I'm a little late to this party - but then I'm a little late to most parties it seems, hence a lot of my recent reading. Mark Gatiss has now written three Lucifer Box novels and I've only just picked up the first one. Shame on me!
The Vesuvius Club is quite simply wonderful. It has charm, texture, pace, twists, intrigue, sex and all sorts of Edwardian weather in it. As with much of Arthur Conan Doyle's and Jules Verne's outputs, the types of settings are so familiar to us that we'll willingly paint in background detail to dress the scenes, regardless of whether we've encountered London or Naples from a century ago or seen a steampunk uber-villain's lair under a volcano. As readers at times we can be very easily manipulated by a good writer, and Gatiss is an excellent writer.
His prose flows, and the sharp jabs of wit don't become too wearing on the patience (which is my main gripe with Oscar Wilde, I must say). It's cocky, confident, utterly hilarious at times and also surprisingly violent at others - surprising because it's often thrown in as an aside, or unexpectedly with a kind of careless abandon. A number of instances rather turned my stomach (I have a weak constitution at times!) and caused me to re-read them in case I'd misunderstood or overlooked an action leading up to it - which invariably I hadn't. But this is both a defining aspect of the main character and a way to keep the readers on their toes.
The story relies a lot on coincidence, and Box himself relies a lot on luck. These are not problems. This is not a social commentary novel or a pretence at realism, no matter how authenticly Gatiss has written it for the period. In fact one constantly expects all aspects of the story to be tied in together somehow. Box is unrepentantly upper class and has no qualms about the tasks he is given to perform. You often love him and loath him at the same time, although thanks to his wit, charm and style you can't help but love him more often than not.
Part of the playfulness of the text and our immediate simultaneous loving and loathing of the main character is that as readers we condition ourselves not to trust anyone. We want Box to succeed, somehow, but it wouldn't surprise us if everyone turns out to be out to get him at some point. In this we are largely not disappointed, I must say.
Gatiss clearly had fun with names - Lucifer Box, Tom Bowler, Bella Pok and various others. He gets away with it because he doesn't draw attention to it and it's all so in keeping with the general style of the piece. That's why Dickens got away with slightly daft or representative names for some of his characters too - as soon as someone in a book observes that another has a silly name you've broken the spell and suddenly everyone has to be George Smith or Brenda Taylor, not Cretaceous Unmann or Anne Chickenstalker.
Mark may not have intended it this way, but I couldn't help reading the book with the kind of voice and delivery he himself gives when recounting 'The Curse of Karrit Poor' as a Jackanory story on one of the extras on The League of Gentlemen's Christmas Special DVD.
As a fellow Doctor Who fan I wasn't looking out for influences any more than I might have looked out for Sherlock Holmes influences, although I couldn't help thinking that the metal-helmetted slaves owe much to the Robomen from The Dalek Invasion of Earth (1964) and Mark seems to have discreetly borrowed aspects of that ultimately silly story premise and combined them with another equally silly premise from the 1967 story The Underwater Menace to threaten all of Italy with molten lava at the whim of some mad genius.
Having gushed awfully about this book I will add, though, that although I loved it I didn't finish it desperate to pick up the next in the series. Lucifer Box is a character best dipped into now and again (pun possibly intended) and I think he would try the reader's patience if over-exposed. I fully intend to read The Devil In Amber and Black Butterfly in due course, but not straight away.
Tuesday, 28 August 2012
Tuesday, 21 August 2012
Al Capone, Vampires and Sherlock Holmes, the eclectic world of the New (and Missing!) Adventures...
I continue my journey through Virgin's early 1990's Doctor Who 'New Adventures' novel series, featuring the 7th Doctor, with occasional dips into the sister series 'Missing Adventures' featuring Doctors 1-6. I posted a while back about the range up to Gareth Roberts' Tragedy Day, but I don't intend to cover each novel in either series in depth, merely to pick and choose.
Legacy is probably my favourite of Gary Russell's early novels, although his McCoy felt much more like Troughton to me (curiously unlike his Troughton in Invasion of the Cat-People!). Justin Richards' Theatre of War wasn't anywhere near as bad as some online reviews had led me to believe, and whilst obviously not up to the standard of his later work it was an enjoyable read all the same.
Next up was a book I'd been looking forward to reading for some time now: Andy Lane's All Consuming Fire. I've only recently re-kindled my affection for Sherlock Holmes and having thoroughly enjoyed the depiction of Conan Doyle in the 4th Doctor 'Missing Adventure' Evolution (by John Peel) I was intrigued to find this novel treating Holmes & Watson as real people in a tale told as if it were a Holmes story, near enough. Early on I found myself questioning if I really wanted these two worlds to be brought together. What could they offer each other? How would one compliment or enlighten the other? To be perfectly honest I don't think it works. Holmes and the Doctor don't get on - but not in the same way that the Doctor doesn't get on with his other selves, so it's an uneven clash that does neither character any favours. Consequently for periods each has to be side-lined while the other does what's needed for the purposes of story development. Watson and Bernice are consistent throughout and have clear roles to fill, whoever they're working with. Ace is used as a kind of guerilla enigma and by the time she enters both Holmes and Watson are so far out of their depth that you can't imagine either of them ending up without some sort of resultant breakdown or psychiatric trouble. And there's the rub: this works as a Doctor Who story, but as a Sherlock Holmes story it's too far fetched to fit in with the canonical works. Lane makes a good stab at staying faithful to Conan Doyle's style through Watson's narrative passages but as with Anthony Horowitz's The House of Silk you can't avoid observing the more detailed and exact, knowing prose of a modern author as opposed to Doyle's often broad brush-stroke (yet effective and economic) approach. I just wonder how it might have been if Holmes and the Doctor got on really well and it was Watson who was suspicious and mis-trusting of him instead..?
It's not quite a fan-gasm piece, but I'm wary of takes where fictional worlds collide. After all, how many of us would like to see Miss Marple aboard the Liberator, or Father Dowling accompanying the away party from the USS Enterprise..?!
I was equally looking forward to Terrance Dicks' Blood Harvest next, not least because even if Dicks' work isn't always the most in-depth it's always immensely readable. Also this was the point where the 'Missing Adventures' came into being and Blood Harvest was a prequel / sequel (literary time paradox alert!) to Paul Cornell's opening 5th Doctor MA Goth Opera. Despite Peter Darvill-Evans' claims in the introduction to Goth Opera I don't believe either book would be as rewarding if read in isolation - particularly with what they both add to Time Lord mythology - and I'm glad I looked at them as a two book 'special'.
Once I'd got used to the 1930s Chicago cliches and atmosphere in Blood Harvest, my main issue with it was the same as my issue with the 4th Doctor section of the BBC EDA novel The Eight Doctors: Dicks seems to feel he wasted an opportunity with State of Decay on TV and wants to give the planet more people and more of a society. So it's no longer just the one settlement and the three who rule, there's more Lords and peasant settlements out there, and possibly more vampires too. This really undermines a lot of the setting and appeal of the TV story and the horror from the locals that there could be anyone else on the planet except themselves and their Lords.
Dicks tells an atmospheric story, split betwen Chicago and E-Space, although what comes across as period charm and character development may read to some as mere padding before the story gets anywhere exciting. You can't deny that there's a real feeling that Dicks loves the subject, and loves what he does, and this really comes across on the page. I've nothing to reference his Al Capone or the Chicago gangland culture against (it's never really interested me, I'll admit) but it reads as authenticly as the subject and genre requires, whether it's cod or not. Blood Harvest may not be his best work by a long shot, but it's perfectly readable and enjoyable nontheless.
The end teases the reader gently into Goth Opera, and the blood-filled arms of Virgin's golden boy Paul Cornell.
It's obvious from the start that Cornell writes brilliantly for the 5th Doctor as well as Nyssa and Tegan. In fact Tegan may have come across as a less objectional character at times, and with necessary humour, if she'd been annotated on screen the way Cornell justifies and excuses some of her more forthright outbursts on the page. I'm rather surprised that Cornell didn't write any further 5th Doctor novels as he's clearly fond of the team and had thought a great deal about how to use them most effectively, how to play to their individual strengths, how to give them all something meaningful to do in the story and how to involve cricket!
Goth Opera achieves its aim to evoke the mid-Davison era whilst also confidently taking the story and its settings beyond what could have been achieved on TV at the time or indeed would have been deemed suitable for broadcast at the time. It opens the 'Missing Adventures' series in a non-taxing way with quite a short read (considering how long some of the recent NAs had been) but I can't help wondering if Terrance Dicks had got to the point in Blood Harvest earlier maybe both stories could have been combined as one? therein I think they are inextricably joined. I enjoyed both books, but at times I wondered if there was a strong or focussed enough story driving through the middle of both of them, and in Goth Opera particularly there are a lot of side distractions and procrastinating passages which maybe add context and build mythos but don't drive anything forward necessarily.
One stortelling aspect they share is that both authors are careful to present balanced arguments with sympathetic characters and points of view on both sides of the coin. This is worthy of note and praise.
On the whole the books in this post have been varied and rewarding and both the NA & MA ranges seem to have hit a regular high standard of writing, story-telling and characterisation. I'm looking forward to Simon Messingham's Strange England already...
Legacy is probably my favourite of Gary Russell's early novels, although his McCoy felt much more like Troughton to me (curiously unlike his Troughton in Invasion of the Cat-People!). Justin Richards' Theatre of War wasn't anywhere near as bad as some online reviews had led me to believe, and whilst obviously not up to the standard of his later work it was an enjoyable read all the same.
Next up was a book I'd been looking forward to reading for some time now: Andy Lane's All Consuming Fire. I've only recently re-kindled my affection for Sherlock Holmes and having thoroughly enjoyed the depiction of Conan Doyle in the 4th Doctor 'Missing Adventure' Evolution (by John Peel) I was intrigued to find this novel treating Holmes & Watson as real people in a tale told as if it were a Holmes story, near enough. Early on I found myself questioning if I really wanted these two worlds to be brought together. What could they offer each other? How would one compliment or enlighten the other? To be perfectly honest I don't think it works. Holmes and the Doctor don't get on - but not in the same way that the Doctor doesn't get on with his other selves, so it's an uneven clash that does neither character any favours. Consequently for periods each has to be side-lined while the other does what's needed for the purposes of story development. Watson and Bernice are consistent throughout and have clear roles to fill, whoever they're working with. Ace is used as a kind of guerilla enigma and by the time she enters both Holmes and Watson are so far out of their depth that you can't imagine either of them ending up without some sort of resultant breakdown or psychiatric trouble. And there's the rub: this works as a Doctor Who story, but as a Sherlock Holmes story it's too far fetched to fit in with the canonical works. Lane makes a good stab at staying faithful to Conan Doyle's style through Watson's narrative passages but as with Anthony Horowitz's The House of Silk you can't avoid observing the more detailed and exact, knowing prose of a modern author as opposed to Doyle's often broad brush-stroke (yet effective and economic) approach. I just wonder how it might have been if Holmes and the Doctor got on really well and it was Watson who was suspicious and mis-trusting of him instead..?
It's not quite a fan-gasm piece, but I'm wary of takes where fictional worlds collide. After all, how many of us would like to see Miss Marple aboard the Liberator, or Father Dowling accompanying the away party from the USS Enterprise..?!
I was equally looking forward to Terrance Dicks' Blood Harvest next, not least because even if Dicks' work isn't always the most in-depth it's always immensely readable. Also this was the point where the 'Missing Adventures' came into being and Blood Harvest was a prequel / sequel (literary time paradox alert!) to Paul Cornell's opening 5th Doctor MA Goth Opera. Despite Peter Darvill-Evans' claims in the introduction to Goth Opera I don't believe either book would be as rewarding if read in isolation - particularly with what they both add to Time Lord mythology - and I'm glad I looked at them as a two book 'special'.
Once I'd got used to the 1930s Chicago cliches and atmosphere in Blood Harvest, my main issue with it was the same as my issue with the 4th Doctor section of the BBC EDA novel The Eight Doctors: Dicks seems to feel he wasted an opportunity with State of Decay on TV and wants to give the planet more people and more of a society. So it's no longer just the one settlement and the three who rule, there's more Lords and peasant settlements out there, and possibly more vampires too. This really undermines a lot of the setting and appeal of the TV story and the horror from the locals that there could be anyone else on the planet except themselves and their Lords.
Dicks tells an atmospheric story, split betwen Chicago and E-Space, although what comes across as period charm and character development may read to some as mere padding before the story gets anywhere exciting. You can't deny that there's a real feeling that Dicks loves the subject, and loves what he does, and this really comes across on the page. I've nothing to reference his Al Capone or the Chicago gangland culture against (it's never really interested me, I'll admit) but it reads as authenticly as the subject and genre requires, whether it's cod or not. Blood Harvest may not be his best work by a long shot, but it's perfectly readable and enjoyable nontheless.
The end teases the reader gently into Goth Opera, and the blood-filled arms of Virgin's golden boy Paul Cornell.
It's obvious from the start that Cornell writes brilliantly for the 5th Doctor as well as Nyssa and Tegan. In fact Tegan may have come across as a less objectional character at times, and with necessary humour, if she'd been annotated on screen the way Cornell justifies and excuses some of her more forthright outbursts on the page. I'm rather surprised that Cornell didn't write any further 5th Doctor novels as he's clearly fond of the team and had thought a great deal about how to use them most effectively, how to play to their individual strengths, how to give them all something meaningful to do in the story and how to involve cricket!
Goth Opera achieves its aim to evoke the mid-Davison era whilst also confidently taking the story and its settings beyond what could have been achieved on TV at the time or indeed would have been deemed suitable for broadcast at the time. It opens the 'Missing Adventures' series in a non-taxing way with quite a short read (considering how long some of the recent NAs had been) but I can't help wondering if Terrance Dicks had got to the point in Blood Harvest earlier maybe both stories could have been combined as one? therein I think they are inextricably joined. I enjoyed both books, but at times I wondered if there was a strong or focussed enough story driving through the middle of both of them, and in Goth Opera particularly there are a lot of side distractions and procrastinating passages which maybe add context and build mythos but don't drive anything forward necessarily.
One stortelling aspect they share is that both authors are careful to present balanced arguments with sympathetic characters and points of view on both sides of the coin. This is worthy of note and praise.
On the whole the books in this post have been varied and rewarding and both the NA & MA ranges seem to have hit a regular high standard of writing, story-telling and characterisation. I'm looking forward to Simon Messingham's Strange England already...
Tuesday, 14 August 2012
A Mary Tamm trilogy: Romana outside the Key to Time
A while back I finally finished collecting the Virgin Doctor Who 'Missing Adventures' novels and the BBC 'Past Doctor Adventures' that I'd earmarked as wanting to read (not all of them, I hasten to add!) I'd planned in most cases to take a Doctor at a time and read all their 'additional' stories. Like most of my plans this has gone out of the window for a variety of reasons. I started well with the Sixth Doctor stories and then moved back to the Fourth Doctor books, getting through to Peter Darvill-Evans' Asylum before finding I could take no more - what a dreadful novel from someone who enabled such wonderful new ideas in the dead years of the early 90s.
Anyway, since then I've skipped to the Season 17 novels, back to the Liz Shaw novels when Caroline John passed away and now in light of the recent death of Mary Tamm I've checked out the Romana MkI books - three stories that I've rather fancied reading for some time now.
What a mixed bag!
Because of the enclosed nature of the season in which Mary Tamm's Romana appeared, extra stories featuring her have to be shoe-horned in without giving the impression that the Key to Time quest wasn't a priority. Two of these stories tackle that, the other just doesn't even bother to try. The biggest shame, I feel, is that having had some excellent stories on TV the novels are a let down by comparison.
Tomb of Valdemar, by Simon Messingham. Set between The Ribos Operation and The Pirate Planet. Romana is still very new in this book, but rather than look to develop her or focus on her 'newness' Messingham just sidelines her into a teenage fantasy, a pawn in the story rather than a player. The whole book feels like a short story that's been stretched to novel length. There's repitition, procrastination, lack of pace and drama. Having said that the author is clearly trying to do something different from the norm by framing his story within another story, but I didn't feel that this brought sufficient charm or interest to it and at times the breaking up of the narrative was unnecessarily disruptive. It shows the Doctor's curiosity dragging him away from the Key to Time quest, but I think similarly to the first two TV stories that season the author doesn't quite know how best to use Romana beyond being a cypher. Although this may keep it faithful to the TV show I still think it's a shameful waste of a great character in a medium not bound by the same limits.
The Shadow of Weng-Chiang, by David A McIntee. Set between The Stones of Blood and The Androids of Tara. This was better, and longer - possibly a little too long actually. It's a decent enough book and McIntee's material is always well-written and crafted, but it just didn't really grab me as particularly interesting so after 300 pages I wasn't sorry to see it the back of it. The author uses Romana much more effectively, and she is a practical, active member of the story reacting as well as acting and driving the story onwards. I like the fact that the tracer signal is being muddied by the goings on, preventing them from getting to the fourth segment until this has been dealt with - a neat concept. Over all I wanted to like this book more than I did, and I can only think it comes down to personal taste in that the story and the setting just didn't really appeal to me.
Heart of TARDIS, by Dave Stone. Set between The Stones of Blood and The Androids of Tara but presumably just after The Shadow of Weng-Chiang since Romana is still wearing the same costume. There's no attempt here to even pretend that the Doctor and Romana aren't just bored of the Key to Time quest and are having some 'time off' to do other things, as they decline a mission for the Time Lords and go off to rescue the Brigadier instead. This book also features the Second Doctor, Jamie and Victoria in a related adventure set for them between The Tomb of The Cybermen and The Abominable Snowmen. I probably enjoyed this book the most out of the three, although at times it was very frustrating and Stone clearly thinks he's a lot wittier and funnier than he actually is. Drawing on Simpsons characters as well as other cult TV shows (such as The Professionals) for no other reason than them being there for people to spot is lazy and misleading. Give the reader a pay-off or create your own characters, basically. When the author stopped trying to be clever the narrative was actually very pacy and enjoyable - if a tad confusing at times. Alas, I've still to find an author who can do justice to Troughton in book form. There were a few instances where I couldn't tell if it was the Second or Fourth Doctors talking (they never actually meet in the book) and that's a crucial fail. Because of the multi-Doctor nature the two separate 'teams' tend to go around together, so Romana doesn't get much in the way of her own action here away from the Doctor other than the standard capture and rescue scenario, but the character is still better used and better imagined than in Tomb of Valdemar.
This trilogy outside the Key to Time is an up and down affair. None are as good as The Romance of Crime, but also none are anywhere near as bad as Asylum. Romana would be better written and better used in print as Lalla Ward's incarnation and I was disappointed to find that, unlike with Caroline John & Liz Shaw, the spin-off books didn't give Mary Tamm's Romana an extra edge or dimension to take her beyond the TV screen and duly respect the craft and ability hinted at by Tamm but not necessarily developed to its full potential due to the restrictions of the format and the confines of it's production. Maybe the future can redress that balance instead.
Anyway, since then I've skipped to the Season 17 novels, back to the Liz Shaw novels when Caroline John passed away and now in light of the recent death of Mary Tamm I've checked out the Romana MkI books - three stories that I've rather fancied reading for some time now.
What a mixed bag!
Because of the enclosed nature of the season in which Mary Tamm's Romana appeared, extra stories featuring her have to be shoe-horned in without giving the impression that the Key to Time quest wasn't a priority. Two of these stories tackle that, the other just doesn't even bother to try. The biggest shame, I feel, is that having had some excellent stories on TV the novels are a let down by comparison.
Tomb of Valdemar, by Simon Messingham. Set between The Ribos Operation and The Pirate Planet. Romana is still very new in this book, but rather than look to develop her or focus on her 'newness' Messingham just sidelines her into a teenage fantasy, a pawn in the story rather than a player. The whole book feels like a short story that's been stretched to novel length. There's repitition, procrastination, lack of pace and drama. Having said that the author is clearly trying to do something different from the norm by framing his story within another story, but I didn't feel that this brought sufficient charm or interest to it and at times the breaking up of the narrative was unnecessarily disruptive. It shows the Doctor's curiosity dragging him away from the Key to Time quest, but I think similarly to the first two TV stories that season the author doesn't quite know how best to use Romana beyond being a cypher. Although this may keep it faithful to the TV show I still think it's a shameful waste of a great character in a medium not bound by the same limits.
The Shadow of Weng-Chiang, by David A McIntee. Set between The Stones of Blood and The Androids of Tara. This was better, and longer - possibly a little too long actually. It's a decent enough book and McIntee's material is always well-written and crafted, but it just didn't really grab me as particularly interesting so after 300 pages I wasn't sorry to see it the back of it. The author uses Romana much more effectively, and she is a practical, active member of the story reacting as well as acting and driving the story onwards. I like the fact that the tracer signal is being muddied by the goings on, preventing them from getting to the fourth segment until this has been dealt with - a neat concept. Over all I wanted to like this book more than I did, and I can only think it comes down to personal taste in that the story and the setting just didn't really appeal to me.
Heart of TARDIS, by Dave Stone. Set between The Stones of Blood and The Androids of Tara but presumably just after The Shadow of Weng-Chiang since Romana is still wearing the same costume. There's no attempt here to even pretend that the Doctor and Romana aren't just bored of the Key to Time quest and are having some 'time off' to do other things, as they decline a mission for the Time Lords and go off to rescue the Brigadier instead. This book also features the Second Doctor, Jamie and Victoria in a related adventure set for them between The Tomb of The Cybermen and The Abominable Snowmen. I probably enjoyed this book the most out of the three, although at times it was very frustrating and Stone clearly thinks he's a lot wittier and funnier than he actually is. Drawing on Simpsons characters as well as other cult TV shows (such as The Professionals) for no other reason than them being there for people to spot is lazy and misleading. Give the reader a pay-off or create your own characters, basically. When the author stopped trying to be clever the narrative was actually very pacy and enjoyable - if a tad confusing at times. Alas, I've still to find an author who can do justice to Troughton in book form. There were a few instances where I couldn't tell if it was the Second or Fourth Doctors talking (they never actually meet in the book) and that's a crucial fail. Because of the multi-Doctor nature the two separate 'teams' tend to go around together, so Romana doesn't get much in the way of her own action here away from the Doctor other than the standard capture and rescue scenario, but the character is still better used and better imagined than in Tomb of Valdemar.
This trilogy outside the Key to Time is an up and down affair. None are as good as The Romance of Crime, but also none are anywhere near as bad as Asylum. Romana would be better written and better used in print as Lalla Ward's incarnation and I was disappointed to find that, unlike with Caroline John & Liz Shaw, the spin-off books didn't give Mary Tamm's Romana an extra edge or dimension to take her beyond the TV screen and duly respect the craft and ability hinted at by Tamm but not necessarily developed to its full potential due to the restrictions of the format and the confines of it's production. Maybe the future can redress that balance instead.
Saturday, 11 August 2012
BBC Radio's The Lord of the Rings - or just lord of the fruity theatrical voices?
It's taken me far too long, but I've finally finished listening to the hefty 13-part BBC Radio adaptation of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings from 1981. That's not in itself a criticism of the series, more about the amount of time I have available for listening to things!
I'd posted about the early episodes some months back on this Blog http://viewsfromthesecondfloor.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/lord-of-sounds.html
and in the main my thoughts then stayed the same throughout, which is somewhat disappointing.
The production does get more adventurous towards the end, with excellent use of song to describe the battle of Pelennor Fields as a variation from Gerard Murphy's (otherwise excellent) narration when they felt they couldn't present a full-on battle in sound only without confusing the audience. The battle of Helm's Deep in the 'Two Towers' section was less convincing, though. On the acting side Bill Nighy really shines through as Sam Gamgee and Michael Hordern is simply brilliant as Galdalf.
On the whole, though, I think my major criticism of the whole production is that it's too theatrical - or should I say too staged. I didn't feel that it was using the medium of radio to its best effect. The scenes are definitely scenes in the theatrical sense with narratorial gaps in between, making it stilted at times when it should be flowing and sucking in the listener, keeping him there.
Sound effects are only used when they're obviously needed, there's no background soundscape there to maintain pace or atmosphere. Similarly a lot of the more supernatural character voices are not treated. They're well performed, but they come across as bombastic at times, like they've gathered together some of the most fruity and 'listenable-to' actors and hoped that the quality of their voices would be enough. I think more could definitely have been done with Treebeard, the Witch-King of Angmar and the Mouth of Sauron in particular. Probably the biggest shame for me was Robert Stephens as Aragorn. Yes, the man has a wonderful voice - he's brilliant as the villainous Abner Brown in The Box of Delights, for example - but it's all precision line delivery, I never picked up any real emotion or passion behind it, and he sounds more like a senior civil servant than a tough ranger. Jack May's Theoden is similar, although thankfully he lets his hair down and comes good at the end for his final scenes in the battle of Pelennor Fields. Peter Vaughan, on the other hand, is clearly giving Denethor some thought and he comes across well as a tired, possessive and broken old man
Unfortunately for me Ian Holm also falls into this category of delivery over 'humanity', making him seem slightly distanced from the action a lot of the time. There's a sudden change in him towards the end where his intensity increases and you get a real sense of his suffering, but I would have preferred a more gradual degradation. This is particularly noticeable next to Bill Nighy's Sam, who displays subtlety and character throughout.
The ending was always going to be tricky. It was an issue for the films and it's an issue here in the radio adaptation too. It's not so much an issue in the book, but it is a great example of the way the different media work. When you read a story (novel, book, ongoing saga) you know it ends when you get to the last page. An author wouldn't necessarily end their novel on a dramatic highpoint, there's usually a bit of tidying up to be done first, and that's an accepted norm. In performance media it's not so important - you can leave the audience guessing on certain matters without incurring their wrath. The problem with The Lord of The Rings is that the title is unclear - who is the lord of the rings? Sauron? Frodo? The one ring itself? If it's the ring or Sauron their story ends on Mount Doom, but there's fifty-odd pages left to read after that (not including the appendices!). Frodo and Sam being rescued after is enough, and the audience could be left to assume that everyone else ends happily too, with the big nasty baddie gone forever. That's certainly the case with the film, recalling the groans from unsuspecting cinema audiences as yet another scene followed a blackout - and that was without all the Shire business at the end that Jackson cut out.
If Frodo himself is actually the lord of the rings, then the story should end with him. But he doesn't 'master' the ring in the end, and besides the story ends with Sam. Oh.
The scouring of the Shire with the petty, fallen Saruman and Worm-tongue, after everything's been tidied up in Gondor, works in the book because it's part of Book VI and you can see that it doesn't end till it ends. Film works differently, so the scouring needed to be cut, but there's still a number of addenda scenes to finish of the Hobbits' tale and it's arguable how necessary these were. The same goes for radio in my opinion. The whole of the thirteenth episode is such a come-down after the intense dramatics of Mount Doom that it felt tagged on and I found myself getting frustrated with it and willing it to end. It wasn't interesting or adding any value to the story for me as a listener, it was only rounding off the characters. But as a book I've never had a problem with those final sections. I think that just shows the different powers of the different media and why it's not always wise to faithfully follow all aspects of a book in adaptation.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it - I wouldn't have put myself through thirteen fifty minutes if I hadn't, but I think I was more curious about it than anything. I do think they could have done it better, though, and made more of it's radio-ness and less of it's audiobook-ness. Maybe next time I'll enjoy it a bit more, already knowing what I'm going to get? But it won't be for a while, and I might try to read the books again first. In the meantime Peter Jackson's giving us a three-film adaptation of The Hobbit. Three films?! Oh lord...
I'd posted about the early episodes some months back on this Blog http://viewsfromthesecondfloor.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/lord-of-sounds.html
and in the main my thoughts then stayed the same throughout, which is somewhat disappointing.
The production does get more adventurous towards the end, with excellent use of song to describe the battle of Pelennor Fields as a variation from Gerard Murphy's (otherwise excellent) narration when they felt they couldn't present a full-on battle in sound only without confusing the audience. The battle of Helm's Deep in the 'Two Towers' section was less convincing, though. On the acting side Bill Nighy really shines through as Sam Gamgee and Michael Hordern is simply brilliant as Galdalf.
On the whole, though, I think my major criticism of the whole production is that it's too theatrical - or should I say too staged. I didn't feel that it was using the medium of radio to its best effect. The scenes are definitely scenes in the theatrical sense with narratorial gaps in between, making it stilted at times when it should be flowing and sucking in the listener, keeping him there.
Sound effects are only used when they're obviously needed, there's no background soundscape there to maintain pace or atmosphere. Similarly a lot of the more supernatural character voices are not treated. They're well performed, but they come across as bombastic at times, like they've gathered together some of the most fruity and 'listenable-to' actors and hoped that the quality of their voices would be enough. I think more could definitely have been done with Treebeard, the Witch-King of Angmar and the Mouth of Sauron in particular. Probably the biggest shame for me was Robert Stephens as Aragorn. Yes, the man has a wonderful voice - he's brilliant as the villainous Abner Brown in The Box of Delights, for example - but it's all precision line delivery, I never picked up any real emotion or passion behind it, and he sounds more like a senior civil servant than a tough ranger. Jack May's Theoden is similar, although thankfully he lets his hair down and comes good at the end for his final scenes in the battle of Pelennor Fields. Peter Vaughan, on the other hand, is clearly giving Denethor some thought and he comes across well as a tired, possessive and broken old man
Unfortunately for me Ian Holm also falls into this category of delivery over 'humanity', making him seem slightly distanced from the action a lot of the time. There's a sudden change in him towards the end where his intensity increases and you get a real sense of his suffering, but I would have preferred a more gradual degradation. This is particularly noticeable next to Bill Nighy's Sam, who displays subtlety and character throughout.
The ending was always going to be tricky. It was an issue for the films and it's an issue here in the radio adaptation too. It's not so much an issue in the book, but it is a great example of the way the different media work. When you read a story (novel, book, ongoing saga) you know it ends when you get to the last page. An author wouldn't necessarily end their novel on a dramatic highpoint, there's usually a bit of tidying up to be done first, and that's an accepted norm. In performance media it's not so important - you can leave the audience guessing on certain matters without incurring their wrath. The problem with The Lord of The Rings is that the title is unclear - who is the lord of the rings? Sauron? Frodo? The one ring itself? If it's the ring or Sauron their story ends on Mount Doom, but there's fifty-odd pages left to read after that (not including the appendices!). Frodo and Sam being rescued after is enough, and the audience could be left to assume that everyone else ends happily too, with the big nasty baddie gone forever. That's certainly the case with the film, recalling the groans from unsuspecting cinema audiences as yet another scene followed a blackout - and that was without all the Shire business at the end that Jackson cut out.
If Frodo himself is actually the lord of the rings, then the story should end with him. But he doesn't 'master' the ring in the end, and besides the story ends with Sam. Oh.
The scouring of the Shire with the petty, fallen Saruman and Worm-tongue, after everything's been tidied up in Gondor, works in the book because it's part of Book VI and you can see that it doesn't end till it ends. Film works differently, so the scouring needed to be cut, but there's still a number of addenda scenes to finish of the Hobbits' tale and it's arguable how necessary these were. The same goes for radio in my opinion. The whole of the thirteenth episode is such a come-down after the intense dramatics of Mount Doom that it felt tagged on and I found myself getting frustrated with it and willing it to end. It wasn't interesting or adding any value to the story for me as a listener, it was only rounding off the characters. But as a book I've never had a problem with those final sections. I think that just shows the different powers of the different media and why it's not always wise to faithfully follow all aspects of a book in adaptation.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it - I wouldn't have put myself through thirteen fifty minutes if I hadn't, but I think I was more curious about it than anything. I do think they could have done it better, though, and made more of it's radio-ness and less of it's audiobook-ness. Maybe next time I'll enjoy it a bit more, already knowing what I'm going to get? But it won't be for a while, and I might try to read the books again first. In the meantime Peter Jackson's giving us a three-film adaptation of The Hobbit. Three films?! Oh lord...
Sunday, 5 August 2012
Slam Dunk Media, scraping the Peter Sellers barrel
I've just made my way through the three films that comprise Slam Dunk Media's DVD box set The Peter Sellers Collection. For your money and your pains you get Orders Are Orders (1954), Where Does It Hurt? (1973) and The Blockhouse (1973). I won't lie, it's almost entirely dreadful. I also won't lie that I bought it solely because I wanted to see The Blockhouse and it's the only DVD I'll be keeping - the others can grace the shelves of a local charity shop.
Like most people I was introduced to Peter Sellers through the Pink Panther films and then rolled back to The Goons. Sellers is one of those iconic actors who get passed from generation to generation as an established comedy genius. Some years back now I got very interested in Sellers and started looking at his work beyond radio and the Blake Edwards films. I also read Roger Lewis's biography - a thorough and unforgiving tome after which I don't believe it's possible to view Sellers or his work in quite the same way again. It affected me greatly and I got put off the man, not having viewed that much of his offerings but at least having covered Casino Royale, Doctor Strangelove and Being There. I recalled The Blockhouse very clearly from Lewis' biography as a brilliant oddity so it was a film I purchased immediately upon finding it had been released. It's taken me some time to find myself in the mood to tackle it.
To take the films in this set in chronological order:
Orders Are Orders: I left this one till last, because on the face of it this looks like a cracker. It's purging the BBC radio comedy talent of the time with Tony Hancock, Sid James, Peter Sellers and a bit of Eric Sykes both as a cameo cymballist and taking credit for writing additional material. It's Sellers first proper, non-Goon film and you really want it to be great, but on the whole it's terrible. It's difficult to know if it's the script, the direction or the actors that make it so unfunny, but thank heaven it's only 74 minutes long. Sellers is pretty good actually, and it's difficult not to be drawn to him when he appears, or see promise in him for larger roles. He's young and fat and apparently doing a slightly calmer version of his Goonish Bluebottle persona. Bill Fraser, with whom he shares all his scenes, is entirely forgettable which can only aid Sellers. Sid James is an energetic, brash and unfunny caricature. Tony Hancock is also awful in a part that should be hilarious. Perhaps he's mis-cast? He never did well on celluloid, after all. Most of the time he looks like he's waiting for the audience to laugh, so he can respond (a bit like Frankie Howerd) - not a good technique to use on film. Other than Sellers the only person who is worth watching is Clive Morton who swans in for the third act as a visiting General and appears to be having the time of his life. Too little too late though.
Having started with Sellers at the beginning of his film career the next offering, Where Does It Hurt?, sees him at a point where he was trying to mend his charred Hollywood reputation following a series of disasterous egotistical efforts and some heart problems. It's difficult to know where to start with this one so I'll begin with the one gag I liked: the Pepsi vending machine that isn't actually a vending machine and backs into Hopfnagel's (Sellers') bathroom where he collects the money instead. Nice. The other point worth making about this film is that it is the only one of the three that can justifiably be called a Peter Sellers film. The other two are really ensemble pieces and it's a shame to reduce them to one name as if he's the star. But here, though, Sellers is the star. He's given a cast of nondescript US TV-types to work with, the kind of faces you'd expect to see in supporting roles on Columbo or Perry Mason. They do a solid job but they're no threat to him. He swans through the piece with his Richard Nixon voice, fromage grin and brown shades, embodying early 70s Hollywood. It's an incredibly smug film considering how appalling it is. You can actually feel the schmaltzy grease oozing out of the screen as it plays. It comes from that fictional TV sitcom world of racial & cultural sterotypes, where medical malpractice is accepted, people don't have real conversations, love and passion can be summed up by a quick fumble in a linen cupboard and nobody seems to have any integrity beyond the flimsy walls of the set they're occupying. The viewer sits waiting for the corrupt Hopfnagel to get his comeuppance, and the longer it goes on the less funny it gets and the less satisfactory his comeuppance will be. It has no appeal as a film, and again we have to be thankful that it's only 85 minutes long.
The Blockhouse is a little longer (92 minutes) and is the only one of the three that doesn't claim to be a comedy. It's anything but - there is no light relief in this gruelling psychological masterpiece. I watched it first, which may explain why I was willing to give the others a chance after. If I'd viewed them in chronological order I'd have been desperate by this point. The Blockhouse is brilliant, bleak and totally unforgiving. Sellers and Charles Aznavour are the 'names' but it is so very much an ensemble piece it's a shame to put anyone's name forward. It sucks the viewer in and you feel just as claustrophbic as the seven POWs who find themselves hopelessly trapped in a Nazi store after a sudden pre-D-Day raid by Allied bombers. They have air, wine and food and candles aplenty. Slowly relationships gets strained, their sanity gets challenged, there is illness, some die. Sellers' suicide is so magnificently played, so pitch-perfect it's difficult to credit that this is the same actor who refused to do re-takes on Doctor Strangelove even when he'd caused his fellow actors to corpse, or brought Casino Royale to its knees with his ridiculous fears and demands. The finest moment for me comes when the final survivors realise they have only a handful of candles left from the dozens of boxes they started with. There are only three left alive at this time. Do they want to stay alive indefinitely but remain in total darkness, or is that not a life worth living? It's a tough decision and one that is left unanswered for two of them at the end.
Sellers himself was most proud of Being There. But The Blockhouse is easily his finest, subtlest dramatic performance and the film has a balance and integrity throughout that is possibly unmatched in any of his others. I think it is a shame and to his discredit that he didn't take on more of these serious roles.
This box set serves one purpose only. Someone has scraped around the Peter Sellers film barrel and found two pieces of utter trash that would never be marketable on their own, packaged them with the more desirable Blockhouse and sat back, their work done. That wouldn't be quite so bad if a little bit of care had been taken and it wasn't quite so obviously a total money-making exercise with no consideration to the film fan or viewer. Slam Dunk Media have obviously spared no expense in restoring these films in their DVD transfer. No expense. At all. Orders Are Orders is the worst, with jumps, drop-outs and scratches galore. It can't make a bad film good, but at least watching a well-presented print with good sound helps the viewing experience. A lazy effort all round.
Like most people I was introduced to Peter Sellers through the Pink Panther films and then rolled back to The Goons. Sellers is one of those iconic actors who get passed from generation to generation as an established comedy genius. Some years back now I got very interested in Sellers and started looking at his work beyond radio and the Blake Edwards films. I also read Roger Lewis's biography - a thorough and unforgiving tome after which I don't believe it's possible to view Sellers or his work in quite the same way again. It affected me greatly and I got put off the man, not having viewed that much of his offerings but at least having covered Casino Royale, Doctor Strangelove and Being There. I recalled The Blockhouse very clearly from Lewis' biography as a brilliant oddity so it was a film I purchased immediately upon finding it had been released. It's taken me some time to find myself in the mood to tackle it.
To take the films in this set in chronological order:
Orders Are Orders: I left this one till last, because on the face of it this looks like a cracker. It's purging the BBC radio comedy talent of the time with Tony Hancock, Sid James, Peter Sellers and a bit of Eric Sykes both as a cameo cymballist and taking credit for writing additional material. It's Sellers first proper, non-Goon film and you really want it to be great, but on the whole it's terrible. It's difficult to know if it's the script, the direction or the actors that make it so unfunny, but thank heaven it's only 74 minutes long. Sellers is pretty good actually, and it's difficult not to be drawn to him when he appears, or see promise in him for larger roles. He's young and fat and apparently doing a slightly calmer version of his Goonish Bluebottle persona. Bill Fraser, with whom he shares all his scenes, is entirely forgettable which can only aid Sellers. Sid James is an energetic, brash and unfunny caricature. Tony Hancock is also awful in a part that should be hilarious. Perhaps he's mis-cast? He never did well on celluloid, after all. Most of the time he looks like he's waiting for the audience to laugh, so he can respond (a bit like Frankie Howerd) - not a good technique to use on film. Other than Sellers the only person who is worth watching is Clive Morton who swans in for the third act as a visiting General and appears to be having the time of his life. Too little too late though.
Having started with Sellers at the beginning of his film career the next offering, Where Does It Hurt?, sees him at a point where he was trying to mend his charred Hollywood reputation following a series of disasterous egotistical efforts and some heart problems. It's difficult to know where to start with this one so I'll begin with the one gag I liked: the Pepsi vending machine that isn't actually a vending machine and backs into Hopfnagel's (Sellers') bathroom where he collects the money instead. Nice. The other point worth making about this film is that it is the only one of the three that can justifiably be called a Peter Sellers film. The other two are really ensemble pieces and it's a shame to reduce them to one name as if he's the star. But here, though, Sellers is the star. He's given a cast of nondescript US TV-types to work with, the kind of faces you'd expect to see in supporting roles on Columbo or Perry Mason. They do a solid job but they're no threat to him. He swans through the piece with his Richard Nixon voice, fromage grin and brown shades, embodying early 70s Hollywood. It's an incredibly smug film considering how appalling it is. You can actually feel the schmaltzy grease oozing out of the screen as it plays. It comes from that fictional TV sitcom world of racial & cultural sterotypes, where medical malpractice is accepted, people don't have real conversations, love and passion can be summed up by a quick fumble in a linen cupboard and nobody seems to have any integrity beyond the flimsy walls of the set they're occupying. The viewer sits waiting for the corrupt Hopfnagel to get his comeuppance, and the longer it goes on the less funny it gets and the less satisfactory his comeuppance will be. It has no appeal as a film, and again we have to be thankful that it's only 85 minutes long.
The Blockhouse is a little longer (92 minutes) and is the only one of the three that doesn't claim to be a comedy. It's anything but - there is no light relief in this gruelling psychological masterpiece. I watched it first, which may explain why I was willing to give the others a chance after. If I'd viewed them in chronological order I'd have been desperate by this point. The Blockhouse is brilliant, bleak and totally unforgiving. Sellers and Charles Aznavour are the 'names' but it is so very much an ensemble piece it's a shame to put anyone's name forward. It sucks the viewer in and you feel just as claustrophbic as the seven POWs who find themselves hopelessly trapped in a Nazi store after a sudden pre-D-Day raid by Allied bombers. They have air, wine and food and candles aplenty. Slowly relationships gets strained, their sanity gets challenged, there is illness, some die. Sellers' suicide is so magnificently played, so pitch-perfect it's difficult to credit that this is the same actor who refused to do re-takes on Doctor Strangelove even when he'd caused his fellow actors to corpse, or brought Casino Royale to its knees with his ridiculous fears and demands. The finest moment for me comes when the final survivors realise they have only a handful of candles left from the dozens of boxes they started with. There are only three left alive at this time. Do they want to stay alive indefinitely but remain in total darkness, or is that not a life worth living? It's a tough decision and one that is left unanswered for two of them at the end.
Sellers himself was most proud of Being There. But The Blockhouse is easily his finest, subtlest dramatic performance and the film has a balance and integrity throughout that is possibly unmatched in any of his others. I think it is a shame and to his discredit that he didn't take on more of these serious roles.
This box set serves one purpose only. Someone has scraped around the Peter Sellers film barrel and found two pieces of utter trash that would never be marketable on their own, packaged them with the more desirable Blockhouse and sat back, their work done. That wouldn't be quite so bad if a little bit of care had been taken and it wasn't quite so obviously a total money-making exercise with no consideration to the film fan or viewer. Slam Dunk Media have obviously spared no expense in restoring these films in their DVD transfer. No expense. At all. Orders Are Orders is the worst, with jumps, drop-outs and scratches galore. It can't make a bad film good, but at least watching a well-presented print with good sound helps the viewing experience. A lazy effort all round.
Sunday, 29 July 2012
Mary Tamm - the Key to Time...
Sometimes it just happens this way. In 2011 we lost Nichaolas Courtney and Elizabeth Sladen in close succession, who played two of the most enduring characters in Doctor Who's history. Now in 2012 we've lost the two single-seasoners, Caroline John at 72 and now Mary Tamm at 62, both from cancer and both not so long-lived in terms of air time but no less loved in fan circles.
Thankfully, although most of the obituaries I've seen have picked on Doctor Who as her headline 'big role' they've generally put it into context within a long and varied career in films, TV and theatre. I, then, don't feel quite so bad about focussing only on her time as Romana in Doctor Who.
Mary Tamm was simply gorgeous - she'd make a potato sack look glam (and sexy!)
I know it's a shallow point of view, but it's the truth. She was also clearly very intelligent, savvy, focussed and capable - and that's essentially why she only did the one season of Doctor Who.
I have vivid memories of her time on the show from when I was a small boy - mainly cliffhangers, it must be said, presumably because they're usually the dramatic highpoints that stay in the memory from one week to the next (as Mary Whitehouse used to complain). I don't remember Leela leaving and I don't remember Romana arriving - these details weren't important to four year old me. It didn't matter who was travelling with the Doctor, it just mattered that they were his friend and that they had to be saved from the monsters or baddies. In many respects I think my juvenile thoughts matched the philosophy of the show at the time too - it was very much caught up in a format that worked for the viewer but didn't necessarily allow the actors involved much scope or variation. Coupled with that you have Tom Baker as a dominant leading man, very conscious of his status, not necessarily open to sharing the limelight too evenly and there's a show which some could argue would just go through the motions year after year unless something radical changed.
I think the 'Key To Time' umbrella theme was an attempt around this, but it's doomed to failure by the format, so it's never going to be a race against time or a single-minded quest, it's a ramble with a purpose. The Trial of a Time Lord eight years later was twelve parts shorter but still suffered in the same way and was ultimately just as unsuccessful, such was the hold of the old series format.
If you watch the new series you'll find that often the companion / assistant (there's a whole semantic argument there!) will either do something that drives the story forward or do something key to bring about the resolution. It didn't happen that often in the Classic series, as Romana's first two stories show. It could be argued, I suppose, that she's 'learning the ropes' in The Ribos Operation and The Pirate Planet, because Romana really comes into her own in The Stones of Blood and particularly The Androids of Tara - easily the character's (and Mary Tamm's) best story, and probably the most polished piece of the season. The Power of Kroll has the Doctor and Romana playing the double-act most of the time so Romana doesn't get to build on her Taran progress and The Armageddon Factor leaves her for too long with too little to do when it could have been a major showpiece for to end the season.
Mary Tamm often said she left because the show was too formulaic and there was nothing else for the character to do other than go through the motions again for another year, so there was nothing else for her to do as an actor other than go through the motions again for another year - which she didn't want to do. It's a shame, but you can't fault her logic and she wasn't at a point in her career when she could look on it as 'at least it's work'. I respect her a lot for that. She left behind quite a legacy though: six stories, interlinked and adding to the progressive mythos of the world of Doctor Who without relying on established continuity from previous seasons.
The Ribos Operation is a story that's really grown on me in recent viewings. Robert Holmes paints a very rich picture, with some wonderful characters. Paul Seed as the Graff Vynda-K steals the show with a perfectly pitched performance and some great eye acting. There's some nice material at the beginning where the Doctor and Romana are getting the measure of each other but it's sadly hampered by some dreadful editing or dreadful direction, it's not clear which. I'd favour the latter, since George Spenton-Foster seemed to struggle with TARDIS interior scenes in Image of The Fendahl the previous year. He also didn't know how to effectively shoot the shrivenzale either, or it wouldn't be seen as clearly as it is considering how convincing it isn't. Since she's just been allocated to assist the Doctor as a kind of job it would have been nice, I think, for Romana to have had a skill or piece of knowledge that helped them succeed in this first story - to give her more of an impact and to remind the Doctor why he needs a companion.
The Pirate Planet is another wonderful, energetic and witty script - this time from newcomer Douglas Adams (better watch out for him, he shows promise!) If you're going on script quality alone you'd have to agree Mary Tamm made the right decision to join the programme at this point - two excellent stories to start the season. The visuals sometimes fail to live up to the promise, but we're Doctor Who fans and by the left earlobe of the Sky Demon, Mr Fibuli, we can forgive that! Apart from a few nice moments on her own with Mr Fibuli and the Captain and the damaged field integrator, Romana is still at best learning to be the Doctor's companion / assitant here though, and reducing what's going on to an academic commentary rather than driving the story forward. Again this makes it difficult for the character to have much of an impact. Visually she's gorgeous, and we care for her as we do all the Doctor's friends, but it's the Pirate Captian and Mr Fibuli who steal the show this time around.
The Stones of Blood is Romana's coming of age story - as well as being the programme's 100th story. It's from another newby, David Fisher, but he pulls a real plumb out of the pie. It's got a bit of everything this story, and Romana's knowledge and independance are finally put to good use on the quest. Susan Engel is very controlled and underplays her role a lot so as not to draw too much attention to herself as baddie in disguise. Consequently Mary Tamm and Beatrix Lehmann shine.
This is continued into David Fisher's other contribution, The Androids of Tara, where a petulant Doctor decides to take a break for fishing and Romana shoots off and finds the fourth segment straight away - only then to get caught up in the politics of the land because she so closely resembles the Princess Strella. This is Peter Jeffrey's show, as the villainous Count Grendel, but Mary Tamm makes a considerable impact and you can tell she's appreciating being more central to the story, not an external commentator or passive agent. Having found the segment so early there's no sense of her wanting to head off while others are in danger - she's taken on the Doctor's values and is happy to stay and fight for the underdog.
The Power Of Kroll is Robert Holmes' second contribution to this season and has often been much-maligned. This is a shame as I for one love it and think it shows some of his best work. After the colourful character excesses of The Ribos Operation this one is much straighter, much more contained and with a real sense of menace at times. It doesn't offer Romana much to do except adopt the standard companion role, but it does ask some pertinent questions about the treatment of aboriginal peoples and deities in the line of alleged capitalist progress. It has some great film work and also offers John Leeson a rare on-screen role since K9 doesn't feature and he was already contracted. Kroll steals the show in this one! Graham Williams was a bold man, knowing how difficult it was to make convincing gigantic monsters yet still requesting one anyway. He'd think again the following year after Creature From The Pit though, I'm sure..!
That's five decent stories on the trot. The final one must be a cracking season finale mustn't it? Enter Bob Baker and Dave Martin. Hmmm...
The Armageddon Factor promises much but delivers hardly anything. Romana and the Doctor are parted for much of it but it's almost as if the writers didn't know what to do with Mary Tamm's character so they ignored her to focus on the 'funny' stuff they liked with the Doctor, K9 and the wet characters they'd created themselves. The Shadow is an excellent villain and shows much promise. The emaciated guards look good too. The Black Guardian when he appears is also fab - hence I suppose his return some years later. But the whole thing lacks drama, atmosphere and intensity. It's like people have given up, or they're mistaking the filming for the end of season party. Barry Jackson and Davyd Harries are almost unforgiveable in their unnecessarily comedic performances. Lalla Ward gets some nice moments but Ian Saynor as Merak just gets wetter and wetter as the episodes continue to a point beyond comprehension.
The shame is that there's enough ideas and promise in the mix to make this an amazing six parter, but somehow it just drags. It's hardly surprising, I think, given material of this quality, that Mary Tamm opted to leave and that's the biggest shame, going out on a whimper that could and should so easily have been a massive dramatic highpoint.
The 'Key To Time' season is known for the first use of an umbrella theme or story arc in the classic series, for bringing in Douglas Adams and for Mary Tamm. Whatever her motives for leaving, the fact that she's intrinsically linked to this one season makes it a shrewd move and has assured her a prominent place in the history of the prgramme. Her character was loved and continues to be loved. Even if she'd done nothing else in her professional career Mary was loved and she will continue to be loved by us all now that she's been taken from us.
Mary Tamm - thank you for those Saturday teatimes in 1978. They will live with me forever x
Thankfully, although most of the obituaries I've seen have picked on Doctor Who as her headline 'big role' they've generally put it into context within a long and varied career in films, TV and theatre. I, then, don't feel quite so bad about focussing only on her time as Romana in Doctor Who.
Mary Tamm was simply gorgeous - she'd make a potato sack look glam (and sexy!)
I know it's a shallow point of view, but it's the truth. She was also clearly very intelligent, savvy, focussed and capable - and that's essentially why she only did the one season of Doctor Who.
I have vivid memories of her time on the show from when I was a small boy - mainly cliffhangers, it must be said, presumably because they're usually the dramatic highpoints that stay in the memory from one week to the next (as Mary Whitehouse used to complain). I don't remember Leela leaving and I don't remember Romana arriving - these details weren't important to four year old me. It didn't matter who was travelling with the Doctor, it just mattered that they were his friend and that they had to be saved from the monsters or baddies. In many respects I think my juvenile thoughts matched the philosophy of the show at the time too - it was very much caught up in a format that worked for the viewer but didn't necessarily allow the actors involved much scope or variation. Coupled with that you have Tom Baker as a dominant leading man, very conscious of his status, not necessarily open to sharing the limelight too evenly and there's a show which some could argue would just go through the motions year after year unless something radical changed.
I think the 'Key To Time' umbrella theme was an attempt around this, but it's doomed to failure by the format, so it's never going to be a race against time or a single-minded quest, it's a ramble with a purpose. The Trial of a Time Lord eight years later was twelve parts shorter but still suffered in the same way and was ultimately just as unsuccessful, such was the hold of the old series format.
If you watch the new series you'll find that often the companion / assistant (there's a whole semantic argument there!) will either do something that drives the story forward or do something key to bring about the resolution. It didn't happen that often in the Classic series, as Romana's first two stories show. It could be argued, I suppose, that she's 'learning the ropes' in The Ribos Operation and The Pirate Planet, because Romana really comes into her own in The Stones of Blood and particularly The Androids of Tara - easily the character's (and Mary Tamm's) best story, and probably the most polished piece of the season. The Power of Kroll has the Doctor and Romana playing the double-act most of the time so Romana doesn't get to build on her Taran progress and The Armageddon Factor leaves her for too long with too little to do when it could have been a major showpiece for to end the season.
Mary Tamm often said she left because the show was too formulaic and there was nothing else for the character to do other than go through the motions again for another year, so there was nothing else for her to do as an actor other than go through the motions again for another year - which she didn't want to do. It's a shame, but you can't fault her logic and she wasn't at a point in her career when she could look on it as 'at least it's work'. I respect her a lot for that. She left behind quite a legacy though: six stories, interlinked and adding to the progressive mythos of the world of Doctor Who without relying on established continuity from previous seasons.
The Ribos Operation is a story that's really grown on me in recent viewings. Robert Holmes paints a very rich picture, with some wonderful characters. Paul Seed as the Graff Vynda-K steals the show with a perfectly pitched performance and some great eye acting. There's some nice material at the beginning where the Doctor and Romana are getting the measure of each other but it's sadly hampered by some dreadful editing or dreadful direction, it's not clear which. I'd favour the latter, since George Spenton-Foster seemed to struggle with TARDIS interior scenes in Image of The Fendahl the previous year. He also didn't know how to effectively shoot the shrivenzale either, or it wouldn't be seen as clearly as it is considering how convincing it isn't. Since she's just been allocated to assist the Doctor as a kind of job it would have been nice, I think, for Romana to have had a skill or piece of knowledge that helped them succeed in this first story - to give her more of an impact and to remind the Doctor why he needs a companion.
The Pirate Planet is another wonderful, energetic and witty script - this time from newcomer Douglas Adams (better watch out for him, he shows promise!) If you're going on script quality alone you'd have to agree Mary Tamm made the right decision to join the programme at this point - two excellent stories to start the season. The visuals sometimes fail to live up to the promise, but we're Doctor Who fans and by the left earlobe of the Sky Demon, Mr Fibuli, we can forgive that! Apart from a few nice moments on her own with Mr Fibuli and the Captain and the damaged field integrator, Romana is still at best learning to be the Doctor's companion / assitant here though, and reducing what's going on to an academic commentary rather than driving the story forward. Again this makes it difficult for the character to have much of an impact. Visually she's gorgeous, and we care for her as we do all the Doctor's friends, but it's the Pirate Captian and Mr Fibuli who steal the show this time around.
The Stones of Blood is Romana's coming of age story - as well as being the programme's 100th story. It's from another newby, David Fisher, but he pulls a real plumb out of the pie. It's got a bit of everything this story, and Romana's knowledge and independance are finally put to good use on the quest. Susan Engel is very controlled and underplays her role a lot so as not to draw too much attention to herself as baddie in disguise. Consequently Mary Tamm and Beatrix Lehmann shine.
This is continued into David Fisher's other contribution, The Androids of Tara, where a petulant Doctor decides to take a break for fishing and Romana shoots off and finds the fourth segment straight away - only then to get caught up in the politics of the land because she so closely resembles the Princess Strella. This is Peter Jeffrey's show, as the villainous Count Grendel, but Mary Tamm makes a considerable impact and you can tell she's appreciating being more central to the story, not an external commentator or passive agent. Having found the segment so early there's no sense of her wanting to head off while others are in danger - she's taken on the Doctor's values and is happy to stay and fight for the underdog.
The Power Of Kroll is Robert Holmes' second contribution to this season and has often been much-maligned. This is a shame as I for one love it and think it shows some of his best work. After the colourful character excesses of The Ribos Operation this one is much straighter, much more contained and with a real sense of menace at times. It doesn't offer Romana much to do except adopt the standard companion role, but it does ask some pertinent questions about the treatment of aboriginal peoples and deities in the line of alleged capitalist progress. It has some great film work and also offers John Leeson a rare on-screen role since K9 doesn't feature and he was already contracted. Kroll steals the show in this one! Graham Williams was a bold man, knowing how difficult it was to make convincing gigantic monsters yet still requesting one anyway. He'd think again the following year after Creature From The Pit though, I'm sure..!
That's five decent stories on the trot. The final one must be a cracking season finale mustn't it? Enter Bob Baker and Dave Martin. Hmmm...
The Armageddon Factor promises much but delivers hardly anything. Romana and the Doctor are parted for much of it but it's almost as if the writers didn't know what to do with Mary Tamm's character so they ignored her to focus on the 'funny' stuff they liked with the Doctor, K9 and the wet characters they'd created themselves. The Shadow is an excellent villain and shows much promise. The emaciated guards look good too. The Black Guardian when he appears is also fab - hence I suppose his return some years later. But the whole thing lacks drama, atmosphere and intensity. It's like people have given up, or they're mistaking the filming for the end of season party. Barry Jackson and Davyd Harries are almost unforgiveable in their unnecessarily comedic performances. Lalla Ward gets some nice moments but Ian Saynor as Merak just gets wetter and wetter as the episodes continue to a point beyond comprehension.
The shame is that there's enough ideas and promise in the mix to make this an amazing six parter, but somehow it just drags. It's hardly surprising, I think, given material of this quality, that Mary Tamm opted to leave and that's the biggest shame, going out on a whimper that could and should so easily have been a massive dramatic highpoint.
The 'Key To Time' season is known for the first use of an umbrella theme or story arc in the classic series, for bringing in Douglas Adams and for Mary Tamm. Whatever her motives for leaving, the fact that she's intrinsically linked to this one season makes it a shrewd move and has assured her a prominent place in the history of the prgramme. Her character was loved and continues to be loved. Even if she'd done nothing else in her professional career Mary was loved and she will continue to be loved by us all now that she's been taken from us.
Mary Tamm - thank you for those Saturday teatimes in 1978. They will live with me forever x
Tuesday, 17 July 2012
Jon Lord - in memoriam
So, the legendary Jon Lord has passed on at the tender age of 71. I never met him, but I saw him perform live enough times to know that the recordings he laid down for posterity were a true reflection of his awesome talent.
I'm writing this while the DVD of the original 1969 Concerto for Group & Orchestra plays in the background - the perfect example of the worlds that Jon Lord straddles. Has he gone to join the great rock band in the sky, or the great orchestra in the sky? I suspect he's gone to shake things up a bit and get them all playing together instead!
I know the media is generally populist by nature, so all the obituaries are highlighting Smoke On The Water and the 'big' albums Machine Head and Deep Purple In Rock. It seems such a shame to reduce Jon Lord's talent and musical gift to being a co-writer of the track with 'that' riff, brilliant as it may be. That was Ritchie Blackmore's territory. Yes, Lord's ferocious and idiosyncratic playing revolutionised the role of the Hammond organ in the fledgling arena of rock / metal music, and he was the perfect foil to balance the brilliance of Blackmore on the other side of the stage in those early years. I think the world of music owes him a debt for that. Check out the way he rocks his organ and makes pure noise, both melodic and fitting within the context of the performance. Early live tracks such as Mandrake Root, Wring That Neck, Lazy and Speed King wouldn't have half the brilliance or excitement if it was only Ritchie Blackmore playing.
I stumbled upon Deep Purple as an early teen listening to rock music and looking for something more worthwhile than the over-produced MTV cock-rock of Bon Jovi, Def Leppard or Whitesnake. I found Led Zeppelin, which lead me to Deep Purple as contemporaries. I was also back-tracking a bit from Rainbow and Whitesnake and found Deep Purple again that way. My best mate had their limp 1988 live album Nobody's Perfect which sounded OK but didn't really shake our world. Then my dad bought a CD player and I decided to get something to play on it and the compilation 24 Carat Purple was a good price at the time. This was a mixture of early studio and live material and it really blew me away - particularly Speed King and the 1972 Japanese live versions of Smoke On The Water and Black Night. I was hooked. I loved Blackmore's virtuoso guitar and Gillan's powerful vocals. As I've got older I've grown to appreciate Jon Lord's contribution much more.
What has kept me faithful to Purple over the years is that on the whole I've enjoyed the other work that the band members have done outside of the group. The Purple 'family', if you will. Not so much Ian Gillan, I'll admit. Jon Lord's solo work outside of the group I've found to be the most mature, engaging and enjoyable. I'm not a fan of the work he did with Tony Ashton immediately post-Purple, but his years with Whitesnake showed a great discipline in a band much more rigidly controlled than Purple had been and he was instrumental (pun unavoidable) in their blues-rock sound before David Geffen got his hands on Coverdale's crotch and sent it Stateside to get glossy.
Lord's major contribution, and his eventual reason for leaving Deep Purple in 2002, is his classical work as both performer and composer. This is some of the music I value the most and, I suspect, was the work he was the most proud of.
There were dabbles in the late 60s with the Concerto and some of the early Purple album tracks have orchestral sections - check out Anthem on The Book of Taleisyn (1968) and April on Deep Purple (1969) which are both brilliant. (While you're at it, check out Blind on Deep Purple, a fabulous Lord solo-penned track with a great harpsichord sound.) I appreciate that after this time Purple were aiming at a full bodied rock / metal sound but it's a shame they didn't keep some of the variety these early albums show.
In the 70s we get The Gemini Suite (which nearly blew Deep Purple apart at the time) and some solo projects from Lord with 1974's Windows and the follow-up Sarabande (1975) - all good grounding for his return to the genre in the late 90s and onwards with Pictured Within (1999), Beyond The Notes (2004), The Durham Concerto (2007), Boom of the Tingling Strings (2008) and To Notice Such Things (2010). Most recently he's been working on a studio version of his original Concerto For Group and Orchestra. Already having two live versions of this (1969 & 1999) I doubt I'll rush out to get this; I haven't picked up the re-released studio version of The Gemini Suite either. The 1970 Purple live version is gorgeous enough, if understated. I'm a fan, but I can't afford to be a completist collector!
It's difficult for anyone with a major commercial contribution to the music industry to be remembered for anything more than that. I only hope that the more specialised media obituaries pay due respect to the wonderful classical work he has created, and remember that when he led Deep Purple down the Concerto path in 1969 it wasn't done as a gimmick, but as a real experiment. Many bands have done it since and many have done it as a fad or publicity stunt. The Concerto and the original Gemini Suite at the very least stand as major compositions of artistic integrity and major contributions to Twentieth Century music.
Many will mourn the fact that we'll never see Deep Purple MkII or MkIII reformed now. An era of possibility has ended. But we have what we have recorded for posterity.
Thank you Jon Lord, may your music live on forever.
I'm writing this while the DVD of the original 1969 Concerto for Group & Orchestra plays in the background - the perfect example of the worlds that Jon Lord straddles. Has he gone to join the great rock band in the sky, or the great orchestra in the sky? I suspect he's gone to shake things up a bit and get them all playing together instead!
I know the media is generally populist by nature, so all the obituaries are highlighting Smoke On The Water and the 'big' albums Machine Head and Deep Purple In Rock. It seems such a shame to reduce Jon Lord's talent and musical gift to being a co-writer of the track with 'that' riff, brilliant as it may be. That was Ritchie Blackmore's territory. Yes, Lord's ferocious and idiosyncratic playing revolutionised the role of the Hammond organ in the fledgling arena of rock / metal music, and he was the perfect foil to balance the brilliance of Blackmore on the other side of the stage in those early years. I think the world of music owes him a debt for that. Check out the way he rocks his organ and makes pure noise, both melodic and fitting within the context of the performance. Early live tracks such as Mandrake Root, Wring That Neck, Lazy and Speed King wouldn't have half the brilliance or excitement if it was only Ritchie Blackmore playing.
I stumbled upon Deep Purple as an early teen listening to rock music and looking for something more worthwhile than the over-produced MTV cock-rock of Bon Jovi, Def Leppard or Whitesnake. I found Led Zeppelin, which lead me to Deep Purple as contemporaries. I was also back-tracking a bit from Rainbow and Whitesnake and found Deep Purple again that way. My best mate had their limp 1988 live album Nobody's Perfect which sounded OK but didn't really shake our world. Then my dad bought a CD player and I decided to get something to play on it and the compilation 24 Carat Purple was a good price at the time. This was a mixture of early studio and live material and it really blew me away - particularly Speed King and the 1972 Japanese live versions of Smoke On The Water and Black Night. I was hooked. I loved Blackmore's virtuoso guitar and Gillan's powerful vocals. As I've got older I've grown to appreciate Jon Lord's contribution much more.
What has kept me faithful to Purple over the years is that on the whole I've enjoyed the other work that the band members have done outside of the group. The Purple 'family', if you will. Not so much Ian Gillan, I'll admit. Jon Lord's solo work outside of the group I've found to be the most mature, engaging and enjoyable. I'm not a fan of the work he did with Tony Ashton immediately post-Purple, but his years with Whitesnake showed a great discipline in a band much more rigidly controlled than Purple had been and he was instrumental (pun unavoidable) in their blues-rock sound before David Geffen got his hands on Coverdale's crotch and sent it Stateside to get glossy.
Lord's major contribution, and his eventual reason for leaving Deep Purple in 2002, is his classical work as both performer and composer. This is some of the music I value the most and, I suspect, was the work he was the most proud of.
There were dabbles in the late 60s with the Concerto and some of the early Purple album tracks have orchestral sections - check out Anthem on The Book of Taleisyn (1968) and April on Deep Purple (1969) which are both brilliant. (While you're at it, check out Blind on Deep Purple, a fabulous Lord solo-penned track with a great harpsichord sound.) I appreciate that after this time Purple were aiming at a full bodied rock / metal sound but it's a shame they didn't keep some of the variety these early albums show.
In the 70s we get The Gemini Suite (which nearly blew Deep Purple apart at the time) and some solo projects from Lord with 1974's Windows and the follow-up Sarabande (1975) - all good grounding for his return to the genre in the late 90s and onwards with Pictured Within (1999), Beyond The Notes (2004), The Durham Concerto (2007), Boom of the Tingling Strings (2008) and To Notice Such Things (2010). Most recently he's been working on a studio version of his original Concerto For Group and Orchestra. Already having two live versions of this (1969 & 1999) I doubt I'll rush out to get this; I haven't picked up the re-released studio version of The Gemini Suite either. The 1970 Purple live version is gorgeous enough, if understated. I'm a fan, but I can't afford to be a completist collector!
It's difficult for anyone with a major commercial contribution to the music industry to be remembered for anything more than that. I only hope that the more specialised media obituaries pay due respect to the wonderful classical work he has created, and remember that when he led Deep Purple down the Concerto path in 1969 it wasn't done as a gimmick, but as a real experiment. Many bands have done it since and many have done it as a fad or publicity stunt. The Concerto and the original Gemini Suite at the very least stand as major compositions of artistic integrity and major contributions to Twentieth Century music.
Many will mourn the fact that we'll never see Deep Purple MkII or MkIII reformed now. An era of possibility has ended. But we have what we have recorded for posterity.
Thank you Jon Lord, may your music live on forever.
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