Now's the Time

Thursday June 12, 2008

When interviewed, Doctor Who supremos Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat always say that they judge a good Doctor Who story by the reaction of children. In 1963, playgrounds were full of kids screaming “Ex-terminate!”. Ten years later, when I was a small child, the playgrounds were full of the less remembered but still absolutely terrifying Green Death, where my little gang played at escaping from giant, deadly Welsh maggots. Three years ago, when the series was revived, the sound of “Ex-terminate” echoing from a school playground as I strolled past brought a small tear to my eye. Since then, the playground has cowered to the cries of the Moffat-penned terrors “are you my mummy?”, “don’t blink” and now “hey, who turned out the lights?”.

Doctor Who

Moffat, who is about to replace Davies as head writer on Doctor Who, is writing some of the best television of recent years. I began to realise that the new Doctor Who was something quite special with the Moffat two-parter of series one The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances which introduced the “are you my mummy?” line. It also introduced Captain Jack Harkness, and the dark WWII-themed story suggested that Doctor Who could be much more than screaming metal monsters. Moffat followed this in the second series with The Girl in the Fireplace, an imaginitive story that nicely played on the woes of time travel, but the writer made his mark in series three with the BAFTA award winning Blink. The Doctor as a DVD extra, more time woes and capers and some very scary stone statues, Blink deserved all of its praise that has already made it classic tv.

Blink has given Steven Moffat a level of writerly fame, and his two-part story for series four was long-awaited. I was anxious about Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead as he’d raised the stakes so high. Luckily, I got the setting just right in order to calm my nerves. Strangely, for reasons beyond the boundaries of this post, I came to watch Silence in the Library with three children in a small … library. A perfect, eerie and uncannily – quiet – setting. Well written, brilliantly acted, odd, confusing, clever but most importantly scary, the episode had me transfixed along with my three small companions. I was even treated to a pre-playground frenzy on the Sunday morning, with cries of “hey, who turned out the lights?” and “now you be the monster!”

Forest of the Dead confirmed Moffat’s greatness for me. This was a beautiful, multi-layered episode, that has me thinking about the themes it had introduced on the next Sunday morning, where kids were still running around scaring eachother. David Tennant’s portrayal of The Doctor is really something special, and Catherine Tate, who I admit to having doubts over, is also impressive as Donna. What’s best about it is that Moffat et al are really trying hard to make this good; rather that producing a visually impressive yet simple programme, Doctor Who dares to challenge its own mythology and its own audience. And The Doctor certainly carries some mythology, the mysterious 900 year old who we’ve known since 1963 yet we don’t even know his name. Although that’s reserved for people really special…

Doctor Who. Certainly my favourite television since 2005, and possibly since The Green Death in 1973 too.

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Wake up, it's Heroes

Thursday May 29, 2008

Okay, so we were all warned about the second series of Heroes. Even Tim Kring, the series creator, famously apologised for its lack of vitality. But I was willing to cast doubt aside. The first series was so good that the second couldn’t possibly be that bad. Could it?

Hiro and Ando

And it started very promisingly – I couldn’t understand what was supposed to be the problem. There were imperfections, some of them laughable, but let’s not forget that the first series had its silly moments too. What’s made me laugh about season two is the lengths taken to strip the most powerful of our Heroes, nasty Sylar and nice Nathan, of their abilities. The point, I guess, is that these two all-powerful characters just had nowhere left to go and convoluted ways of making them vulnerable again were the only option. To recap, Sylar could absorb the super powers of other heroes by doing something horrible and slicing off the top of their heads; Peter could also absorb powers by just, well, saying hello really. In the new series Sylar, lucky to be alive after a nasty brush with Hiro’s sword, is reduced to hitching a ride with some utterly tedious new characters and pulling very nasty faces in an “okay, so I’ve no powers, but I can still look real scary” kind of way. Peter, on the other hand, has simply lost his memory and is reduced to hanging out with some very dubious and unconvincing Irish people who make me quite uncomfortable because I am waiting for them to say “The Pogues, The Pogues”, “Roddy Doyle novel” or “I know a nice pub in Cricklewood”. Peter is reduced to pulling very convincing gormless faces in an “oh, I didn’t realise I could fly or makes things explode” way. He hasn’t lost his powers, he’s simply forgotten all the clever things he can do. And got gormless.

Elsewhere, Peter’s brother Nathan has developed the ability to grow a very impressive black beard. Nichelle Nicholls, Urura in Star Trek, turns up as someone’s gran, nicely complementing George Takei, Sulu in Star Trek, as Hiro’s Dad. Matt Parkman, the mind reading one, went off to meet his own Dad. I was secretly hoping his Dad to turn out to be William Shatner, but unfortunately this wasn’t the case. Mohinda, whose own Dad was bumped off by Sylar in the last series, is still wandering round trying to make sense of it all. He’s still pally with Mr Bennet, Clare the cheerleader’s Stepdad. And so on, into infinity. But still, as yet, no more cameos from Stan Lee to complement the comics theme.

There’s some good stuff though; Hiro’s exploits in feudal Japan are very entertaining, and Nathan and Matt are embarking on a dark story arc of their own. What’s possibly wrong with this series is that it is very literate. It’s like reading a very long, rambling and slow novel. There’s nothing wrong with that – it’s a great pastime – although an odd concept for television to adopt. But I like that; Heroes is daring to be overcomplicated and strange and bold enough to risk losing some of its audience. What I don’t like is it is very, very tedious at times and I’ve even nodded off, which is something I never usually do. Unless I’m just getting old. Hopefully I’ll make it through to season three where it’s rumoured that Leonard Nimoy makes an appearance as Stan Lee. Or something like that…

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Torched Up

Saturday April 19, 2008

I was planning on a Doctor Who review this weekend, but I’m so far behind on things that I’ve only just gathered my thoughts together on Torchwood! Besides, I’m still waiting for a half decent episode of the new Doctor Who.

Okay, the second season of Torchwood then. While it was an uneven ride, there’s been some superlative moments. So even if a few episodes were below par I’m still giving it nine out of ten. I love Torchwood because the BBC have delivered something so far absent from our screens; an adult British science fiction television series. Complete with adult themes and even gay characters who don’t scream their sexuality in quite the same way as a lazily thought out last minute addition to EastEnders.

John Barrowman

Torchwood is a spin off from Doctor Who, featuring John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness, a friend of the good Doctor’s who, after receiving Dalek extermination, is miraculously revived with the ability to regenerate himself (although not quite in the same way as The Doctor – he always comes back to life as John Barrowman). After The Doctor has abandoned him (rightly thinking him dead), Harkness attempts to follow him back to modern day Cardiff. Why? Well it appears that the Doctor frequents Cardiff because there in something called the rift there, which acts as a sort of cosmic fuelling station for the TARDIS. Oh yes, and the BBC base their production there. And Russell T. Davies is Welsh. Anyway, Captain Jack messes up slightly and ends up in 1869, having to wait around for 140 odd years before he runs into The Doctor again to find out exactly what happened to him. Not to worry, he fills his idle hours chasing aliens, being killed and recruiting members of Torchwood, a sort of youthful alien-dealing taskforce. And dreaming that one day he will be absolutely everywhere on UK television, from kids quiz shows to I’d do Anything, the excrutiating Oliver! singalong talent show.

Episodes 11 and 12 are my suggestions for some of the best tv this year. Episode 12 opened with an almightly explosion; four of the five lead characters in mortal danger. Okay, three – as remember Captain Jack Harkness can’t actually be killed. No, hang on – two – as Owen is already dead. A sort of walking dead. Still keeping up? This episode was great as it served as a Torchwood origin, delving back into the past lives of the main characters as they lie semi-conscious and dreaming. We see how cocksure Owen, the bookish Toshiko and the quietly confident Ianto were all recruited (the gorgeous Gwen taking a backseat as we’ve already seen her initiation right back in episode one, series one). Most satisfying was the start of a backstory for Jack’s missing years, showing his recruitment into Torchwood 1899 style, complete with sideburns and a dashing Adam Adamant style cape. Basically, it’s just great fun.

But the series also works well because it is often thoughful and character driven. Going back to episode 11, the gorgeous Gwen becomes involved in some intrigue surrounding a missing teenager who returns – startlingly changed – after a few months away. Some subtle thoughts about loss, motherhood and lost time. I found it oddly moving for a sci-fi show, and equally disturbing, especially the blood curdling scream that people will let out – and one that lasts for 20 hours – after looking into the heart of a dark star (similar to my reaction to I’d do Anything). Moreover, the storyline proved that working for Torchwood might not be the most fulfilling career choice, which was taken one step further in the final episode with the death of two characters (although one was actually already dead, if you see what I mean).

Like its sister show (or perhaps its maiden aunt show) Doctor Who, Torchwood‘s ears are constantly burning with all the idle conjecture that goes on in internet Who chat rooms. Some of the Doctor Who rumours and supposed spoilers are insane – and reading internet forums always spoils the enjoyment of the real thing, spoilers true or otherwise. But the clue is in the name I guess. Spoiler. But it’s inevitable; when recently interviewed by Mark Lawson, Russell T. Davies was proud of the Doctor Who mythology that’s built up since the show was revived in 2005. Its increasing complexity of backstory is all part of his masterplan, and Who fans need little encouragement anyway. Want to take a look? Visit the Doctor Who Forum.

Like Doctor Who, Torchwood has begun to attract quality actors all keen to make cameo appearances, including Ruth Jones from the brilliant Gavin and Stacey, Richard Briers and James Marsters. Marsters plays Captain John, a sort of Master figure for Jack Harkness, although so far less prominent than The Doctor’s arch foe. He’s equally fiendish, charming and very, very dangerous though. The series finale, spoilt slightly for me by the forums, featured exhausting antics you’d expect from anything associated with Doctor Who, including Jack buried alive for nine hundred years or so. Oh well, anything to stop John Barrowman appearing in everything…

I welcome the third series, less a character or two, when it hopefully returns next year. Now onto David Tennant and Catherine Tate…

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The Curse of Galton and Simpson

Wednesday March 26, 2008

The BBC are currently showing a short season of dramas about much loved heroes of British comedy, with an emphasis on television stars who had a bloody hard time of it in their personal life. The first film, The Curse of Steptoe, followed the careers of Harry H.Corbett and Wilfred Brambell – stars of Steptoe and Son, arguably the best comedy series ever made which ran between 1962 and 1974. For me, Steptoe and Son took the hardest premise for a television series and ran with it. A small set, two main characters trapped in their horrible lives and constantly arguing. A life with no escape. Old man Steptoe, disgusting, decrepid, selfish but oddly compelling, and his depressed son Harold, still living at home although fast approaching middle age; a wasted life with alternatives always beyond his grasp. Similarities between the Galton and Simpson scripts have been made with Pinter and Beckett and they are worthy ones; the writing is often exceptional – the comedy always shrouded in the bleak and inevitable.

Phil Davis and Jason Isaacs in The Curse of Steptoe

In The Curse of Steptoe, Harry H.Corbett (played brilliantly by Jason Isaacs) remarks “it’s like Waiting for Godot, although Godot never bloody comes” when waiting for the perpetually late Wilfred Brambell (Phil Davis) at an early read through. Corbett, a highly regarded British stage actor in the early 1960s who was mentioned in the same breath as Albert Finney and dubbed the British Marlon Brando, is enticed by the brilliance of a Galton and Simpson one-off television play, against the better judgment of his theatrical peers, including the director Joan Greenwood. The writing team, who’d enjoyed great success with Tony Hancock, were looking to escape from the shackles of situation comedy, but all are quickly sucked into the even greater success of Steptoe and Son. The series rolls on and on, the writers falling slowly into despair as the situations are exhausted, and the actors into the grim realisation that they will never escape their celebrated creations. The stars are seen having lunch over the years in the BBC bar, their early enthusiasm turning to the frustration over wasted lives worthy of the on screen father and son. The final bar shot sees them seated in drag, showing how stretched and uninspired the situations had become.

Phil Davis was a slight disappointment as Wilfred Brambell/Albert Steptoe. Although he looked the part, he failed to fully capture the physical weakness and vocal mannerisms of the man. I’d always imagined a well turned out gent (akin to the role he played opposite The Beatles in A Hard Days Night) who scrubbed down well to play the dirty old man of Shepherds Bush. Davis seemed to fall somewhere in between. Jason Isaacs, however, was outstanding and as well as delivering a spot on impersonation of Corbett, his sometimes very odd vocal delivery, added depth to a frustrated and not wholly likeable man. Neither revelled in the lives of laughter expected from the stars of sitcom. Brambell was a boozy homosexual, haunted by his failed marriage and subsequent arrest for soliciting himself in a public toilet. Corbett, also drawn to the booze in later years, also looked back on a failed marriage and an unfulfilled career. One of the most uncomfortable scenes in Steptoe and Son is where Harold tries and fails to become an actor, feebly recreating the famous contender scene from On the Waterfront. The British Marlon Brando he would never be.

An exceptional film, The Curse of Steptoe appears to be ending happily before whipping the carpet from under your feet. Corbett, having become a father himself in a new relationship, takes Brambell quietly to one side and they agree to finally quit their roles. Brambell is seen fleetingly in a new relationship of his own with a young man. But just as it’s all looking rosy, and just when you’re thinking “didn’t they get back together again for a final tour of Australia?”, we see Corbett in the final scene, already finding it difficult to find work post-Steptoe, receive that fateful phone call… Like the bleakest of situations for Harold Steptoe, there really was no escape.

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Christmas Ghosts: The Treasure of Abbot Thomas

Friday December 21, 2007

It is a thing of darkness.

This short story by M.R.James was immortalised in 1974 by the BBC’s Ghost Story for Christmas adaptation directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark. This year the BBC are proudly showing a selection of their James adaptations, although this one is repeated with alarming regularity. But I’m grateful – The Treasure of Abbot Thomas is one of the most satisfying ghost stories I’ve ever seen.

Or read. After watching it again the other evening I was tempted to reread the original short story so I could sit down and conduct a compare and contrast exercise. Interestingly, the two are quite different, and John Bowen – who wrote the television screenplay – has reworked the story quite dramatically. Where the original ends quite comfortably, perhaps something welcome for a 1904 Christmas, the film has a particularly chilling ending to it. More suited for the 1970s, still apt for today’s audience. Very apt for my tastes – I must confess that I prefer the film more.

Michael Bryant in The Treasure of Abbot Thomas

The Treasure of Abbot Thomas (1974). Are you sure you really want to go ahead with this?

The story follows Mr Somerton, an antiquary who attempts to unpick a code that is scattered in various places by the late Abbot Thomas. Somerton unravels the mystery that leads him to the Abbot’s gold, with supernatural consequences that lead him to return it to its hiding place as soon as he possibly can. It’s a classic James warning to the curious, but with mostly harmless results.

Bowen and Clark’s film casts the excellent Michael Bryant as Somerton. One of their embellishments to the tale is to show him as a firm disbeliever of anything supernatural. All the more to prove him wrong as the story unfolds. Somerton is seen exposing a charlatan at a fake séance. He pursues Thomas’ scattered clues purely as a keen researcher (it’s an interesting puzzle to him, something of a Victorian sudoku), and seems oblivous to the sinister monks who creep around the church where he carries out his studies. But although possibly an intellectual giant, Somerton is weak of the flesh. Climbing to the church roof to pursue his leads he is overcome by vertigo and almost topples to his death. Discovering that the treasure is entombed in an underground crypt, he can only just control his trembling frame as he wades through the flooded tunnels to claim his prize.

And – and this is the heart of all James’ stories – this is where it will always go catastrophically wrong. After he has retrieved the treasure of Abbot Thomas, Somerton is reduced to a jabbering wreck, ranting about the thing of darkness that tries to break into his rooms. A spell has been cast. No choice but to put it back…

Where I think this film succeeds is in its dark ending, one that has continued to haunt me over the years – with or without repeated viewings. As the now recovering Somerton, convalescing in a country garden, is left in his bath chair to greet his doctor as he strolls towards him we notice from Bryant’s horrified face that something is very, very wrong. The figure that approaches is hooded and swift. It’s approaching to claim its victim. The curious has been warned, but there’s still no getting away with their audacity. Somerton is unforgiven. There’s one last terrifying shot of the petrified antiquary meeting his cloaked nemesis before the closing credits. We see one final glimpse of him before he is taken.

In my youth, I remember climbing the stairs to bed but leaving the lights on after I’d watched The Treasure of Abbot Thomas. The other night I did the same.

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