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Moths Ate My Dr Who Scarf
 Written and performed by Toby Hadoke. Directed by Mark Attwood.
Extensive UK tour 2008 including West End season. Available for touring in 2009.
Following two sold-out Edinburgh festival seasons, a national tour and a two-part BBC Radio adaptation, this delightful comedy by Toby Hadoke is once again touring the UK.
Get out from behind that sofa and get aboard award winning comedian Toby Hadoke's TARDIS on a trip through time, charting the rise, fall and subsequent rise of a television legend. A swift, personal, satirical and razor sharp comic odyssey from child to man, through obsession, joy and disappointment.
A must see show for anyone who's ever had a passion for anything. Intimate knowledge of Doctor Who not required, though a disdain for The Daily Mail, George Galloway, The BNP, football hooligans and Hollyoaks would be useful.
British Theatre Guide *****
I was truly surprised at how much this show affected me. I went in expecting something jovial and lighthearted, much of which I probably wouldn't get - only having found my way to the Whoverse with the premiere of Russell T Davies' new series.
Instead, I found myself profoundly moved by Hadoke's tale of being a childhood geek obsessed with an imaginary universe which seemed to hold the answers to all life's problems. This expertly-constructed show begins when Hadoke's father leaves his family and follows through to Hadoke's own experience of bonding with his son over the new series of Who.
It is a warm, gentle, and utterly hysterical look into the life of someone for whom sci-fi has truly made the world a better place, and Hadoke does an expert job in spreading a bit of the doctor's positivity and joy to his audience. Along the way, he also gives neophytes a basic primer in the workings of the dedicated Dr Who fan.
Chortle ****
Geek pride continues to sweep comedy, and its latest recruit is Toby Hadoke, who has chosen to use his first Edinburgh show to come clean about his guilty obsession: Doctor Who.
Hadoke has run XS Malarkey, probably the best-loved comedy club in Manchester, for a decade. But it's taken the recent resurgence of the series for him to be able to step out of his Tardis-shaped closet and finally admit his unhealthy yearnings.
Despite the longevity of the series and its familiar iconography, it's surprising that the show hasn't featured as much of a stand-up reference before, especially compared to the ubiquity of Star Wars. Perhaps its low budgets mean it has, until now, been considered too low-rent to bother about.
Hadoke would have no truck with that. To him Star Wars is all brash spectacle, expensive but soulless, while Doctor Who is an inventive, intelligent, educational show pushing a tolerant, liberal agenda. Oh yes, he sees the subtext, is eloquent about expressing his opinions and especially forthright when it comes to defending his beloved show against his detractors. Just don't get him started on the notorious reputation for wobbly sets.
It's these passionate emotions that make the show, not Hadoke's infallible knowledge of every bit-part actor in every episode ever made. He can conjure up indignant rage with the best of them, getting swept away with his arguments of why this cheap British sci-fi is an inspiring analogy for life.
Appropriately enough, there's a lot more inside Hadoke's show than appears on the outside. It's not just one 32-year-old man's fixation on something he really ought to have grown out of. Instead he uses the programme to draw analogies with his own life, from unrequited teenage passion to bonding with his own son his life unfolds with every regeneration of the Doctor.
There are weaknesses in some of the material. Some bits, especially towards the start, sound too much like contrived stand-up that sit uneasily with the genuine feelings expressed in the rest of the show; some of his assertions don't bear up to much scrutiny; and he is occasionally content with cliché, whether it be the BBC's 'gravel pits off the M25' location work or the dismissive description of football as '22 muscular, sweaty man running around'.
But these are easily forgiven, as Hadoke's a charming, self-aware guide with a witty touch. And crucially, this is an object lesson in how to structure a show, using the nerdish obsession to explore the man within, subtly spinning threads of ideas though the show that culminate in a neat, touching pay-off. It makes for one of the most entertaining hours this side of Gallifrey.
The List
Toby Hadoke is a self-confessed Timelord anorak. He can name every single actor that ever graced the series, and even knitted his own endless Tom Baker scarf as a teenager. At one point his fanaticism led his mother to worry that he might start drawing very detailed sketches of buildings. Hadoke goes beyond his 30-year obsession to reveal how the escapism of this very British sci-fi helped him through his troubled adolescence in a wittily nostalgic journey.
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