be enough food, and everyone would die anyway, including me.

So I'm just standing there in front of the interior doors, looking at all these refugees dying, and unable to decide what to do.

There isn't a punchline I'm afraid, I woke up, which was just as well as I'd still be standing there otherwise.

LotR and DW

People from the excellent BBC Radio 4 production of Lord of the Rings (1981, repeated 1987 and 2003 and available on CD) who have also been in DW:

• Peter Howell (Saruman) - The Mutants (The Investigator)
• Jack May (Théoden) - The Space Pirates (General Hermack)
• Patrick Barr (Gamling) - The Moonbase (Hobson)
• Gerard Murphy (Narrator) - Silver Nemesis (Richard)
• Stephen Thorne (Treebeard) - The Daemons (Azal), The Three Doctors (Omega), The Hand of Fear (male Eldrad)
• David Collings (Legolas) - The Robots of Death (Poul), Mawdryn Undead (Mawdryn)
• Donald Gee (Radagast) - of course Monster of Peladon (Eckersley)! and also The Space Pirates apparently
• Michael Spice (Háma) The Talons of Weng-Chiang (Weng-Chiang), The Brain of Morbius (Morbius voice)
• Philip Voss (Lord of the Nazgûl) - The Dominators (Wahed)

And honourable mention to:

• Pauline Letts (Ioreth) (Barry Letts' sister, it seems) ubiquitous in BBC radio drama for several decades
• Peter Woodthorpe (Gollum) - one or more voice parts in Radio 4's Whatever Happened To... Susan Foreman (1994)

Not Doctor Who but still genre:

• Peter Howell - also played the Professor in the Prisoner ep The General
• Jack May - in the Avengers ep The Secrets Broker, and went on to a secure berth in The Archers
• David Collings - Silver in Sapphire and Steel
• Michael Graham Cox (Boromir) - also Boromir in Ralph Bakshi's animated LotR
• Peter Woodthorpe again - also Gollum'd for RB
• Marian Diamond (Galadriel) - one of the motorcycle enthusiasts in the Avengers ep Build A Better Mousetrap

Not Doctor Who, or genre, but deserving honourable mention - the 1986 Radio 4 production of The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen:

• Peter Woodthorpe as the postillion
• John Church (Gaffer Gamgee) as King George and God

(thanks to a certain Zoner for the Philip Voss information)