Monday 28th December 2015

Enjoying the ongoing adaptation of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. What with that, Doctor Who, Meet The Midwife and a Victorian-era Sherlock later this week, it really seems that the BBC have reached Peak BBC this Christmas. Appropriately enough, And Then There Were None is Agatha achieving Peak Christie, with a bunch of disparate strangers trapped together in an old dark house (which, in turn, is located on a remote island). Soon, people start getting murdered, and it’s only a matter of time (and, literally, a process of elimination) before the murderer is revealed, by which time it’s far too late anyway. It’s a device that I used myself for Four Play, although I had to rely on somewhat more contrived reasons to keep everyone in the same house.

Sarah Phelps has done a spectacular job of adapting the story, smartly keeping everything drenched in the Christie mythos, while allowing the characters to break free into relative realism as much as possible. So, while everyone speaks with a stiff, buttoned up manner in polite company (at least, before people start getting bumped off), as soon as the genders are divided – the men wandering off for cigars and war stories – their language becomes a lot more loose and louche. Not only does it add to the realism, but once you understand that each character is themselves presenting a character, it immediately makes everyone more suspect.

I first read And Then There Were None about ten years ago, and haven’t returned to it since. That means that while I remember the central clever rug pull that Christie delivers at the end and could essentially spoil the ending if I wanted to, I can’t recall a certain fine detail that’s fairly important, so I’m going into episode three fairly blind, enjoying the ride as things (and bodies) fall into place. What I do remember is that there are two different versions of the story. At least, I think there are, I’m deliberately not checking the facts on Wikipedia so that I can retain my slight levels of plot blindness for as long as possible. But my recollection is that there is one ending for the novel, which is smart, fiendish, and a stage version, which – well, isn’t. If memory serves, the play is also by Christie, but cheats and fumbles the ending. It’s an understandable and even forgivable fudge – the writer of a novel has a lot more freedom: the author can dictate their voice over proceedings, and alert your attention in particular places. A playwright is (generally) limited to what characters are saying out loud. That’s not always true for every play, but it certainly tends to be the case in a genre that by its very nature is propelled by exposition (‘you may be wondering why I have gathered you all here’).

So on screen, it would appear that the stage (but clumsy) version would be the way to go. But Phelps’ version so far has been so witty and smart, I have every faith that she’ll stand on the shoulders of the original novel, and deliver the ending that is clever, breathtaking – and frankly, bloody cheeky.  

What's in store for Doctor Who spin off Class?

Here's the text of a piece I wrote for Cultbox (complete with my embarrassing Shoreditch is near London error): http://www.cultbox.co.uk/features/opinion/doctor-who-spin-off-speculation-returning-to-coal-hill-school-in-class

Class has been announced as the latest spin-off series from Doctor Who, centred on the kids of Coal Hill School fighting aliens.
Sort of like The Sarah Jane Adventures without the comforting presence of Sarah Jane Smith. Within the BBC, as a product, such a show makes complete sense – a new genre show for young adults that will have a built in audience for the first episode, from trusted hand Patrick Ness.
Within the narrative of the Whoniverse, however, more justification may be required to explain why this secondary school is a magnet for monsters – and Joss Whedon has already got the copyright on any Hellmouths in the district.
Let’s take a look at why this little school in Shoreditch has suddenly become so important…

The Shoreditch Incident

Coal Hill School and its environs have always been important to the mythology of Doctor Who, and now, with Class, even more so.
The programme essentially started there, of course, with teachers Ian and Barbara worried about their brilliant young pupil Susan. The school was a major stronghold in the battle against Davros and the Imperial Faction in ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’.
This new show very likely won’t (and shouldn’t) be doing too much looking backward over the past fifty years of Doctor Who, but since Coal Hill is now the one single location on Earth aside from a UNIT base in the 1970s 1980s classic series that we have now returned to most often, it gains a certain totemic allure.
Basically, what’s so special about Coal Hill? It isn’t (as far as we know) built on a time rift. It doesn’t have a sparky journalist and her alien super computer living in it. Why – narratively – are we returning there?
One clue is to ask another question: why were we there in the first place? The usual line is that back in 1963, The Doctor was busy making repairs to his spaceship. Common wisdom holds that he was attempting to fix the chameleon circuit, but that’s demonstrably untrue: as soon the TARDIS lands on prehistoric Earth, The Doctor (William Hartnell) voices a surprised reaction that it’s still a police box.
Even more pointed is Ian’s take when first seeing it: it clearly looks out of place in a junkyard – if it’s meant to fit in anywhere, it should be on a street corner down the road. This suggests the amusing image of The Doctor and Susan lugging a heavy Police Box down the King’s Road in the early sixties.
Later episodes suggest that Hartnell’s Doctor was busy looking after a insanely powerful Time Lord device (The Hand Of Omega), but still the question remains: why Shoreditch? Why Coal Hill School? What’s so important about this part of London? And will we ever go back in time to the original hill of coal?

Good Place To Put Things, Cellars

While it’s a fair bet that Class will largely ignore Doctor Who (aside from a few cameos at some point, we’d expect), it may be that there are clues in the parent programme that justify its existence (it’s actually more likely that Class won’t need to justify its existence, but then we wouldn’t have an article to read here, so shush).
There may even be some DNA in an even earlier programme. In Quatermass and the Pit, a brilliant scientist is called in to investigate ghostly goings on in a disused underground rail station – Hobbs End – and deduces that there are no ghosts around, but instead that there are aliens buried deep underground. Hobbs End is located in Wembley, which is just down the road from … Shoreditch.

Hand The Class Over To Her

It is very likely that the older students try to scare the new kids with Coal Hill’s very own ghost story – the tale of a brilliant, weird girl who suddenly disappeared without trace one November evening and never returned.
Rumour has it that if you say ‘Susan Foreman’ to the mirror three times, she will appear and chase you (it’s okay though, if you run fast enough, she’ll simply trip over a tree branch).
It’s telling that The Doctor has never told companion Clara Oswald about his own links with the school, and it’s also odd that Clara, with access to a time machine, has never asked to see what her school looked like before she was born (the answer being that it has looked like at least three completely different buildings in fifty years).

You’ve Ruined It, It Was My Coal Hill School Tie

It’s already been noted that Ian Chesterton is currently on the board of governors, as seen in ‘The Day of the Doctor’. Presumably he and Barbara managed to deflect any awkward police enquiry relating to their disappearance on the same day as Susan Foreman.
In some ways, it makes sense: teaching as a young man in the 1960s suggests that Ian is already fairly local to the area, and after three years of travelling across four dimensions, it’s logical that he’d want to stay somewhere that felt very much like home.
If Ian (and Barbara) did indeed grow up in Shoreditch, it’s at least possible that their great-grandparents might have been locals during the Jack The Ripper attacks. While it’s not likely that a children’s television programme would touch that storyline, it does again lend some weight to the idea that the energy surrounding Coal Hill’s postcode is in some way important.
Perhaps Ian has remained involved with the school not because of some misplaced nostalgia for the school that he may have attended as a child (he does wear the old school tie, after all), but because he’s aware of something strange in the neighbourhood, and it’s the only place he can be certain of successfully waiting for a grumpy old white haired man in a Police Box. Seeing him in a Rupert Giles mentor role would certainly bump up the ratings amongst the old fan base.

Who You Calling Small?

One of the most tantalising rumours before The Sarah Jane Adventures came to an end was that Ace – Sophie Aldred – might cameo in an episode. That didn’t happen, but there’s no reason why we couldn’t get our very own pyromaniac Dorothy McShane to guest in Class.
Her appearance would have added frisson, since Ace has form with aliens and a bit of minor vandalism at Coal Hill, and she might even try to get in touch with an elderly Judith Winters (look her up).
Ace would certainly be an expert that the class of Class would want to get in touch with for some tips on how to defend themselves against alien onslaught – although OFSTED wouldn’t look too kindly on any use of Nitro 9.

They’re Children. John Smith Wouldn’t Want Them To Fight, Never Mind The Doctor

Steven Moffat already has a school-based show on his CV – Chalk.
While he’s not the main writer on the show, it’s tempting to wonder if the title Class has any meaning beyond the obvious. Torchwood was an anagram, while The Sarah Jane Adventures is fairly self-explanatory.
As a title, Class left first responders on Twitter fairly underwhelmed. If this show is about a gang of kids (led by Courtney Woods, perhaps?) forming their own ‘Scooby Gang’ against the onslaught of aliens attacking an unprotected Earth, the ‘Class’ that we follow could be the Doctor Who version of Dumbledore’s Army.
It’s also worth pointing out that Earth could be unprotected in Class because 2016 is when – according to rumour – when there will be a lot less Doctor Who onscreen.
‘Class’ could also simply be a bit of teen slang, suggesting perhaps that many of the menaces that the kids fight will be metaphors for teen life, from online avatars turning out to be demons to boyfriends changing into complete monsters after you’ve kissed them (and yes, we know that Buffy The Vampire Slayer already did both of those almost twenty years ago).
In the end, however, all of the above may prove to be entirely irrelevant beyond fan fiction and online speculative articles. Whatever happens, Class promises to be a show that will be smart, funny and relevant – and just may have a guest appearance from The Doctor himself.
 

Doctor Who Spin Off: What About Missy?

Over the weekend, Doctor Who’s Missy, Michelle Gomez, was engaging in an entertaining Q&A on twitter. Almost inevitably, the possibility of a spin-off series for Missy was mooted, something that Gomez sounded enthusiastic about. There have of course been spin-off series from Doctor Who before – two of them being led by the great Elisabeth Sladen -  and every so often, rumours of new offshoots are mooted. Indeed, in the middle of this very article being written, the BBC announced Class – Coal Hill School fighting off monsters (could a cameo from Ian Chesterson be too much to hope for?). Usually though, many fail to materialise, and it’s easy to see why: either they’d be far too expansive and expensive to realise on screen on a BBC budget (which is why we should all be eternally grateful to the Big Finish audio dramas), or there simply isn’t enough story to sustain a supporting character – however entertaining and popular – in their own series that would be different enough from Doctor Who to justify their own series (so, there won’t be any Jenny: Daughter In Space any time soon). Despite all that, former Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies managed to knock two enormously successful shows out of the park, riding on the Doctor’s coattails and making Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures instantly recognisable brands.

Now that current showrunner Steven Moffatt has announced his own spinoff series – which at first glance, sounds like it could be The Sarah Jane Adventures with an expanded cast, it seems reasonably unlikely that Missy will indeed get her own series anytime soon. In some ways, that’s easy to stomach – Michelle Gomez is far too good an actress to necessarily want to be shackled to a single character for the next few years – but it’s instructive to note that The Mistress is about the best choice to pick from Doctor Who to front a spinoff, even more so than Clara, who is quite the most well written character Moffatt has written (yes she is, stop complaining at the back).

At first glance, River Song is perhaps the most obvious choice to be chosen to headline her own series, but that’s wrong for two reasons. Firstly, it suggests the rather ugly idea that there’s only room for one genre TV show to be headlined by a strong female lead, but it’s the second reason that’s most compelling. River’s entire MO is her enigma. Indeed, her catchphrase is a teasing ‘spoilers!’. She is playing a universal poker game in which she holds all the cards. It has never occurred to River that she’s not the star of her own show, even when everything she does is to serve The Doctor. The difference with Missy is that she simply doesn’t give a damn. The main reason why she doesn’t let us in on her plans is because she is – like The Doctor – mostly making it up as she goes along. It’s also worth considering what kind of show would best serve River, and it’s frankly difficult to imagine one in which she exists as a character with true agency. It’s an unfortunate fact that despite the power hair and smart talk, River Song is a character that literally only exists because of The Doctor – she is born to murder him, dies to save him, and even after death hangs around to haunt him. The only show that River Song makes sense in is Doctor Who. Perhaps it’s more helpful to ask what sort of show can take on a spin-off character.

It’s instructive, therefore to look to where it has worked before: namely, The Sarah Jane Adventures, and that certainly seems to be the spirit invoked by first impressions of Class. The Sarah Jane Adventures has many things to recommend it, but by far the most important is the significant charisma of the lead, Elisabeth Sladen. What is undeniable is that The Mistress also has considerable (if gleefully warped) charm. You can be very sure that right now there are hundreds of kids across the world working all possible hours to create their own Missy costume for Halloween this year. Of course it should be acknowledged that The Sarah Jane Adventures is a CBBC television series, and a spinoff show in this mould featuring the latest incarnation of The Master will require some mental dexterity on our part to accept Missy as the lead of a children’s television series. She is, after all, an unapologetic mass murdering psychopath with a bit of a kink. This, by anyone’s reckoning, is a difficult sell as the heroine of a kid’s TV show. But, at the risk of stating the obvious: the same character originally appeared in a kid’s TV show.

(By the way, it’s unimportant when you believe the character was first introduced: back in Terror Of The Autons as The Master, or as Missy in Deep Breath are equally valid, although it’s understandable if you consider all incarnations called ‘The Master’ to be fundamentally different from any incarnation called ‘The Mistress’. Having said that, those who can’t get on board with Gomez being a true Master are quite possibly watching the wrong show.)

The Mistress would excel in a spin off show aimed at young kids simply because of (in spite of) the fact that she didn’t belong there. Perversely, putting her in an environment like a CBBC show where she would undoubtedly have to be neutered would be genuinely compelling. The Mistress works best as a caged animal, and seeing her frustrated, smashing up against the glass until it cracks would be enormously fun to watch. The Pertwee era would be a good model here: trap a frustrated timelord on Earth, tethered to an organisation they had no particular love for, while robbing them of most of their power and none of their intelligence. It hardly needs pointing out that in this show, The Mistress wouldn’t be allowed to kill as many people (if any) as she does in Doctor Who: but rather than be a narrative nightmare, the BBC contractual obligations of stopping Missy killing the supporting cast would be easily attended to by smart writers, as was proved with the likes of Spike’s chip back in the days of Buffy.

One complaint currently levelled at The Mistress in series nine of Doctor Who states that she has swapped her icy menace of last year for a more broad pantomime villain approach. This is both accurate, and misses the point. Of course Missy is acting like a panto bad guy: she’s not the debonair hypnotist with the hazily defined intention of taking over the world, nor is she the snarling camp with a unexpected talent in hopscotch. Like a cat who already knows it’s going to kill the mouse, The Mistress would happily spend an afternoon delivering an Armageddon to a developing planet .. only to travel back twenty four hours to do it all again. Moffat’s script is careful to warn us not to get too distracted by the arch enemies arch camp, as evidenced in the scene when she demands a bevy of snipers on her – and manages to kill them anyway, seemingly in response to a slight from Clara.

This, incidentally, underscores an important aspect to the Michelle Gomez version of The Master. Compared to her, the Delgado and Ainley incarnations seem a little … how can we put this? A bit thick. This is no criticism of the Masters in the classic series, but rather a recognition that as Moriarty to the Doctor’s Sherlock, their character development was often reduced to moustache twirling while exiting stage left. Pretty much every plan that The Master concocts in the classic series is doomed to failure because it’s self-evidentially stupid and mainly powered by his own vanity with an over reliance on playing in the dressing up box. Interestingly, the strongest contender for exception to this rule is Survival, where The Master’s plan is refreshingly small scale, and – crucially – he’s not entirely in complete control of his faculties. His plan arguably has the highest success rate of the classic series, so it’s appropriate that as a result The Doctor is mostly off screen for the next fifteen years. The John Simm incarnation of The Master, incidentally, largely gets a pass on this criticism of stupidity, if only because his Master is quite demonstrably insane, and his plans, while wacky, are comparatively coherent – they’re all about returning the world to a status quo that The Master feels able to operate within.

By contrast, the Mistress (there’s genuinely no good reason that we can see to refer to her with just one consistent name even if the official BBC one is Missy: Michelle Gomez has proved she owns all three) is quite clearly the cleverest thing in the room, and it’s evidenced by just how silly she is. The Master is often sold as the dark mirror image of The Doctor, and there’s no clearer proof than this than the scene where she taunts Clara to stab her in the back (allowing her the opportunity she was denied in Death In Heaven). The look on Missy’s face isn’t evil: it’s frustrated boredom. Yes, it’s true that if Clara had indeed attempted to attack her, then Missy would have snapped her neck in a heartsbeat, but it’s clear that she’s genuinely hopeful that Clara might be the one to cure her boredom.

It’s not for a kid’s television show to carry the weight of all representation (actually, it is, but that’s more pressure than most shows are equipped to cope with), but it bears softly repeating that one of the many joys of The Sarah Jane Adventures was having a show aimed at schoolkids that placed a woman in her fifties front and centre. In a world where, this sort of move is certainly rare, and still considered brave. There’s also the not incidental point that is treated by everybody as entirely incidental: that Missy used to be a man. Members of the transgender community may not necessarily have chosen a mad murderer to be a representative of that community,  but it’s absolutely vital that Missy’s past gender is known by everybody, and important to absolutely nobody. Everyone simply accepts who she is without question.  

This is why a broad strokes kid’s show would work so well for Missy: simply because she doesn’t belong there, and would spend the entire series smashing up against the constraints. It’s Michelle Gomez’s electric eyed performance that would whirlwind around, impossible to control, delirious and unpredictable. In the meantime, we have Class, (which of course we will discuss at length very soon), and it’s too early to see how the world of Doctor Who can match in with the universe of OFSTED inspections, but we should certainly hope for the best. Say something nice, in fact.

Doctor Who Death In Heaven Spoiler Free Review

Well, here it is. And, woah. 

Let's start with the headlines, shall we? It's good. Actually, it's very good. In order to say anything else, we have to invoke whats quickly becoming a cliche even in spoiler-free review: if you really don't want to know anything - stop reading now. Seriously. 

In this past week, it's been reported that a total of nine viewers complained to the BBC about the themes raised in Dark Water. Those people will have plenty to complain about in this episode, as well, since the dead - particularly loved ones who are dead - are treated in a reckless manner, with an almost total lack of respect. It's by the far the most upsetting concept the show has dealt with in recent years. When there is no more room in hell (or heaven) the dead really will will walk the earth. 

There are a couple of moments in this finale that you are likely to have a very strong reaction to. In fact, it's reasonable to assume that by the episodes end, you're going to feel fairly angry. Not in a it's-time-for-Moffatt-to-go-he’s-destroying-my-programme kind of way. In fact, this might be the finest season closer he will write for Doctor Who. No, this is the kind of anger expended when you're genuinely invested in the characters and care about what happens to them. The stakes are very high, and it is clear that we cannot put good money on who does - and does not - get their happy ending. 

Moffatt and director Rachel Talalay are at their best here with a very tight script peppered with excellent jokes (like the reaction to The Doctor’s changed appearance, and a eyebrow raising gag about suicide bombers), to genuinely terrifying scenes where the show is channelling anything from Air Force One to George A Romero, to the point that you expect a cyberman to stalk the Doctor’s companion with “They're coming to get you, Clara ..” 

Since they appeared in the trailer, we’re probably safe in telling you that Kate Stewart and Osgood return, and they're every bit as fan-pleasing as you would hope. Stewart, in particular, gets a good few one-liners that deserve to find themselves on Whovian T-Shirts by the end of the year. There's also a great line that appears to gently damn the write-it-large elements of the Russell T Davies era. 

Yes, we’re dancing around the edges. No, we can’t say anything. If this preview was in anyway accurate, it would be a page of thick black lines, with maybe the occasional ’REDACTED’ screaming at you. What we will risk saying is that this story is about souls and promises. A number of characters fight desperately to save souls (crucially, not necessarily their own),and at one point (we can't even risk telling you when) a promise is half-made. And if we are paying attention, we can guess exactly how that promise will turn out. Elsewhere, Clara continues to channel her inner Doctor, at one point even invoking a familiar line from the Tennant era. 

We should say one last thing, and we’ll say it very carefully and slowly, because if you're a real ’traditional’ Who fan, one who doesn't much like change, then we have to say that a) you're really watching the wrong show, and b) you might want to sit down, because what we want to tell you might really annoy you. Michelle Gomez? She’s extraordinary. So extraordinary, in fact, that (you are sitting down, right?) there is an excellent chance she may obliterate the memories you have of any previous actor inhabiting the role of The Doctors’s arch-enemy. Yes, including that guy. Like the best power-mad crazies, there is a magnetic steely dead-eyed attitude to her that for her is clearly very sane indeed (it's not even clear that power really is her objective). She is entirely in command of every scene she’s in. One sequence, which basically consists of her just saying numbers, is a exercise in supremely upsetting tension. Electric eyes, electric performance. Gomez has breathed new life into a show that didn't know it needed it. She has, to coin a phrase, upgraded Doctor Who. 

If you want to see such things, there may be a bit of frisson between The Doctor and The Mistress, but honestly? That's in your perception rather than the performances. Interestingly, it's The Doctor that feels the need to prove his manhood, but it’s good that nobody really cares about about The Master’s sex-change. That's important for the show as a whole, and not just within the remit of sci-fi. Sure, The Mistress is still a white  Cis straight(ish) character, but it’s telling that no-one focuses on the fact she used to be a man, not even stammering over he/she pronouns. And yes, The Doctor appears to tacitly acknowledge that such a possibility is open to him. As you might have guessed, we've spent more time in this paragraph on the subject than all the characters do over the course of two episodes. For everyone else, it's entirely irrelevant. 

In short, this is an excellent episode. Sure, as is traditional around these here parts, there are a couple of moments around the resolution that wobble slightly, that may give you pause and make you look around awkwardly if there are non Doctor Who fans in the room. But otherwise, this is breathless, thrilling drama, and there's the real sense that the show is going up several notches for season 9. In this season, a major theme has been lying. That reaches a high point in this episode, with two very significant lies being told. And for once, we understand precisely why. 

“Say something nice”, The Mistress has a habit of saying in a disturbingly menacing manner. Since we've said quite enough nice things about this episode, we’ll say something helpful. If you can't see Death In Heaven as it airs, stay well away from the Internet. Trust us on this. You shouldn't have even read this, and listen: we don't lie. 

5/5

A slightly edited version of this review appears at http://www.cultbox.co.uk/reviews/episodes/doctor-who-s08e12-spoiler-free-review-death-in-heaven 

The Scariest Things About Doctor Who - Dark Water Weren't Even In The Episode

If you're reading this, then you're on the Internet. And if you're on the internet, there's no way you’ve managed to avoid the revelations of ’Dark Water’. So, without any respect for spoilers, let's see exactly how dark this water was below the surface ... 

“Just This Once, Everyone Lives!” 

The rebooted series has a noble tradition of turning over-familiar elements into vital plot points (the double heartbeat of the theme music, the question inherent in the title itself). Now it seems Moffatt is ransacking his own dialogue, and returning to a line from ’The Doctor Dances’, and a trope of his best episodes - even the victims haven't actually died. Before, this has been way of a happy ending for all - but now that we know the dead still have a connection with what's going on with their bodies, the afterlife has been rewritten as the darkest concept the show has explored so far. 

“By The Goddess, We Have” 

If the idea of souls being tethered to the pain of their corpses wasn't upsetting enough, there's the large-enough-to-miss-it suggestion of who exactly Missy is to us. No, not the big reveal near the end of the episode, which we’ll be coming to later on, but ever since ’The Caretaker’ and Seb’s dry comment “She’s a bit busy today” when the policeman says “Oh my God”, there's been a heavy hint that the dead have a pretty firm idea about  who is in control of Heaven. By the way, The Master has tried God-heading Earth in his own image before, back in  ’The End Of Time’. 

“Time Lady, Please. I'm old-fashioned”

For this reviewers money (not that he has a great deal), the revelation that Missy is actually The Master makes complete sense, and is a beautiful continuation of the character. Generally the reaction was largely positive, the nay-sayers panicking that it was a PC move (want to walk me through that?), or that it leads the way to a female Doctor. It's probably more likely that the existence of The Mistress actually delays such a thing for a good few years - it would be quite a leap, albeit an admirable one, if both the shows hero and villain end up as women. Annoyingly, even the fact that The Master is now a woman doesn't have to be set in stone: it is possible that an escape clause has already been written into the plot - who says that Missy is a direct regeneration from the John Simm Master? She could be from earlier, even before the Derek Jacobi incarnation. It's worth acknowledging, then, that in an episode with death, cybermen, hell and sentient corpses that the most terrifying thing for some fans was the idea of a female Doctor. We've been having this argument for about thirty years now - ever since Baker The First suggested it as a playful joke - and I've heard/read hundreds of arguments and reasons as to why The Doctor must NEVER be a woman. And not a single one of those arguments make any sense. Nor will any argument in the future. And yes, that was the sound of a gauntlet being thrown down. 

“Leave The Girl. It's The Man I Want”

Another, less hysterical, and more understandable criticism is that a female villainous Timelord being revealed to be The Master was something of a missed opportunity, when there was a perfectly good Rani going spare. Let's ignore, for now, the response that nobody really remembers The Rani, and that Kate O’Mara’s magnificent performance belongs firmly in the camp-neon era of the eighties. The truth is somewhat subtler: certain sections of fandom are voicing the concern that because the Master is now the Mistress, you rule out any chance of The Rani ever returning. That, we hope, is rubbish, because it would suggest the show only has room for one female bad guy. And it's not like there's a quota on that sort of thing. Not like there is for female writers (cough, cough). 

“Tongues?” 

Missy planted a smacker on The Doctor before she revealed her true identity. Now, if that's simply The Master/Mistress screwing with her old Time Lord fremeny, then fine. However, if it's a Moffatt ’strong woman’ trope (sarcastic remarks, sexually confident, a fondness for power dressing), then we rather think he’ll have missed a trick here. We’re inclined to believe the former, however, if for no reason other than this: we can absolutely believe that John Simms’ Master would have done the exact same thing, given half a chance. And, yes, it’s worth pointing out that Matt Smith’s Doctor spent a lot of TARDIS hours delivering unasked for kisses, and yes, we’re not exactly happy with that, and yes: that's an essay for another time.

“Where There’s Life ..”

Three words. Three words heard in the ether by Doctor Skarosa (hang on, what was that name again?) on which the Cyber-plan hangs. But they are not the most important three words spoken in this episode. It's another three words, spoken at two pivotal points, that condemn Danny Pink to his fate - once by killing him, and the second time trapping him in a hell without Clara. The three most terrifying words in the Master-plan are, of course, “I love you.” 

“Is There A Particular Dead Person You Want To Talk To?” 

You want dark? Here's dark. The Doctor says that almost every culture has a concept of the afterlife, and that he always meant to have a look. Which means, simply, that he considered it at least possible to visit, speak to, or maybe even save anyone who died.  Which means only one thing: he must have really hated Adric. 

Tuesday 31 December 2013

OK, we're up. 2013 is almost done, and it's a fair bet that you haven't achieved all the things that you intended this time last year. It's not all bad: new stuff will have come out of left field that makes life a bit better - you finally caught up with that boxset on Netflix that everyone else has been wittering on about for years, you found a place that still sells fizzy cola bottles (you know, the decent actually fizzy ones), that kiss was wonderful. The second one was even better. And it all happens again, starting tomorrow. 

And that's terrifying, isn't it? Obviously, 2013 had its good points (no, honestly, it did - look at the feed of pretty much anybody on your facebook right now: apparently there was a really funny meme from Buzzfeed sometime in March), but there were clearly some devastatingly upsetting moments over the last twelves months. Now, in real terms, that isn't going to change in any perceptible sense anytime soon. 2014 will be just as challenging as 2013. But with much less food banks. 

This isn't meant to sound depressing. Well, no more than how I usually sound. But it can be instructive to acknowledge the darkness, and find for yourself where the light may be found. So, the usual thing is to make the change starting with yourself (Ghandi had a very good bumper sticker about exactly that). This, in theory, is what New Year resolutions are all about. Give up this. Start doing that. Stop buying e-cigarettes from Poundland (you don't want to be the focus of the news story when the first e-cig rip-off blows up in someone's face). 

The problem, though, with New Year's is that it's so abritary. It doesn't actually mean anything. Since time itself doesn't actually exist (don't tell Steven Moffat that, however, otherwise that will be the plot of season 8 of Doctor Who, as well as the backstory of Doctor Who back in 1977), we can accept that NYE falling on December 31st is vastly unimportant. We already know that Jesus wasn't even born on his own birthday, and it's worth remembering that nothing changes tonight: the clocks don't go back, and the solstice doesn't kick in. Tomorrow might be another year, but it's also just a Wednesday. The middle of the week. What disillusioned office workers usually refer to as 'hump day.' 

Once you realise this,  it can deliver you free of a great deal of pressure. There is nothing special about tonight. You are not contractually obliged to stay up til the ball drops (even if Miley Cyrus is hanging from it). You don't need to have anyone to kiss at twelve. And there is absolutely no pressure to make a great sea change in your life and attitude starting tomorrow morning. Apart from anything else, there's still a tin of Roses and two decent bottles of wine to be finished off from the holidays, and if you're going to let them go to waste just because you are seeking to improve your life, then you have somewhat elegantly missed the point of what 'improving your life' actually means. 

This is not to say that seeking to improve is not a desirable pursuit. Sure, by all means, give up smoking. Ask that guy out / finally dump him. Eat more fruit. Take up rockclimbing/learning Mandarin/burlesque/a combination of all three. But here's the thing. It doesn't have to happen tomorrow. And indeed, if it gets to, say, April, and you haven't managed to get round to it, that's not a new year resolution that you failed at, because it's not about some arbitrary date in the calender. If you get to April, and there's still something that you need to start striving for, something that gives you energy and passion to push yourself forward, well, that's brilliant. Because, as you might have already worked out, tomorrow won't be the only Wednesday of 2014. There are plenty more hump days to come. 

Happy New Year. 

Friday 23rd August 2013

Last night, went to an event called The Space in Brighton. This is a semi-regular event in which various industry types (usually two per evening) have an informal chat in what's usually quite intimate surroundings. It's always a good night, even if (sometimes, especially if) you haven't heard of one of the guests. I try to get along to it whenever I can (and fancy myself as a possible interviewer - not quite as overbearing as James Lipton of Inside The Actors Studio). At previous events, guests have included Mark Gatiss, Frank Skinner and Barry Norman, as well as many more. 

Last night, the first guest was Dennis Kelly, writer of Utopia, Pulling (along with Sharon Horgan) and the musical of Roald Dahl's Matilda (with Tim Minchin). Somehow, I've managed not to see any of his work, despite all things being on my to-see list for quite some time. Because I've never followed him as a writer, it was somewhat startling to see these apparently diverse things being created by the same person. I'm sure there are probably connecting themes if you look hard enough for them (good people can be dicks, for instance), but I imagine that there's not a stand-out text that you could point to and say that's a Dennis Kelly story. This was spoken about in a roundabout way as part of the interview when he spoke about not 'having a voice'. Many writers, at the start of their career, are advised to 'find their voice'. It makes some kind of sense. If nobody knows who you are, then if you want to get your next gig, then there's a certain logic in being easily identifiable to whoever it is that might give you your next pay cheque - 'oh, let's get the guy who does the Richard Curtis style rom coms .. who is that? Oh, it's Richard Curtis,' Kelly rails against that, and quite aggressively so. I can get on board with that idea. A 'voice', surely, runs the risk of being restrictive, of suggesting that you can 'only' write a certain type of story. Stephen King speaks of the warning that his agent delivered to him when he offered up Salems Lot for publication (the second book after Carrie) - the very real danger that with two bloody books in a row, he was going to be forever pigeon-holed as a horror writer. He decided that he was OK with that (and his success has meant that he's managed to smuggle a decent amount of very good books in under the radar that can truly be described as 'horror', even if they are still a bit bloody). I wondered if that's somewhat the case with Kelly. Although what he's written has been very successful (even if hardly anyone actually saw Pulling, it's highly regarded by those that did), his name isn't really on the public's radar yet, which means that he's allowed to follow the story, whatever story interests him, even if it bears no relation to what he's produced before. A certain amount of anonymity can be a blessing. I remember the creators of The Blair Witch Project being asked what their next film was going to be (this at the height of Blair Witch's success). They replied, in all seriousness, a romantic comedy. As far as I'm aware, that film never surfaced. 

The second guest of The Space was Phillip Hinchcliffe, who has had a wide and varied career, bringing many interesting and sometimes even risky projects to the screen ... but will always be remembered as a producer for Doctor Who. It helps that the era that he oversaw was just about the most successful in the show's history. Russell T Davies credits the Hinchcliffe era with igniting his passion for wanting to revive the show, even going so far as to say that the only reason he started writing for television in the first place was so that he could revive Doctor Who- and, in turn, the only reason he wanted to was because of his memory of the stories that were produced by Hinchcliffe. It's true that there's a very impressive wealth of stories under his tenure that are genuine classics that more than stand up today, and would be good gateway drugs for anyone who hasn't yet seen an episode of the original series, among them Genisis Of The Daleks, Terror Of The Zygons, Planet Of Evil, Pyramids Of Mars, Brain Of Morbius, Seeds Of Doom, and The Talons Of Weng-Chiang. 

Hinchcliffe comes across as a gracious and generous person, very often deflecting praise to others, (particularly Robert Holmes, who does indeed deserve much praise), but I get the impression that as a producer he didn't suffer fools gladly, and that he was straight-arrowed and focused. That certainly comes across in the stories of his era. While he didn't write or direct them, and is quick to bestow the praise for the 'Gothic' shades of those years back to Holmes, there's a focus there that is absent in the latter Pertwee years, and wobbles a great deal in the Tom Baker era after Hinchcliffe leaves. Indeed, most of the 'pantomime' criticism that is delivered at classic Doctor Who really begins as soon as he's left. We spoke about this, about the idea that a producer of a show can have 'authorship' on a programme, even more so than the director or even, ironically, the author. In many ways, it's directly opposite to the avoiding 'finding a voice' that Dennis Kelly was speaking about earlier in the evening. 

It's quite clear that, for better or worse, Doctor Who was essentially 'just another job' to Hinchcliffe. That's understandable: with genre TV or film, the story on screen is almost always going to be a helluva lot more important to the viewers than those who made it - they've already made the next three jobs, after all - but it always makes me curious and even uneasy at events like this. I imagine fan conventions are even worse. Exactly how many times can you answer the same question about bubblewrap monsters? Can you really relate to men in their forties who probably have an unhealthy fixation with Sophie Aldred, and are dismayed when you acknowledge that you don't actually know who Sophie Aldred is? Plus, you get people like me who are fans, but try to act casual about it, and absolutely refuse to ask questions about bubble wrap - which, I suspect, is equally annoying. 

Both men were inspiring, full of energy, intelligence and verve (and Kelly said 'fuck' an impressive amount). As a writer, though, it's always worth keeping in mind what other (successful) writers speak about when they are talking about what works, and what doesn't. It's always in slightly different words, it's sometimes eloquent, it's sometimes basic, but it's essentially the same message, a thousand times over. The only way to write is to get your arse on that chair - and write. 

Monday 6th May 2013

In the final few weeks of rehearsals for my Brighton Fringe show, 'A Beginning, A Muddle, And An End'. Well, I say my show, but it really belongs to the cast. Whatever happens now, it's a really remarkable achievement from everybody involved. Embarking on an entirely improvised, narrative play is a pretty big ask at the best of times, but when you consider that a couple of my actors hadn't really done any improvisation of any description before embarking on this production, the work that they're doing is genuinely brilliant. 

Not that it's any easier for improvisers who have had a lot of experience. In fact, it can be even more difficult, because it's so easy to get stuck into one particular 'method' of improvisation, simply because you know that that works, or indeed because that's the 'right' way to do a scene. Which is ironic, really, because that's almost the opposite of improvisation, since, in theory, you're not leaving yourself open to new untried methods of telling a story. So I'm grateful to my cast for continually throwing themselves into the dark, and seeing where the story leads them. It shows a humbling amount of faith, if not in myself as the person who claims to know what the hell he is doing as director, then certainly in each other as fellow performers. In each rehearsal, watching, and working with these improvisers who, in some cases, are learning certain improvisational techniques for the first time, I find that I too am learning more and more about improv. 

The DukeBox Theatre has a full programme during the Brighton Fringe, so I debated for a while about whether or not I should give Iron Clad Improv a break for the month of May. It's still a relatively young group, though, so I decided that I wanted to keep the momentum going, although there was always a risk that the numbers would drop slightly in a new location. I'm glad I did keep it going, however, because although it is true that the numbers dipped slightly on our first Sunday over in Hanover, it was a great session, and bodes well for the rest of the month. 

I keep meaning to upload a couple of essays and reviews on classic and nu-Who (Doctor Who, in other words) before this season ends, as there's a couple of theories that I'd like to put forward before they become proved / disproved onscreen. I have an odd little theory that links The Great Intelligence (the current Big Bad) to stories dating as far back as the very first season. I may be reading too much into things that have been (or indeed haven't been) seen onscreen, but then again Steven Moffat is a fiendish little showrunner. Hope to get those reviews / theories uploaded before the end of the week. 

Another thing I need to try and get done as soon as possible is a couple more short stories. There's a competition coming up for entries for ghost stories, and I happen to have a couple of ideas that would suit well. I've now got this long list, in date order, of upcoming competitions, which is very useful for focusing the mind. Nothing like a deadline or two for galvanising the procrastinating writer. There's a couple of other reasons too. Firstly (and probably most important), it means I actually have a reason to finish that story before getting distracted by that other shiny story. The excellent Chuck Wendig puts it very well, suggesting that you shouldn't cheat on your first idea by messing around with the new, sexy idea. Be faithful to the first one. Put the effort in. For someone like me, whose hard drive is littered with a hundred and six unfinished ideas, this advice is invaluable. 

Perversely, however, the other reason to actually finish these stories (or ideas, or whatever) is in order to come up with new ones. As writers, we're often concerned that we're going to run out of ideas, that the well is going to run dry. But I'm increasingly not convinced that's quite the case. Actually, we need to use up those ideas, chew them up, spit them out, make way for the new stuff. Which will come. Otherwise, we're just screwing around with the same old stuff, pushing our peas around the plate, becoming ever more bored with the lack of flavour, and losing the energy to come up with something new. 

Well, that's what I think today, anyway. Tomorrow, it'll probably be something about a gluten free diet, and women who wear too much kohl on their eyes. (I have no idea). 

Doctor Who At Fifty: An Unearthly Child

In 2013, Doctor Who will celebrate its fiftieth anniversary. That's fifty years of travelling though time and space in a battered old police box, battling all sorts of monsters and aliens. The very first episode went out on November 23rd, 1963. It's a well worn piece of folk lore to note that this was just a day after the assassination of American president John F Kennedy.

That first episode was called An Unearthly Child, and is (mostly) set in what was then contemporary-era London. A pair of school teachers, concerned about a pupil, follow her home and end up in something well beyond their imagining. It's difficult to overstate just how odd this first episode must have appeared to the audiences of 1963. Fantasy and genre TV tended to involve much younger children battling against smugglers or traitors (Pathfinders, Secret Beneath The Sea, etc), or at the very least, lots of strings (Joe 90 and suchlike). Doctor Who, with a teenage girl, a older man well known to fans of The Army Game, and an attractive couple in the later part of their twenties, make up a cast that genuinely seems to have something for all the family.

It's been said time and time again (no pun intended) that this first episode is a genuinely brilliant piece of Sixties television - not just of sci-fi, but of television drama, full stop. You're not going to read anything vastly different from that opinion here. As an episode that's both an opener, and heavy on the exposition, it should collapse under the weight of its own narrative, but it's remarkably clear eyed, fast paced, and hurtles towards its conclusion.

The real masterstroke of that episode, however - certainly to modern eyes, and certainly to Matt Smith fans who might watch this episode for the first time as part of the 50 year celebrations - is that the episode isn't about the mysterious Doctor at all. Sure, he's the engine that drives the plot, but really, he's only so much of a macguffin: the story isn't even about the Unearthly Child of the title. Well trodden fan lore will have it the William Hartnell's Doctor is nothing like the incarnations that will follow him, being irritable, impatient, and distrustful, but if you watch An Unearthly Child in the wider context of the entire series, and make-believe for a moment that they're not simply making this show up as they go along, then Hartnell's characterisation is completely in keeping with what comes up four decades later. At the time of writing, Doctor Who's latest episode was the Christmas 2012 special, The Snowmen, which has Matt Smith's Doctor keeping humans at bay (while choosing to live amongst them) and only coming out to play when won over by an Earthling's insatiable curiosity. And it's this that's the driving force behind the narrative in this episode. Ian (William Russell) says as much himself: the only reason he and work colleague Barbara are getting involved with Susan's secretive private life is not much more than nosiness. It's also worth remembering that ever since the reboot of Doctor Who, the importance of the companion has been continually restated. Whether it be The Doctor sending villains to their death in A Town Called Mercy and Dinosaurs On A Spaceship, being told (and told again) that he needs a traveling companion near him, or the battle scarred Doctor in Rose referring disparagingly to the entire human race as 'stupid apes', The Doctor is not, by instinct, the sort of alien that later fanboys like to think of him as: the peacemaker who will never pick up a gun. He is a genuinely alien creature whose more peaceable and pacifist characteristics are honed by the humans he travels with. This will be underlined in the next couple of episodes, when many of the major decisions are made not by The Doctor, but by Ian Chesterton, a teacher from 1960s England.

In its first episode then, Doctor Who is, as it will be fifty years later with characters like Oswin and Rose, all about the companion. This being 1963, where the sixties have barely begun to twitch, let alone swing, those companions are not exactly young, but there's enough spark and wry humour there to relate to. Jacqueline Hill as Barbara in particular is great: managing about twenty different versions of her character without ever contradicting herself: stiffly formal when in teacher mode, visibly relaxing and playfully sardonic when Ian charms her, and - in a role that she will revisit many times over the next couple of weeks, a mother figure to Susan.

Carole Ann Ford as Susan, The Doctor's granddaughter, does excellently in what she will discover to be a somewhat thankless role in her time as part of the TARDIS crew. She manages to combine the two disparate elements of her character seamlessly: gauche fifteen year old and exotic alien. When she speaks about loving England in the twentieth century, it's with all the passion of a gap year student who's just discovered Paris in the Spring: she would be quite happy to come back to this planet, and this era, again and again, because she genuinely loves it out of all the possible destinations she could choose from. Incidentally, two bits of fan banter can be addressed here, right in the first episode: some have tried to argue that Susan and The Doctor aren't actually related by blood, a theory that seems to be shot out of the water when she addresses him as Grandfather when she isn't aware that anyone else is around, which, unless they're taking their cover story really seriously, seems to be an indication that The Doctor really is Susan's grandfather. Plus, there's a lot of fan theory around the fact that Susan claims to have come up with the name for the TARDIS, some fans thinking that suggests that perhaps she had something to do with creating the spaceship herself. But it seems more likely that she's simply telling the truth, and nothing more: that she came up with the name based on the way that it travels: Time And Relative Dimension In Space. It doesn't seem to be too much of a stretch to assume that the Time Lords back home simply adopted their name for all their craft, in much the same way that most stupid apes call their vacuum cleaners Hoovers.

It's also very much worth mentioning the TARDIS itself here. It's a brilliant invention on the part of the production team, and that's even if you ignore the looking-like-a-police-box thing, or the bigger-on-the-inside thing. The TARDIS control room works so well, and looks so modern even fifty years later simply because it makes no sense. With most spaceships in popular culture, there's at least a semblance of a traditional airplane's cockpit, with a pilot seated in front of a screen showing the craft's destination (think Star Trek). There's none of that here: a vast white room with odd, unexplained things suspended from the ceiling, mixed in with incongruous items that The Doctor has presumably nicked from the junkyard. It still looks modern fifty years later, simply because it loos so weird and alien. We'll discuss it a little more next time, as we look at the next few episodes, sometimes called 100,000 BC, and sometimes called The Tribe Of Gum, despite the fact that nobody on screen is referred to as such, but, somehow, the name stuck. As it were.

Heading To Hedda

Hoping to get up to see the Old Vic production of Hedda Gabler soon. It won't be that easy, as I have a very full schedule over the next few weeks, what with rehearsals for Three Kinds Of Me, extra Ghostwalks (October being the month of Halloween) and, of course, the NVT Acting Classes (two down, four to go). But I don't see nearly enough London theatre, and I want to start remedying that. Two factors contribute to me wanting to see this particular production - the first being that lastminute.com have this 'theatre fortnight' deal going on at the moment, so that some tickets are just fifteen quid. Since my usual excuse for not going to see more theatre is that it's priced well out of my range (as long as I'm going to remain adamant that I'm not going to sell a kidney, or anything), that's obviously a compelling argument, even if the tickets turn out to be shunted behind a pillar.

The second factor is that I was in a production of Hedda Gabler myself this year, and it's always interesting to see how different companies interpret the same show, even if it is, literally, a different interpretation, by which I mean a different translation. I know that I read through several different versions of Medea before choosing the Tom Paulin one to direct, a move that my cast and audiences certainly appreciated.

I think that Hedda is a deceptively difficult show to put on, and to pull off. It can be a bit of an old warhorse of a text for am-dram companies to pull out of the bag, and I know from various conversations that some audiences find it difficult to get a handle on why (and indeed if) its relevant today. I suspect that people can get hung up on the belief that it's a play about class. Obviously, that's a major factor, but I think it's significantly more visceral than that, that it can be a very relevant, vital, and indeed a more sensual and sexy play that its sometimes dusty reputation suggests. Hell, it's a play about blistering frustration, clearly it should be delivered with all the energy of a powderkeg set to blow.

But as well as all that, it seems that modern audiences (and actors and directors, come to that) are only coming across the startling idea that Hedda Gabler can at times be funny. It's possible that this was one reason behind the casting of Sheridan Smith in the title role. Now, I'm not suggesting that the producers are expecting the fanbase of Two Pints Of Larger And A Packet Of Crisps to rock up to the Old Vic, although obviously that's the ideal when you cast someone from a popular show, and it can't hurt.

I'm not really aware of Sheridan Smith's work outside Two Pints, and so I was one of those who noted with interest her arrival as one of the most iconic female characters in drama, wondering briefly if it really was stunt casting. Somehow, I'd forgotten that, with a very few exceptions, that if an actor has made it to the main cast of a major television series, then it's very likely that they've done a great deal of varied work elsewhere before the avearge audience member has heard of them. You think of another Smith: Matt, who to many seemed far too young and far too inexperienced to be cast as Doctor Who, but had aleady been around impressing for a good few years previously.

Smith (Sheridan, not Matt) seems to be doing a great deal of spadework this year to ensure that Two Pints is but a footnote on her career, which is great, since it was very easily a role that could have seen her typecast for decades.

In At The Deep End

Finally managed to go for a swim yesterday for the first time this year, which considering there's two swimming pools in easy distance, and I've got the English Channel at the bottom of my road, is pretty much unforgivable. I managed to do it in the end simply because I'm very aware that I'm in my last couple of days off from work right now, but also because of the damage I did to my shoulder earlier in the week. I thought, in some vague way, that swimming would do my shoulder some good.

So far, that seems to be the case, as my shoulder hurts significantly less this morning that it has all week. It wasn't always thus, though: while swimming, I was very weak on my right side, and wincing manfully (or something) as it was too painful to do a full stroke on the right hand side. I've never been a strong swimmer in any case, having never really learned to swim properly: as a kid, I just got into the water and largely suceeded at not drowning. Water seemed to be the great leveller, as I seem to remember the tough kids being surprisingly inept in the pool. But, as I say, I never had 'proper' swimming lessons, meaning that even when I have full use of all my limbs, I always end up being convinced that the onlooking lifeguards aren't there to potentially save my life; but more to sneer at my pathetic attempts to look like I can swim. But hopefully, I'll be able to take the start suggested by yesterday, and begin to swim more regularly.

However, next week is where things start really to kick in. On Monday is the first acting class of the new season at the New Venture Theatre, led by myself (I'll chat more about the details of that in the next blog), and for three nights of the next six weeks, I'll be working on a one-woman show, Three Kinds Of Me, which will be produced in early October. Right now, that seems like a reasonably long time away. I'm sure my opinion on how much time I have will drastically alter very soon. I'm still working on a couple of short stories, and expect to have a significant demand on my time in all of November, which I'll tell you about closer to the time.

And tonight, I have an extra Ghostwalk, this one being at the same time as Brighton Pride. I have no idea how that's going to go yet - the streets are likely to be somewhat busy because of everyone being, well, proud, but I'm not convinced that a lot of them will actualy make it out to the Walk. And, anyway, a lot of our core audience - kids - won't be dragged away from the living room tonight. For tonight, Doctor Who starts its 50th anniversary season. I'm very glad I live in the era of the iplayer ..