Poirot: Problem at Sea

 "One cannot hurry the little grey cells, captain."

This is another decent episode, not only as a whodunit which works well and does so in a shrt format but, for once, also as a drama. The poor murder does the deed because he is a vivtim of what we would today call coercive control. None of the characters, in 1935, would have used the phtrase, but they all knew damn well what was going on.

It's all nicely done. All the characters behave like real people with real motives and, again, 1935 feels not quite so long ago, despite the inevitable casual racism of the characters as they wander around the Alexandria of King Fuad. Yet, despite some differences in social mores, these people are not so different from ourselves, if somewhat posher on the whole.

The summing up is the best yet, as showman Poirot has a little fun with ventriloquism. This still is not exactly my favourite television drama, but it has its moments.

Inspector Morse: Service of All the Dead

 "I'll never understand these religious types."

"That's because you have no soul, Morse."

I can't quite put my finger on why this episode was good but not great, unlike its two predecessors. I've had four pints of Doom Bar, of which I hope Morse would approve. I enjoyed the novel, years ago. The plot and the revelations were fine. There was even much made of a quotation from St Augustine which has much amused me- "Lord, give me chastity, but not yet." Lord, if by any chance you should exist, in spite of your singular failure to provde empiracal evidence, please do no such thing. The missus would not be pleased.

This episode has persuaded me of one thing. If I were, should faith without proof cease to be a requirement, to become a Christian, I probably wouldn't be a High Church Anglican as I'd previously assumed because of culture and that. Like Morse, I find all that imagery of a tortured Christ to be unpleasantly morbid.

I like this episode, altgough it never quite catches fire. As a carer, I very much identify with the very lovely Ruth, a nicely nuanced character. Morse gets some good development in terms of his relationship with her, too: I'm starting to accept John Thaw's gentler version of the character. I am, perhaps, less inclined to accept that the white-haired Thaw was forty-five years old at this point, just a year older than I am today, with only grey flecks in my long hair although rather more in my long beard, and denying all wrinkles. I am not Gandalf yet.

The Oresteia: The Libation Bearers (Peter Hall, 1983)

 "Bloodshed for bloodshed, keeping the blades red..."

And so Peter Hall's version of Tony Harrison's translation of the Oresteia trilogy continues, in similar vein, with masked actors who would have been bloody terrifying to any children watching. It is, of course, no less sublime than the first part.

The Libation Bearers is quite simple plot-wise: Orestes returns to plot with Electra, and gets into the palace by deceit where he promptly offs Aegisthus and then his mother, and the Furies are a bit miffed. That's it. It's basically Hamlet with added matricide and much less faffing about although, of course, in the case of Hamlet the whole point is the faffing about.Yet as ever it's not so much the plot as the philosophical and imagery-strewn verse that is the point, again translated by Harrison in a way that evokes, to me, nothing so much as Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf.

Once again the use of masks anonymises the actors, erasing their role and drawing our attention to the verse alone. Birtwistle's score, too, underlines the rhythm of much of the metre, to magnificent effect but utterly unlike any theatre I've ever experienced before. It's a profounly rich experience in so many ways.

I'm excited for the last play but I'll return to The Mandalorian tomorrow.

The Oresteia: Agamemnon (Peter Hall, 1983)

 "I'm no more a breaker of bed-bond than, as a woman, I wield a man's weapon..."

I did The Oresteia at University... some twenty years ago. Watching this first instalment of the trilogy- Peter Hall, for the National Theatre, in 1983, now happily available with subtitles on YouTube- I'm reminded how little I remember of the details, alhough this is a very different translation from what we used in the module I studied, covering ancient Greek drama in translations for we English students as offered by the Classics Department.

This production is the first in a trilogy that I will be alternating with The Mandalorian before returning to Sapphire & Steel. It's an extraordinary production. For a start, it's made by a supergroup of culture as it existed in 1983. Aeschylus' words are translated by the superlative poet Tony Harrison, a working class lad from Leeds who managed to get the Classical education he needed to insulge his natural poetic talent as possibly the finest poet this country produced in the last quarter of the twentieth century. It's directed by Peter Hall. And the soundscape is by Harrison Birtwistle, the greatest British composer of the twentieth century and a man whose delightfully atonal compositions never trouble the Daily Mail reading acolytes of Classical FM.

The result of this is a fusion of the very ancient and very modern which fuses magnificently. On the one hand it's a brutally authentic production of Aescyhlus' play, from the very alien culture that is the Athens of the 4th century BC. The all-male actors- John Normington excels as Cassandra- and the masks worn by all players transport us back to Athens in its Golden Age and how theatre was done in those distant and murky days, by people we cannot understand. The masks, in particular, make me glad for the subtitles.

Yet the words are poetry you can get drunk on. I know little of poetic style in ancient Greece, but Tony Harrison's translation, with its kennings and alliteration, calls to mind the warlike muscularity of Old English poetry, and mixes cultural allusions with the demotic and, indeed, the earthy.

The masks, and the rigidity of the metre, are perfectly ec hoed by Birtwistle's unremittingly atonal score which, alongside Harrison's words, fuse ancient and modern with profound effect.

It's striking, perhaps, how much of this play is taken up with philosophical and actually quite rich philosophical discourse about Troy and about the costs, and pointlessness, of war, before stuff actually happens and Clytemnestra- offstage- does the bloody deed and avenges poor Iphygenia. As a father of a perfect daughter, I side with her.

This is exquisite. And more is to come...

 

Torchwood: Ghost Machine

“I wouldn’t even piss on him if he was on fire.”



It’s early days for the series, the format is still being established- time for an alien artefact story then. It’s not the most expensive-looking of episodes but it’s surprisingly good, and a promising first script from Helen Raynor with only a little awkwardness in the dialogue letting it down.

We see this for the first time in the scene with John Normington; it just doesn’t feel natural for the character to be coming out with that information to Gwen, who he’s only just met. Why is he going into so much detail without prompting on the subject that Gwen coincidentally wants to know about? It’s a crude info-dump, exposition without enough excuse for being there in character terms, and we’ll be seeing a lot of this sort of thing.

Otherwise, though, this is an assured debut script. The plot is watertight and clever, the regulars all get something to do, and the fact that everyone in Cardiff seems to hate Bernie is funny. This seems to be the debut of uber-serious Jack, though; he gets well mardy with the team when they seem to give up on finding Bernie.

The scene where Owen experiences Lizzie’s rape and murder is suitably powerful, and an interesting thing to happen for the character’s development. Burn Gorman is truly excellent here. Of course, he goes vigilante, and the murderer Ed Morgan proves to be none other than Blake himself, Gareth Thomas. It’s a startlingly different role for the actor, a deeply unpleasant and deeply damaged sociopath.

There’s a problem with the murder scene though; once again the characters are blatantly telling each other things they already know for the benefit of the viewer. It’s very notable that both Lizzie and Ed address each other by their full names, a very unnatural thing to do. It’s a pity, because aside from this awkwardness with the dialogue it’s a brilliant piece of drama.

In what rather brilliantly turns out not to be a coincidence, Owen finds Bernie and there follows a rather amusing chase through peoples’ gardens. We then get the revelation that there’s another half to the device, and that once assembled it allows people to see their own future. Very timey-wimey. Bernie has seen his own death, as he is now, on the road outside, and the rules of television sci-fi instantly tell us that he’s doomed. There’s a bit of a problem with this though; why does he not simply resolve never to set foot in that street again, or at least never again where the clothes he saw himself wearing to his death?

The stakes are raised by Gwen’s vision, which inevitably comes true. It’s all rather bleak, really; there’s nothing Gwen can do to prevent fate working itself out. It seems free will is an illusion after all.



Aside from the awkwardness with the dialogue this is otherwise quite brilliant, but unfortunately I can only give it a 3/5. It’s a promising first script from Helen Raynor, though, and the team are all still getting some nice development.

Doctor Who: The Happiness Patrol

Part One



“Can’t you afford a real gun?”

Everything in this story is very obviously studio-based, with the studio floor prominent even in the early scenes set in a “street”. But this is only a problem if you’re expecting things to be “realistic”, and this story isn’t supposed to be. This is abstract theatre with a camera pointed at it, with sets and costumes to match. And it’s great.

The style of the streets, with a very “Big Brother” visible face on the wall, seems very reminiscent of Kneale and Cartier’s 1954 TV version of 1984. The planet of Terra Alpha is exactly this kind of totalitarian state, and the state persecution of those who refuse to conform by being “happy” works well as a metaphor for all sorts of things. I remember a lot of talk in mid-‘90s fanzines of this story being about Section 28; I don’t think there’s anything to indicate that was particularly intended, but it’s one of many valid interpretations.

As soon as the Doctor and Ace arrive they immediately start plotting regime change, and this story charts how the Doctor acts as a catalyst for the overthrow of Helen A’s regime over the course of a single evening. Helen A herself, played superbly by Sheila Hancock, is of course in no way based on Thatcher.

Visually and stylistically, this feels very similar to Vengeance on Varos, not only with the corridors and the go-karts but in the general aesthetic. What’s different is that instead of violence and sadism we see a less graphic but more insidious type of tyranny, much more psychological in how its people are mistreated. Activities such as walking alone in the rain, wearing dark clothing and reading poetry (except poetry) are banned as unconducive to happiness, the result of which is that Terra Alpha is an utterly joyless place. In fact, it resembles 1984 in more ways than one, with the general drabness of this society echoing the late ‘40s Britain of rationing and gloom which partly inspired Orwell’s novel in the first place.

The sight of the Kandyman is a shock, though- how on Earth did the BBC avoid getting sued?



Part Two



“He makes sweets that kill people.”



The “drones” who work in the factories are demonstrating against the regime, while the indigenous people of the planet have been driven underground. The conditions for revolution are in place. But first the Doctor and Earl Sigma (whose white t-shirt and suit looks so 1988) must escape the Kandyman, who seems to have a lot of personality for an artificial being. It’s a great scene, with the Doctor using his wits and some lemonade to affect their escape.

As Susan Q is taken away to be executed, Priscilla P delivers the most horrifying line of the story to Ace, showing just what a conformist nightmare being in the Happiness Patrol must be: “She was never any good. She never had the right attitude. She never joined in. She wasn’t part of the team.” Stifling conformity and forced jollity; is there anything in the world as terrifying as that?

The Doctor gets another great moment, turning the tables on Trevor Sigma by sheer force of personality in a scene that manages to get away with being completely implausible by means of its extreme coolness. And mere minutes later he gets an even better one as he confronts the two snipers on the roof. This is a great story for the Doctor, and Sylvester McCoy plays these scenes brilliantly. I really like this new Doctor, with the contrasts between the cleverness and manipulative side on the one hand and the spoon playing and physical comedy on the other.

I love the bloke at the box office at the cliffhanger- such a typical example of British customer service.



Part Three



“I can hear the sound of empires toppling.”

“Everything’s beginning to fall into place,” says the Doctor. Revolution is imminent. Fifi is lured to her death, the factories are in open revolt, and Helen A is soon attempting to flee the planet. But there’s still time for a bit of comic relief as the Kandyman answers a retro looking telephone.

Helen A is unable to escape, as her shuttlecraft has been commandeered By Gilbert M and her partner Joseph P, who seem to be eloping together! Her final speech to the Doctor before she collapses into tears upon hearing about Fifi’s death is very strongly reminiscent of Thatcher.



This is a brilliant and very clever script superbly realised by a production style that quite correctly avoided realism in favour of the abstract. It would be easy to criticise this for this lack of realism, and especially for the use of a small cast in a story concerning the fate of an entire world, but that would be to miss the point. There are a couple of worries, however. The direction is a bit flat, but then again the fact that this is deliberately presented as televised theatre that would seem to be required. And I’m not sure taking such a boldly avant garde direction was an altogether wise move for a show which desperately needed to appeal more to a mainstream audience. In spite of its superficially childlike trappings, this is a very adult focused story, too; I’m not sure the story would appeal much to kids, many of whom would have probably seen it, ironically, as childish. I certainly did in 1988. But, all this aside, it still kicks arse. 5/5.

Doctor Who: The Caves of Androzani

Part One

“I can take an insult. I just don’t want to be shot.”

Let us rejoice! Robert Holmes is back after six long years! May there be public holidays and dancing in the street! Never before have I squee’d so much at the name of the writer at the beginning of a story.

We begin with a great location and a bit of exposition- we’re on Androzani Minor, the smaller of two double planets and somewhat prone to mud-bursts- but the dialogue also serves to cement the relationship between the Doctor and Peri with admirable swiftness, considering they hardly know each other at the end of Planet of Fire. The Doctor and Peri potter about for a bit and Peri falls into some stuff. Still not to worry; as the Doctor says when he helps Peri up, getting a bit on his hand, “It’s probably quite harmless.”

The dialogue between the Doctor is great, well-written but with a real lightness of touch. The tongue-in-cheek riff about celery and gases in the praxis range of the spectrum is great stuff and perfect Holmes. But there are other characters, of course; this being Holmes, there are gun-runners in the shape of Stotz, Krelper and some red-shirts. There’s the over-promoted and out of his depth General Chellak, who looks the part but lacks confidence, relying heavily on the “advice” of his deputy, Salateen. And finally for now there’s Morgus, a deliciously evil corporate big-shot. 

All these characters have depth, charm (however nasty some of them may be!) and good actors playing them. They’re also all recognisably (with the addition of Krau Timmin, Morgus’s underling), ahem, “Holmesian double acts”. And as such they’re interesting characters to see in the series at this point, with Eric Saward as script editor and cynical mercenaries the new house style for guest characters. But while this set of characters may seem to fit this house style superficially, being a bunch of cynics all out for themselves, it’s all done with a wit and sense of fun reminiscent of an earlier era when, well, Robert Holmes used to write for Doctor Who.

I love John Normington as Morgus- particularly his speeches to camera! But his motives are also deliciously apparent in his reactions to various “tragic” events imparted to him by Timmin. He makes a great pantomime villain to contrast with our tragic villain, Sharaz Jek, of whom more later.

Graeme Harper makes a particularly impressive debut- there’s a great moment, following the Doctor and Peri’s capture by Chellak and their being paraded on a screen before Morgus, where we cut quickly between Morgus, the Doctor, via a screen, and Jek in turn watching Morgus through a scene. Impressive too is a later short scene involving Jek where we see a series of dissolves.

The later scenes consist of essentially of preparations for the Doctor’s and Peri’s execution, but these scenes further develop the characters and the world: Chellak believes the Doctor but is powerless to save him, underlining what a weak character he really is; the method of execution is to be “death under the red cloth”, a detail which imparts some local colour; Peri waits for her death in the cell, scared but impressively dignified, and extremely well played by Nicola Bryant. She doesn’t blame the Doctor for her predicament.

Hang on- so “Morgus said that Spectrox was the most valuable substance in the universe.” No he didn’t! But I’m nitpicking, and I’m doing that because there’s not an awful lot wrong with this episode.

Morgus meets the President, and there ensues another scene which nicely and economically develops character whilst engaging in some world building at the same time. Apparently Spectrox extends the human lifespan, and the war against Jek is to wrest control of the supply from him. But the President’s starting to go wobbly…

A flawless first episode. The master is back!

Part Two

“You have the mouth of a prattling jackanapes. But your eyes tell a different story…”

The Doctor and Peri are apparently shot, and Morgus and the President return to their discussion. Morgus is closing camps in the west, rendering his workers unemployed and so liable to slave labour in camps- which Morgus owns and is constructing more of in the east, so swapping waged workers for slave labour! How deliciously evil, and also how very ‘80s. I suspect Robert Holmes may not quite have been an ultra-Thatcherite.

The Doctor and Peri are, of course, alive, if not well, rescued by Jek, who starts to perv over Peri from the moment he meets her. Nicola Bryant plays Peri’s freaked out reaction to this very well indeed. We learn a lot about the mysterious masked Jek here; he wants Morgus’s head. My, and Morgus seemed such a nice chap to me.

We also meet the real Salateen, who in a brilliant piece of writing bursts out laughing before explaining to Peri and the Doctor that “You’re dying!” It seems that they’re suffering from Spectrox toxaemia, the only cure to which is the milk of a queen bat which lives in an area with no oxygen and guarded by fearsome beasts. The Doctor, being the Doctor, resolves to just escape and go and get some! Holmes writes for Davison’s Doctor with absolute perfection on his first go, easily as well if not better than all of his predecessors. And the great thing is, I suspect, he achieves this by just writing the Doctor as he always has and to hell with who might be playing him!

We end with a splendid rant from Morgus over his appearance, the Doctor leading an escape but being rendered unconscious, and Salateen moving off with Peri. The closing scene shows the Doctor about to be attacked by the, er, fearsome magma beast.

Part Three

“I owe it to my friend because I got her into this. So you see, I’m not going to let you stop me now.”

The real Salateen arrives back at Chellak’s HQ, and proceeds to reveal to Chellak what a complete and utter twonk he’s been, with the robot Salateen having ensured Jek’s known of his every move for months. Fortunately, the real Salateen is now on hand to “advise” on what to do.

Jek abandons the Doctor to the gun-runners, who want to “interrogate” him back on Major. And if that’s not bad enough, he’s now entering the third stage of Spectrox toxaemia! But even while held captive in Stotz’s ship the Doctor has the effect of a catalyst on the plot; Morgus, now revealed to be the gun-runners’ mysterious supplier, becomes paranoid at the appearance of the Doctor, and begins to think the President may be plotting against him. So, in a brilliant scene, he casually assassinates the President! Just to finish the scene, he casually remarks to Timmin “And have the lift maintenance engineer shot.”

Jek is notably cagey with Peri about his complicity in abandoning the Doctor to Stotz’s mercenaries, and in his guilt he lashes out by having another bit of a rant. These scenes work brilliantly, with both Bryant and Christopher Gable playing their parts to perfection.

But the cliffhanger- surely the Davison Doctor’s greatest ever moment?

Part Four

“What’s happened?”

“Change, my dear. And it seems not a moment too soon.”

The Doctor crash-lands the ship, escapes, and begins an epic chase from Stotz and co- nothing’s going to stop him from saving Peri’s life. Fittingly, this often passive Doctor gets to be truly heroic throughout his final episode; battling against overwhelming odds to save his friend from the dangers he himself exposed her to. After an epic chase, he seems to be caught, but a mud-blast saves him; from now on the mud-blasts become increasingly frequent, mirroring the frenetic series of events that follow.

Stotz and co return to their ship to find- Morgus, here to lie low in case he’s under suspicion and wanting in on the Spectrox. But once again the tables are turned as he speaks to Timmin on screen; Timmin has betrayed Morgus, he’s a wanted man, and even his fortune has been seized! Now that’s bloody good plotting from the esteemed Mr Holmes.

More stuff happens; Chellak closes in on Jek, Morgus and Stotz agree to go on and split the Spectrox between them, and in another brilliant twist Stotz walks back and guns down his former comrades.

It’s fascinating seeing Jek’s hold over Peri weaken throughout this episode- with Peri now very ill, he can no longer terrify her. There’s a great moment where, following Jek’s tussle with Chellak, Peri sees Jek’s face, screams, and then Jek falls to his knees and wails. Suddenly it is she who seems to have power over him. Indeed, as the Doctor arrives Jek is as helpful as he can be as the Doctor resolves to collect some bat’s milk.

We end with Stotz shooting Jek, the android Salateen killing Stotz, Jek killing Morgus, and Jek finally dying in the android Salateen’s arms! But finally the Doctor carries Peri through the mud-blasts back to the TARDIS, although not without spilling some bats’ milk on the way. There’s enough for Peri, but the doctor slumps to the ground, asking “Is this death?”

This is possibly the finest regeneration sequence so far, better even than Logopolis. The doctor only says he “might” regenerate and it “feels different this time.” But we get a nice montage of companions- fittingly, the Fifth Doctor’s dying word is “Adric”- and a brilliant use of the Master, and then… it happens. And doesn’t it look great! Colin Baker gets a fantastic first few lines as we cut to the new Doctor’s face over the closing titles…

Not only is this a 5/5, but it’s taken the top spot from City of Death. Ridiculously good, perfect in all ways.