Story by John Wyndham, Adapted by Stanley Miller
Directed by Peter Potter
Ever since his home planet of Earth was destroyed, Bert (Terence Morgan) has been scratching a living on Mars as an odd-job man. Mars isn’t such a bad place – the indigenous population are unspoilt and friendly, but he yearns for a chance to build a new Earth.
When he hears about the colony on Venus, it seems like just the chance he’s been looking for. But he quickly realises that it’s a brutal totalitarian regime that ruthlessly exploits the primitive locals (the Griffas). Bert is attached to a work-party run by the merciless Khan (George Pastell). Khan mocks Bert’s idealism and asks him to name one great civilisation that wasn’t built on exactly this type of labour.
Eventually Bert comes to realise that his future doesn’t involve creating a new Earth, instead it’s back on Mars with the people that he loves and who love him.
Out of the Unknown producer Irene Shubik wasn’t keen to launch the series with this episode, but head of drama (Sydney Newman) insisted. Then, as now, the name of John Wyndham was a considerable draw.
Whilst No Place Like Earth isn’t the strongest story from the early run of the series, it still has plenty of interest. Terence Morgan (a familiar face from the ITC swashbuckler Sir Francis Drake) is good value as the idealistic Bert. Alan Tilvern is smoothly persuasive as Blane, the man who recruits Bert to work on Venus whilst George Pastell is suitably boo-hiss evil as the brutal Khan.
The moral of the story isn’t particularly subtle, but it’s a reasonable enough message which deserves to be heard. The matte shot at the start of the story (showing Bert piloting his craft on the Martian lakes) is very impressive. The exploding spaceship at the end is, sadly, rather less impressive.
As I’ll be posting individual reviews of each episode as I move through the set during the next month or two, I’m going to take a quick look here at the content in general, the picture quality and also examine the special features. The episodes and special features are spread across the seven discs like this –
Disc One
No Place Like Earth (+ audio commentary) (53 minutes)
The Counterfeit Man (59 minutes)
Stranger in the Family (53 minutes)
The Dead Past (+ audio commentary) (60 minutes)
Stills Gallery 1 (6 minutes)
Disc Two
Time in Advance (+ audio commentary) (58 minutes)
Come Buttercup, Come Daisy, Come…? (61 minutes)
Sucker Bait (+ audio commentary) (59 minutes)
Stills Gallery 2 (4 minutes)
Disc Three
Some Lapse of Time (+ audio commentary) (60 minutes)
Thirteen to Centaurus (60 minutes)
The Midas Plague (+ audio commentary) (63 minutes)
Stills Gallery 3 (3 minutes)
Disc Four
The Machine Stops (+ audio commentary) (51 minutes)
Lambda I (51 minutes)
Level Seven (+ audio commentary) (60 minutes)
Tunnel Under the World (52 minutes)
Stills Gallery 4 (9 minutes)
Disc Five
The Last Lonely Man (50 minutes)
Beach Head [reconstruction] (50 minutes)
The Naked Sun [reconstruction] (50 minutes)
The Little Black Bag [incomplete] (31 minutes)
An Interview with James Cellan Jones (16 minutes)
Stills Gallery 5 (19 minutes)
Disc Six
The Yellow Pill [reconstruction] (50 minutes)
To Lay a Ghost (50 minutes)
This Body is Mine (+ audio commentary) (49 minutes)
Deathday (48 minutes)
Deathday film insert (1 minute)
Stills Gallery 6 (8 minutes)
Disc Seven
Welcome Home (+ audio commentary) (50 minutes)
The Man in My Head (+ audio commentary) (48 minutes)
The Uninvited [reconstruction] (47 minutes)
Return of the Unknown (42 minutes)
Stills Gallery 7 (8 minutes)
The video was restored by Peter Crocker and the audio by Mark Ayres. Both names will be familiar to some people via their work on the Classic Doctor Who DVD range, but the PQ on OOTU is a little more variable than the Doctor Who releases. Crocker discusses the various reasons why this is the case in the booklet included with the DVD. For the majority of the B&W episodes, existing tape transfers were used and then cleaned up as much as possible, although some (like Tunnel under the World) had so much damage that a full restoration was impossible. Generally though, the picture quality is as good as could be expected. The film sequences on some stories are out of phase (a common occurrence on material of this age) but it’s difficult to see how, given the time and budget, things could have been any better.
The menu screens are quite simple, with a static image and no music.
Apart from the audio commentaries (where the ever-cheerful Toby Hadoke teases reminiscences from both actors and technical staff) and a new 42 minute documentary, the most substantial extras are four reconstructed episodes. Anybody who’s ever seen a Doctor Who recon will be familiar with how three of them (Beach Head, The Naked Sun and The Yellow Pill) are presented. Available publicity photographs (along with a little CGI) have been married up to the original soundtrack to produce a pretty watchable experience. The audios all sound pretty good (and subtitles can be switched on if there’s ever any muffled dialogue). The audio of The Naked Sun is incomplete, so subs help to explain what’s happening during the audio-less sections. Photographs for The Uninvited are thin on the ground, so the audio for this recon is matched up to the camera script.
Below are a number of screenshots from a variety of episodes. Although I’ve only scratched the surface of this release, it looks an impressive package, with a healthy selection of special features which help to place the original stories in context.
Norris Karloff has posted what must be one of the best videos ever on YouTube, which sees the Crackerjack gang (Ed Stewart, Peter Glaze and Bernie Clifton) cover XTC’s song with hilarious consequences.
With the release of Out of the Unknown less than a week away, the BFI have put this rather nice trailer up.
This link will take you to the BFI’s website, where there’s highlights of an Out of the Unknown panel moderated by Toby Hadoke and featuring director John Gorrie, SFX sound engineer Brian Hodgson and author Mark Ward.
For more info on the DVD set, please look here, here and here.
The Curse of Fenric is a bleak, cynical story. So it’s hard to believe that, for many people at the time, Doctor Who was still seen very much as children’s television – although some of the performances, which we’ll come to later, did have a feel of “children’s tv” about them.
One of the interesting things about Fenric is how it portrays the British during their darkest hour. The government are seen to hatch a plan which will cause mass slaughter in Russia at some unspecified point in the future. It doesn’t go as far as to say that Churchill knew about it, but the implication is there.
MILLINGTON: Just think what a bomb full could do to a city like Dresden or Moscow.
DOCTOR: It’s inhuman.
MILLINGTON: It could mean the end of the war.
DOCTOR: And Whitehall thinks that Moscow is careless enough to let you detonate one of those things inside the Kremlin?
MILLINGTON: Oh, that’s the beauty of it, Doctor. We won’t detonate it. They’ll do it themselves. They’ll use the machine to decrypt our ciphers, but Doctor Judson has programmed it to self-destruct when it tries to decrypt a particular word. And, once the political climate is appropriate, we will include the word in one of our ciphers.
DOCTOR: And the word is?
MILLINGTON: What else could it be, Doctor? Love.
As the above extract indicates, there’s a little confusion in the scripting. At one point, Millington (Alfred Lynch) discusses how the chemical weapons could signal the end of the war – but he plans to use them against the Russians, not the Germans, so how is this possible?
Faith is an important part of the story. The Reverend Wainwright (Nicholas Parsons) doesn’t have faith any more and it proves to be his undoing. I remember the outcry amongst a certain section of fandom back in 1989 when Parsons’ casting was announced – it seemed that another Ken Dodd comedy turn was expected. But Parsons was wonderful as the conflicted Wainwright (not that this should be a surprise, since he had plenty of acting experience). He has some lovely moments in the story, such as this scene with Ace.
ACE: Funny church, this, isn’t it?
WAINWRIGHT: I was just remembering when I was a child. My father was the vicar here then. It seemed such a warm, friendly place in those days.
ACE: Things always look different when you’re a child.
WAINWRIGHT: Now I stand in the church every Sunday, I see all the faces looking up at me, waiting for me to give them something to believe in.
ACE: Don’t you believe in anything?
WAINWRIGHT: I used to believe there was good in the world, hope for the future.
ACE: The future’s not so bad. Have faith in me.
But sadly he didn’t have faith in her or anyone else, so he meets his end at the hands of Jean (Joann Kenny) and Phyllis (Joanne Bell). They’re two of the weak links in the story – they’re not particularly impressive before they’ve been taken over, but afterwards they’re somewhat diabolical. Maybe it’s the fingernails or the stilted delivery, but it’s not good.
There’s better acting elsewhere though. Dinsdale Landen has a nice touch of humour as the wheelchair-bound Judson and is even better when taken over by Fenric in the last episode. But it’s a pity that episode three didn’t end on a close-up of him, rather than a shot of the Doctor looking mildly worried (but it’s not the first cliff-hanger of the era to end on a limp shot of the Doctor by a long chalk).
Fenric was always a story that didn’t quite work in its original broadcast format and both the VHS and the DVD had different edits which benefit the story by including various scenes that had to be cut out due to time restrictions. There’s possibly too much plot in the story for the episode count – the Haemovores, the Ancient One, Millington’s agenda, the Russian’s plan to steal the Ultima machine, the return of Fenric, it’s certainly all going on.
Losing a few of these threads (particularly the Haemovores who contribute little to the plot) would have tightened things up a little. And episode four, whilst it has some great drama (especially when Sorin has been taken over by Fenric) can’t help but feel like something of an anti-climax. It is a little hard to take Fenric that seriously when he wants to drop everything to pick up the game he was previously playing with the Doctor. Yes, I can see that chess is a metaphor – but it’s a somewhat clumsy one.
The scene where the Doctor attempts to destroy Ace’s faith in him is nice though – and it’s either a skillful weaving together of plot-threads from various stories during S24 & S25 or an opportune scramble to explain some of the plot-holes from those same stories. I’ll leave you to decide.
SORIN: The choice is yours, Time Lord. I shall kill you anyway, but if you would like the girl to live, kneel before me.
ACE: I believe in you, Professor.
SORIN: Kneel, if you want the girl to live!
DOCTOR: Kill her.
SORIN: The Time Lord finally understands.
DOCTOR: Do you think I didn’t know? The chess set in Lady Peinforte’s study? I knew.
SORIN: Earlier than that, Time Lord. Before Cybermen, ever since Ice World, where you first met the girl.
DOCTOR: I knew. I knew she carried the evil inside her. Do you think I’d have chosen a social misfit if I hadn’t known? She couldn’t even pass her chemistry exams at school, and yet she manages to create a time storm in her bedroom. I saw your hand in it from the very beginning.
ACE: Doctor, no.
DOCTOR: She’s an emotional cripple. I wouldn’t waste my time on her, unless I had to use her somehow.
ACE: No!
I’ve never quite understood how Ace never twigged that the baby was her mother. Did she not know her maternal grandparents or did she just think it was a strange coincidence that Kathleen and her husband had exactly the same names as her Nan and Grandad? And the less said about the “Sometimes I move so fast, I don’t exist any more” scene the better, I think.
Not a perfect story then, but there’s enough going on to make it a worthwhile, if sometimes flawed, watch.
Victoria Wood was always faintly unimpressed, visually, with the way that dinnerladies turned out. She had pictured it shot with hand-held cameras but was told that it wasn’t possible. So what she got was something that looked like a traditional sit-com (although this isn’t really any bad thing). It seems to be an ever-present fixture on Gold, along with the likes of Porridge and Steptoe and Son, and it’s a good indication of dinnerladies’ quality that it doesn’t seem out of place when broadcast alongside the comedy greats of the 1970’s.
Whilst it may have rankled with Wood that the style of the series was so resolutely traditional (particularly when the likes of The Royal Family and The Office were able to quite easily eschew this format) dinnerladies was a sit-com that probably wouldn’t have benefited from the sort of wobbly-cam single camera shooting that was to dominate comedy in the years to come.
It’s written, essentially, as a stage-play with just a single location (and it’s probably not surprising to know that most of the scripts were adapted successfully for several theatre tours). We may hear about the world outside but the focus remains firmly on what happens inside the canteen.
Wood was able to assemble a first-rate cast, some of whom (Duncan Preston, Ceila Imrie, Julie Walters) had enjoyed a long association with her, whilst others (Thelma Barlow, Andrew Dunn, Shobna Gulati and Maxine Peake) were newcomers. She obviously knew what Preston, Imrie and Walters could deliver, but the characters of the others (as well as Anne Reid, who had appeared in Victoria Wood – As Seen on TV) would maybe only really begin to develop towards the end of the first series and into the second as she began to tailor their parts based on her experience of working with them.
As the creator, writer and co-producer, Wood had an enormous amount of power that she was able to wield. But whilst the overall arc of the two series is the story of Bren and Tony, Wood doesn’t dominate each episode and nor does she give herself all the best lines. She was comfortable enough to sometimes remain in the background as a passive figure, whilst the others enjoyed the biggest laughs.
If the series was shot in a traditional way, the actual recording process was quite different. It would be shot on a Friday evening and then Wood and co-producer Geoff Posner would view the results, with Wood re-writing the script which would then be re-recorded on the Saturday evening. Although this was common practice for American sit-coms, it was unusual, if not unique, for a British sit-com.
It would be lovely one day to have DVD sets released with both the Friday and Saturday recordings, so that we can see exactly what was changed, but I’m not going to hold my breath. The DVD releases we have are resolutely bare-bones, with no commentaries or special features, which indicates that Victoria Wood isn’t particularly keen to spend a great deal of time analyzing her work.
First up is a Restaurant sketch with Cleese and Idle as husband and wife. Idle is good value as the complaining wife (“Ooh I don’t like this, Ooh I don’t like that. Oh I don’t think much to all this. Oh fancy using that wallpaper. Fancy using mustard. Oo is that a proper one? Oo it’s not real. Oh I don’t think it’s a proper restaurant unless they give you finger bowls. Oo I don’t like him. I’m going to have a baby in a few years”).
The sketch then goes off into several different directions, best of which is Jones offering himself as the dish of the day (“I hope you’re going to enjoy me this evening. I’m the special. Try me with some rice”).
I love the authentic looking cinema adverts (“After the show why not visit the La Gondola Restaurant. Just two minutes from this performance”) which is followed an intermission with Cleese as a cinema usherette who’s only got an albatross for sale (“Course you don’t get bloody wafers with it”). For such a typically throwaway moment it enjoyed a long life, right up until the farewell shows at the O2 earlier this year.
The historical impersonations sketch (“I would like to see John the Babtist’s impersonation of Graham Hill”) really belongs to Palin, both for his suitably smarmy host and his turn as Cardinal Richelieu impersonating Petula Clark.
Also good is the police sketch (“Yes, we in Special Crime Squad have been using wands for almost a year now. You find it’s easy to make yourself invisible. You can defy time and space, and you can turn violent criminals into frogs. Something which you could never do with the old truncheons”).
A long sketch brings the series to a close. Cleese is a psychiatrist who finds Palin a difficult case to solve. He keeps hearing guitars playing and people singing when there’s no one around and what’s worse is that it’s mostly folk songs (“Oh my god”). He’s sent along to see Chapman’s surgeon, who happily slices him open and discovers he has squatters inside him.
Squatter: Too much man, groovy, great scene. Great light show, baby.
Surgeon: What are you doing in there?
Squatter: We’re doing our own thing, man.
Surgeon: Have you got Mr Notlob’s permission to be in there?
Squatter: We’re squatters, baby.
Surgeon: What? (to nurse about Notlob) Nurse, wake him up. (she slaps his face)
Squatter: Don’t get uptight, man. Join the scene and other phrases. Money isn’t real.
Surgeon: It is where I’m standing and it blows my mind, young lad. (looks inside Notlob) Good Lord! Is that a nude woman?
Squatter: She’s doing an article on us for ‘Nova’, man.
Girl: (her head also appearing through slit) Hi everyone. Are you part of the scene?
Surgeon: Are you rolling your own jelly babies in there?
Notlob: (waking up) What’s going on? Who are they?
Surgeon: That’s what we are trying to find out.
Notlob: What are they doing in my stomach?
Surgeon: We don’t know. Are they paying you any rent?
Notlob: Of course they’re not paying me rent!
Squatter: You’re not furnished, you fascist.
Apart from a brief Gilliam animation and a Cleese voice over (“When this series returns it will be put out on Monday mornings as a test card and will be described by the Radio Times as a history of Irish agriculture”) that’s the end of the series. Not having seen it for a good few years, it still stands up very well. Whilst the groundswell of opinion that Python is overrated does seem to have increased over the last ten years or so, there’s still more than enough across the thirteen episodes to justify the reputation that Python has always enjoyed. The strike rate of decent sketches is good and even the things that don’t quite work are lifted by the Pythons themselves.
After posting the clip of the One O’Clock news from 1991, I stumbled across these fascinating posts from Newsbunny. It’s a chance to eavesdrop on the increasingly frantic behind-the-scenes scrambling (“We haven’t got any stories Mike”) that usually the viewer never gets to hear.
Ghost Light is definitely a story that’s bursting with ideas, although it could be that there were simply too many ideas and concepts for three episodes – as over the years many people have complained that the script is incomprehensible.
For me, whilst there are holes in the plot (although it’s hardly a unique Doctor Who story in that respect) the main thrust of the story and the performances have always been more than enough to draw me back to it. And often when re-watching, I’ll pick up on another aspect that I’d previously overlooked.
There are other Doctor Who stories from the original run which can be said to have rich subtexts buried under the visible plot-lines (Warriors’ Gate and Kinda for example) but these were pretty much the exception that proved the rule – generally Doctor Who stories from 1963 – 1989 operated on a very linear level.
Ghost Light doesn’t always adhere to this. Most of the answers are there (although you sometimes have to read between the lines) but some questions remain unanswered. For example, if we accept that Josiah was one of Light’s specimens who managed to escape from the stone ship in 1881 and sent the house’s owner, Sir George Pritchard, to Java, how has he managed to evolve so quickly? The evidence indicates that he was barely humanoid when he emerged (the husks) so it’s difficult to understand how he could evolve into a Victorian gentleman in a matter of a few short years. And how could Nimrod have evolved from a Neanderthal into the perfect butler during the same short space of time?
Some of these points probably explain why Ghost Light has remained a frustrating experience for some, but for me the first rate cast more than makes up for these unanswered questions.
It’s probably the best-cast McCoy story. Ian Hogg (a familiar face at the time from Rockliffe’s Babies) is wonderful as Josiah, managing to turn from menacing to pitiful at the drop of a hat. Sylvia Syms has more of a one-note character for the majority of the story, although she does have a moment of tenderness in episode three (ironically just before Light deals with her). Katharine Schlesinger has a very fresh-faced appeal as Gwendoline. Although she and her mother were both under the control of Josiah, the Doctor delivers a rather chilling verdict about her, “I could forgive her arranging those little trips to Java, if she didn’t enjoy them so much”.
Gwendoline
Michael Cochrane, Frank Windsor, Carl Forgoine and John Nettleton all add to the overall quality of the cast and the demise of Windor’s Inspector Mackenize gives us one of the great sick jokes of the series (“The cream of Scotland Yard”).
Sharon Duce is, interesting, as Control. It’s certainly a performance that’s somewhat at odds with the rest of the cast, but although she’s initially off-putting it does work better after a few re-watches. John Hallam is surprising fey as Light, but as with Duce it’s an acting choice that, after the initial surprise, does work.
Following Battlefield which didn’t do McCoy and Aldred any favours, they’re both back on top form in this story. With the Doctor deciding to take Ace back to the place where the ghosts of her past linger, this does put the spotlight on Aldred, which she’s more than able to deal with.
Maybe it was the studio environment or possibly the good actors around him, but McCoy’s at his best here. The clip below shows just how good McCoy could be. It’s slightly frustrating that he was rather inconsistent from story to story, but when he was good, he was very good.
If Light is defeated a little easily at the end (an occupational hazard of portraying powerful figures – the more powerful they are, the more of an anti-climax when they’re dealt with. See Sutekh for another example of this) it’s possibly more important that the Doctor has cured Ace of the lingering trauma she felt about the events of 1983.
From the moment we met her in Dragonfire, it was clear that Ace was something of a damaged character – and this is another example of the Doctor subtly sorting out her psyche. See also The Greatest Show in the Galaxy where he cured her fear of clowns and more seriously the upcoming Curse of Fenric where he attends to the tricky problem of her mother.
It’s possible to argue that the Doctor shouldn’t really be doing this, and it’s certainly not something he’s done before, but then he’s never really had a companion with quite so many problems as Ace. And her journey is all the more remarkable when you consider that Aldred only appeared in 31 episodes. Many companions have enjoyed far greater episode counts but few had the sort of character development enjoyed by Ace.
And her journey, central to this story, is one of the reasons why Ghost Light remains an outstanding example of late 1980’s Doctor Who.
In 1958 Tony Hancock was riding high as the star of Hancock’s Half Hour, which was running on both BBC television and radio.
On the evening on the 9th of February 1958 he gave a rare straight acting performance in the BBC World Theatre production of Gogol’s The Government Inspector.
Hancock was bolstered by an impressive supporting cast (including Wilfred Brambell, Peter Copley and Noel Howlett) and he acquitted himself well – although he’s still recognisably Hancock. Indeed, it would be easy to believe that some of his lines were written by Galton & Simpson, which is possibly why it was felt that this play would be a perfect fit for him.
This was such an obvious extra to include on the Hancock’s Half Hour DVD boxset, released a few years back, that its omission was baffling. The only time it’s surfaced in recent years was when it was one of the programmes offered as part of the BBC Archive Trial (an online test service) in 2007.
Given that the BBC seem to have no interest at present in making this commercially available, I’ve decided to upload it my YouTube account. Hopefully it’ll stay there for a while, which will allow a wider audience to enjoy this unique Hancock performance.
I’ve just created a YouTube channel, where I’ll post, from time to time, some interesting clips and programmes from my archive of VHS recordings from the 1980’s and 1990’s.
First up is a nice little piece on Derek Meddings from 1995, where he discusses his work on Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet.
The Naked Ant opens with Idle and Cleese as two office workers who watch as their colleagues jump to their deaths.
Idle: Did you see somebody go past the window?
Cleese: What?
Idle: Somebody just went past the window. That way. (indicates down)
Cleese: Oh. Oh.
Idle: Another one.
Cleese: Huh?
Idle: Another one just went past downwards.
Cleese: What?
Idle: Two people have just fallen out of that window to their almost certain death.
Cleese: Fine, fine. Fine.
Palin: Look! Two people (another falls) three people have just fallen past that window.
Cleese: Must be a board meeting.
Idle: Oh yeah. (another falls past) Hey. That was Wilkins of finance.
Cleese: Oh, no, that was Robertson.
Idle: Wilkins.
Cleese: Robertson.
Idle: Wilkins.
Cleese: Robertson.
(Another falls.)
Idle: That was Wilkins.
Cleese: That was Wilkins. He was a good, good, er, golfer, Wilkins.
Next up, Palin is good as a hyperactive television presenter (“Too early to tell’ … too early to say… it means the same thing. The word ‘say’ is the same as the word ‘tell’. They’re not spelt the same, but they mean the same. It’s an identical situation, we have with ‘ship’ and ‘boat’ but not the same as we have with ‘bow’ and ‘bough’, they’re spelt differently, mean different things but sound the same. But the real question remains. What is the solution, if any, to this problem? What can we do? What am I saying? Why am I sitting in this chair? Why am I on this programme? And what am I going to say next?”).
Mr Hilter and the Minehead by-election is one of my favourite Python sketches. It opens with Idle as a monumentally boring man who, along with his wife, has arrived at a boarding house run by a nice lady (Jones). Idle had a knack for writing long droning monologues, of which this an excellent example, as he describes in great detail exactly how they traveled down.
Johnson: Well, we usually reckon on five and a half hours and it took us six hours and fifty-three minutes, with the twenty-five minute stop at Frampton Cottrell to stretch our legs, only we had to wait half an hour to get onto the M5 at Droitwich.
Landlady: Really?
Johnson: Then there was a three mile queue just before Bridgewater on the A38. We usually come round on the B3339 just before Bridgewater, you see…
Landlady: Really?
Johnson: Yes, but this time we decided to risk it because they’re always saying they’re going to widen it there.
Landlady: Are they?
Johnson: Yes well just by the intersection, there where the A372 joins up, there’s plenty of room to widen it there, there’s only grass verges. They could get another six feet…knock down that hospital… Then we took the coast road through Williton and got all the Taunton traffic on the A358 from Crowcombe and Stogumber …
This could have made a decent little sketch on its own, but when the Johnsons enter the dining room they meet three strange characters who spin the sketch into a totally different direction. Mr Hilter (Cleese), Ron Vibbentrop (Chapman) and Heimlich Bimmler (Palin). All three are dressed in full Nazi regalia, which makes their attempts to hide their identities by slightly changing their names even more ludicrous.
Chapman has the least the do, Palin has a great monologue (“How do you do there squire, also I am not Minehead lad but I in Peterborough, Lincolnshire was given birth to, but stay in Peterborough Lincolnshire house all during war, owing to nasty running sores, and was unable to go in the streets play football or go to Nürnberg. I am retired vindow cleaner and pacifist, without doing war crimes“) but the bulk of the sketch rests on Cleese’s shoulders who is suitably manic as Adolf Hitler, forced to be polite to people he obviously considers to be his inferiors.
I love the concept of Hitler relaunching his quest for power via the Minehead by-election, as well as the puzzled stares of passers-by (who I assume weren’t extras and were just members of the public) as Hilter’s election campaign makes its way through the streets.
The 127th Upperclass Twit of the Year Show is another well known early Python sketch (it was re-filmed for And Now For Something Completely Different). Cleese is a suitably hysterical commentator and he starts by introducing the runners and riders.
Vivian Smith-Smythe-Smith has an O-level in chemo-hygiene. Simon-Zinc-Trumpet-Harris, married to a very attractive table lamp. Nigel Incubator-Jones, his best friend is a tree, and in his spare time he’s a stockbroker. Gervaise Brook-Hampster is in the Guards, and his father uses him as a wastepaper basket. And finally Oliver St John-Mollusc, Harrow and the Guards, thought by many to be this year’s outstanding twit.
|n order to be crowned champion they have to complete a number of demanding tasks, such as walking in a straight line, kicking the beggar, reversing their sports car into an old woman, insulting the waiter and finally shooting themselves.
Palin is suitably grotty as Ken Shabby, who has come to ask Chapman for his lovely daughter’s hand in marriage.
Father: Mr Shabby… I just want to make sure that you’ll be able to look after daughter…
Shabby: Oh yeah, yeah. I’ll be able to look after ‘er all right sport, eh, know what I mean, eh emggh!
Father: And, er, what job do you do?
Shabby: I clean out public lavatories.
Father: Is there promotion involved?
Shabby: Oh yeah, yeah. (produces handkerchief and cleans throat horribly into it) After five years they give me a brush… eurggha eurgh … I’m sorry squire, I’ve gobbed on your carpet…
The final sketch (featuring Chapman as a politician who has fallen through the Earth’s crust and is forced to continue his broadcast whilst swinging upside down on a rope) doesn’t really engage, although Chapman is game to dangle about. But overall this a strong show, particularly with the Minehead by-election and the Upper-Class Twits.
After the success of Remembrance of the Daleks it was inevitable that Ben Aaronovitch would be asked to contribute another script. Battlefield began life as a three-parter which was later expanded to four episodes, although Aaronovitch was to express his dissatisfaction with the story as it appeared on screen – feeling that it too obviously a three-part story with an extra episode bolted on.
But whilst there are script problems, there are also some rather dodgy performances which do drag the story down. It’s probably (apart from Time and the Rani) Sylvester McCoy’s worst Doctor Who performance. He’s all over the place and far too many times his line delivery is very poor (“There will be no battle here!”, ” If they’re dead”, etc, etc). Comparing this and Ghost Light back to back is particularly instructive. He’s at his best in Ghost Light (restrained and still) and very much at his worst in Battlefield (ranting and over-expressive).
Sophie Aldred has her poor moments as well (“Boom!”) whilst Christopher Bowen’s turn as Mordred is on the ripe side, to put it mildly. Angela Bruce settles down as the story progresses, but she’s also not especially good to begin with (“Shame!”).
The start of a beautiful friendship?
It’s not all bad though – Marcus Gilbert has a nice comic touch as Ancelyn and James Ellis is always watchable. His Tennyson ad-libs (“ Thou rememberest how, in those old days, one summer noon, an arm rose up from out the bosom of the lake clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, holding the sword“) work very well and it’s nice that Michael Kerrigan allowed him some space to indulge himself.
The main guest roles were filled by Nicholas Courtney and Jean Marsh. Marsh manages to bring out the contrary nature of Morgaine, as she’s someone who is more than capable of destruction but also has her own moral code (observing remembrance for the dead and restoring Elizabeth’s sight).
Ben Aaronovitch was quite clear that bringing back Lethbridge-Stewart and UNIT was something of a fannish indulgence. In many ways this undoes some of the good work from Mawdryn Undead. It would have been the easy option in 1983 to have the Brigadier back with UNIT and fighting monsters, but instead they went for a more interesting story with a retired and somewhat broken-down figure.
“Ware this man. He is steeped in blood”
Here, it’s pure fannish wish-fulfillment to have the Brig back in his old uniform and in charge (albeit temporarily) of UNIT. It’s hard to believe, to be honest, that any military organisation would reinstate a retired soldier like this, so it may have been more credible to have had him along as a civilian advisor, due to his knowledge of the Doctor. Courtney’s always good value (especially when facing down the Destroyer in the last episode) but after Mawdryn, this can’t help but feel like a little bit of a let-down.
As with many stories script-edited by Andrew Cartmel, some interesting material never made the screen (although it was restored for a special edition of the story when it was released on DVD). Chief amongst the cuts was the disdain that Ace has for the Brig, something that is totally absent from the transmitted story.
The story is a little incoherent with various plot devices (a stranded nuclear missile convoy is introduced in the first episode and then forgotten about until the last ten minutes of the final episode) not used particularly well. And the reason for Morgaine traveling to this universe is never made clear – has some catastrophe affected her own, maybe? The plot is a little wooly at times, it’s made clear that Morgaine knows she’s traveled to another dimension, but at another point in the story the Doctor maintains that the Earth will be a battleground for a conflict that doesn’t belong here – implying that Morgaine is unaware she’s no longer in her own universe.
The reveal of the Destroyer at the end of the third episode does give the story a little more impetus and it has to be said that the design is wonderful. Some seven years earlier, the Terileptils in The Visitation were able to curl their lips but that’s nothing compared to the lip-curling that the Destroyer indulges in. It’s a good indication just how animatronics and technology in general had evolved over the course of seven years or so.
Flawed though Battlefield is, it’s still enjoyable – but it’s very much the weak link in S26. And a special mention must go out to the closing scene. Keff McCullough’s comedy tune as the girls leave is perhaps a fitting ending to a real curate’s egg of a story.
So far, we’ve seen a variety of linking devices used throughout the series – this one features a group of undertakers (with Terry Jones as a suitably ghoulish one – “Are you nervy, irritable, depressed, tired of life? Keep it up”) who pop up between the sketches with a series of mostly visual sequences that are certainly memorable. Are they funny? Mmm, I can’t say they’re particularly rib-tickling, but some of the rather crude stop-motion footage has its moments.
There’s one stand-out sketch in this show, which kicks off with Cleese as Inspector Tiger. Upon entering a Agatha Christie type drawing room, he launches into the following monologue.
This house is surrounded. I’m afraid I must not ask anyone to leave the room. No, I must ask nobody … no, I must ask everybody to… I must not ask anyone to leave the room. No one must be asked by me to leave the room. No, no one must ask the room to leave. I … I … ask the room shall by someone be left. Not. Ask nobody the room somebody leave shall I. Shall I leave the room? Everyone must leave the room… as it is… with them in it. Phew. Understand?
After some more mangled dialogue and a lobotomy, Tiger recreates the crime. The lights go out and when they come on again he is dead (with a bullet hole in his forehead, an arrow through his throat and a bottle of poison by his side). Then several of his colleagues turn up, each with a sillier name than the one previous. Such as Chief Inspector Lookout (“Look out? What where?”) and Assistant Chief Constable Theresamanbehindyer (“Theresamanbehindyer? Ah, you’re not going to catch me with an old one like that”).
One-note though this sketch is, it’s worth it just for Cleese’s Tiger. And just as it begins to run out of steam, we move away with the undertakers promising that we’ll return to it as soon as something interesting happens. Next up is some football chat with Idle as an interviewer and Cleese as Jimmy Buzzard, his none-too-bright interviewee. I love Idle’s opening piece to camera.
From the plastic arts we turn to football. Last night in the Stadium of Light, Jarrow, we witnessed the resuscitation of a great footballing tradition, when Jarrow United came of age, in a European sense, with an almost Proustian display of modern existentialist football. Virtually annihilating by midfield moral argument the now surely obsolescent catennachio defensive philosophy of Signor Alberto Fanffino. Bologna indeed were a side intellectually out argued by a Jarrow team thrusting and bursting with aggressive Kantian positivism and outstanding in this fine Jarrow team was my man of the match, the arch-thinker, free scheming, scarcely ever to be curbed, midfield cognoscento, Jimmy Buzzard.
Cleese’s Buzzard (“Well Brian… I’m opening a boutique.”) is totally unable to respond to any of Idle’s questions and instead falls back onto a series of stock phrases. It’s another nice performance from Cleese, particularly the expression of joy on his face when he thinks he’s thought of something interesting to say, which tends not to be anything worth waiting for.
We cut back to the drawing room (piled high with bodies) and then it’s onto Interesting People, which is odd. There’s a basic premise (Palin as the host of a show which introduces us to interesting people) but that’s merely an excuse for a grab-bag of strange characters such as Jones as Mr Ali Bayan, who’s stark raving mad and Cleese as Mr Ken Dove, twice voted the most interesting man in Dorking. He shouts a lot.
As Python progressed, it tended to get stranger and more free-form and this is certainly one of the first series episodes that points the direction that the show would be heading in the future. Like many other episodes, it’s a bit like the Beatles’ White Album – there’s plenty to enjoy but it does feel bitty and fragmented. Not everything works, but at this point the hits outweigh the misses.
And with Professor R.J. Gumby lecturing on why he believed the Battle of Traflgar was fought near Cudworth and the Batley Townswomen’s Guild re-enacting the Battle of Pearl Harbour, there’s certainly something for everyone.
The Greatest Show in the Galaxy was originally slated for S26 as a studio-bound three-parter. It was brought forward to form part of S25 and the episode count was upped to four – with an allocation for location filming.
Although the location work took place in a quarry (not an unusual location for Doctor Who) – Warmwell Quarry in Dorset was something special. Visually, it looks stunning and the production was fortunate to have good weather, which along with the setting really helped to give the early part of the story an epic feeling.
When the planned studio sessions had to be cancelled due to an asbestos scare, the production set up shop in the car park at Elstree studios. It wasn’t always easy, but there was a feeling that this story was something special, so nobody wanted it to go the way of Shada.
There are two main themes that Stephen Wyatt develops across the tale – the first is that clowns are somewhat sinister and the second is that you should never trust a hippy. By his own admission, Wyatt was never a free-spirit during the 1960’s and his distrust for the “free-love” generation is clearly on show. And what is Deadbeat, if not a warning about what happens if you do lots of drugs?
The founders of the Psychic Circus (including such far-out characters such as Flowerchild, Peacepipe and Juniperberry) had a dream to forge a real workers collective. According to Bellboy, “We had such high ideals when we started. We shared everything and we enjoyed making people happy. If we had a problem we’d all just sit round and talk it through. Oh, we were so happy. At least, I think we were”.
But something went wrong. Somehow the Gods of Ragnarok infiltrated the circus and it became a killing machine for their personal pleasure. Are the Gods (with their constant cries of “entertain us”) designed to parody the television audience or are they poking fun at the BBC management who seemed to be increasingly indifferent to Doctor Who?
Whizzkid (Gian Sammarco) is another meta-textual character – designed (although Wyatt was later to dispute this) as an archetypal Doctor Who fan. But when he has lines such as –
Although I never got to see the early days, I know it’s not as good as it used to be but I’m still terribly interested.
It’s hard to see how anyone could possibly dispute this, as by the late 1980’s it was common practice for the majority of Doctor Who fans to hark back to the glory days of the 1960’s and 1970’s and despair of the direction the current series was taking. As an aside, I love the comment on the audio commentary when Jessica Martin asks if any fans were offended by this character and Toby Hadoke responds that Doctor Who fans have a default setting of being offended!
Whizzkid isn’t the only odd character drawn to the circus. There’s also Captain Cook (T.P. McKenna) and Mags (Jessica Martin). The Captain and Mags seem to have been written as a pastiche of the Doctor and Ace – another aspect of the story which is feeding off itself to create story ideas. McKenna gives a lovely turn as the amoral, boorish explorer and Martin is very appealing as his side-kick. A definite Doctor Who companion that never was, I think.
I think the Captain is about to launch into another long-winded anecdote
Greatest Show has some lovely imagery (the clowns driving in a silent hearse, for example) and a strong guest cast. There’s nice cameos from the likes of Peggy Mount and Daniel Peacock whilst Ian Reddington shows exactly how clowns can be creepy.
Given that S25 generally portrayed the Doctor as a cosmic schemer, this story is very much the odd one out. He fails to sense that there’s anything wrong at the end of the first episode (whilst Ace can hear Mags’ screaming) and he also doesn’t pick up on the signs that Mags is a werewolf. As Captain Cook says, “You really were extremely stupid this time, Doctor”.
Although there’s plenty to enjoy in Greatest Show, it might have been better off as a three-parter after all. The story virtually grinds to a halt in episode three and episode four is also a bit of a disappointment. The resolution happens very quickly, so it probably would have been better to have a more coherent ending and slightly less of the Doctor’s conjuring tricks. It was no doubt good fun for McCoy, but the finale should have been a little more involving than simply some business with eggs, rope and straightjackets.
But even though the story rather dribbles away, the visual sweep, performances and the story ideas make up for the limp ending. The Greatest Show in the Galaxy? Mmm, at times I’d probably say it was.
There’s more playing with the conventions of television at the start of this one – the first sketch can’t begin until a plumber (Palin), who’s relaxing at home, has traveled to television centre to take part in the sketch. After his totally irrelevant walk-on, we’re into the sketch proper which sees Cleese as a bank robber unsuccessfully attempting to find large piles of cash in a lingerie shop.
Continuity announcer David Uncton (Chapman) seemed to enjoy it (“Well that was a bit of fun wasn’t it. Ha, ha, ha“). He’s then able to tell us about the evenings entertainment.
Well, let’s see what we’ve got next. In a few moments ‘It’s A Tree’ and in the chair as usual is Arthur Tree, and starring in the show will be a host of star guests as his star guests. And then at 9.30 we’ve got another rollocking half hour of laughter-packed squalor with ‘Yes it’s the Sewage Farm Attendants’. And this week Dan falls into a vat of human dung with hilarious consequences.
It’s A Tree really is a tree – with more than a passing resemblance to David Frost (“Ha, ha, ha, ha, super”). Although Frost had employed most of the Pythons (The Frost Report/At Last The 1948 Show) there was always a slight needle between them – some of the Pythons had a fairly jaundiced view about how Frost would use the talent of others to advance his own career.
The Vocational Guidance Counselor sketch is the best thing in this show. Palin’s a chartered accountant who seeks a change of career from chartered accountant to lion tamer. Cleese is the counselor who’s more cautious (“It’s a bit of a jump isn’t it? I mean, chartered accountancy to lion taming in one go. You don’t think it might be better if you worked your way towards lion taming, say, via banking?”).
As previously discussed, when they went to University some of the Pythons faced possible careers as solicitors or chartered accountants – a career in comedy seemed like a distant dream. So they never miss an opportunity to mock the grey little men, as Cleese does here.
Your report here says that you are an extremely dull person. You see, our experts describe you as an appallingly dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, lacking in initiative, spineless, easily dominated, no sense of humour, tedious company and irrepressibly drab and awful. And whereas in most professions these would be considerable drawbacks, in chartered accountancy they are a positive boon.
I also love Ron Obvious (Jones) who attempts a series of impossible feats (jumping the channel, eating Chichester Cathedral, tunneling to Java) egged on by his unscrupulous manager (Palin). There’s another pet shop sketch with Palin and Cleese, although it has a darker tone than Dead Parrot. Cleese wants a cat, but Palin only has dogs – but he suggests a neat conversion (“Listen, tell you what. I’ll file its legs down a bit, take its snout out, stick a few wires through its cheeks. There you are, a lovely pussy cat”).
And just as the show started with everybody hanging about waiting for Palin to arrive, so the last sketch ends in a similar way. Palin is the husband with an unattractive wife (Jones) who attracts an unfeasibly large number of admirers. Mid-way through the sketch, Palin pops off for a tinkle, which brings the proceedings to an abrupt halt (“Oh no you can’t do that. Here, we haven’t finished the sketch yet!”).
Next Up – Episode Eleven – The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Goes To The Bathroom
The Doctor is custodian of an ancient Gallifreyan artifact of almost unimaginable power. One of the Doctor’s oldest enemies wants it (as do others) and after various adventures they acquire it. But far too late they discover that they’ve fallen into the Doctor’s trap.
Sounds familiar? It should do, since it’s the plot of Remembrance of the Daleks. And then a month later exactly the same story was used in Silver Nemesis. It’s hard to believe that Andrew Cartmel would have commissioned two writers to pen the same story, so presumably it was a coincidence. But when the similarities became apparent, Silver Nemesis really should have been rewritten.
To be honest, Silver Nemesis really isn’t very good. It’s similarity to Remembrance is only one of its problems. I’ve always found the notion that the Doctor set his pocket watch to remind him that the Nemesis statue would crash to Earth in 1988 to be bizarre. He has a time machine, so why didn’t he nip forward 350 years as soon as he’d launched the statue, in order to deal with the consequences?
And the scenes with the skinheads are particularly painful. Why keep them in, since they don’t advance the plot at all, when other cuts were made which did impact the narrative? The story would have probably been better as a four-parter, or a re-drafted three-parter, but what was transmitted was a bit of a mess. The VHS edit (incorporating some of the cut footage) was an improvement – but the DVD only had the broadcast version. If ever a story needed a re-edit, then it was this one – but sadly the DVD didn’t get it.
The Cybermen aren’t much cop (there’s a train of thought that posits it was all downhill for them after The Tenth Planet). Even the briefest touch from a golden arrow is enough to kill them (whereas in Earthshock the Doctor had to grate Adric’s batch into their chest unit) and even worse, they run away when they spot gold on the ground. As Ace would say, wimps!
Anton Diffring adds a touch of class as De Flores. It’s not much of a part (he’s the leader of an inept bunch of neo-Nazis) but he does what he can. Fiona Walker makes a fairly forgettable villain, although Gerard Murphy as Richard gives a nice, comic performance.
Silver Nemesis is also notable for dropping hints about the “truth” concerning the Doctor. All this “more than a Time Lord” business was covered in depth later in the New Adventures, which was probably the best place for it.
This story is a perfectly inoffensive 75 minutes, but as its sandwiched between two stories that have considerably more scope and depth, it can’t help but look a little threadbare.
The Happiness Patrol is one of the greatest Doctor Who stories of all time. That’s not possibly a view that’s particularly widely shared (it ranked only 172 out of 241 stories in the DWM 2014 poll). But then The Gunfighters could only manage a ranking of 202 in the same poll, which is even more bizarre.
After watching The Happiness Patrol on its orignal transmission back in 1988, my first thought was that it was like Paradise Towers – only done right. There’s a lot to enjoy in Paradise Towers, but some of the performances do let it down. Happiness is cast so well, with no weak links.
Sheila Hancock is Helen A, an autocratic leader who has little time for anybody else’s point of view. Saddled with an apparently subservient husband, Joseph C (Ronald Fraser), they were seen at the time as obvious caricatures of Margaret and Denis Thatcher. The tone of Hancock’s delivery, for example, is clearly modeled on Thatcher. Hancock told DWM in 2001 that she hated Mrs Thatcher “with a deep and venomous passion” so it’s not surprising that she took the material in the script and pushed it, possibly, even further.
Sheila Hancock and Ronald Fraser
But though Helen A can be seen as a Thatcher-clone, the script is pointing in another direction. Take the final scene between Helen A and the Doctor.
HELEN: They didn’t understand me.
DOCTOR: Oh, they understood you only too well. That’s why they resisted you.
HELEN: I only wanted the best for them.
DOCTOR: The best? Prisons? Death squads? Executions?
HELEN: They only came later. I told them to be happy, but they wouldn’t listen. I gave them every chance. Oh, I know they laughed sometimes, but they still cried, they still wept.
Helen A had been running a reign of terror, with mass murders, referred to as “disappearances”. Whilst Margaret Thatcher had many faults, “death squads and executions” weren’t amongst them. This aligns Helen A and Terra Alpha much more with countries such as Chile, where political opponents of the military junta in the 1970’s also “disappeared”, never to be seen again.
Helen A has some loyal soldiers to call on – such as Daisy K (Georgina Hale) and Priscilla P (Rachel Bell). Both Hale and Bell are great value, Hale’s drawling style of delivery can make the most out of even fairly mundane lines, whilst Bell is given some good scenes which highlight exactly how much of a fanatic she is (and just the type of solider Helen A requires when things turn desperate).
PRISCILLA: I used to work with explosives when I was in Happiness Patrol B, the anti-terrorist squad. We worked the night shift. I like working late at night.
ACE: Not interested.
PRISCILLA: Night times are when they come out.
ACE: Who?
PRISCILLA: The killjoys. Depressives, manic reactive indigenous. We got them. All of them.
ACE: What do you mean, got them?
PRISCILLA: They disappeared.
ACE: You make me sick.
PRISCILLA: I did a good job, and then they put me on this. It’s not fair. I know the streets. I’m a fighter.
ACE: No, you’re not. You’re a killer.
John Normington (Trevor Sigma) and Lesley Dunlop (Susan Q) had both guest-starred in S21, but had very different roles here. Trevor Sigma is a much less showy part than Morgus (Trevor Sigma exists only on the periphery of the plot and his major contribution is to confirm exactly how many people have disappeared on Terra Alpha in the last six months).
Dunlop is much more central to the action and gives a very nice, understated performance (which isn’t easy in that costume). In episode one she discusses the futility of her life and how she welcomes the possibility of her own death – something that it’s hard to find many examples of in the series, prior to this story.
But I did wake up one morning, and suddenly something was very clear. I couldn’t go on smiling. Smiling while my friends disappeared, wearing this uniform and smiling and trying to pretend I’m something I’m not. Trying to pretend that I’m happy. Better to let it end. Better to just relax and let it happen. I woke up one morning and I realised it was all over.
Sophie Aldred and Lesley Dunlop
Ronald Fraser has little to do throughout the story except react to other characters (although his final scene is a gem). But Fraser’s lovely as the befuddled consort and he adds another touch of class to the story . Richard D. Sharp (Earl Sigma) is very solid and provides a good foil for McCoy’s Doctor, which leads us onto the most controversial aspect of the story.
Yes, the Kandyman looks like Bertie Bassett. For those who can’t get beyond that, The Happiness Patrol is clearly a disaster. But the Kandyman is a wonderful creation – visually he looks great, he’s got some killer lines and despite the heavy costume, David John Pope gives him a definite character.
And there’s a fabulous relationship between the Kandyman and Gilbert M (Harold Innocent). Virtually every scene they have together is laugh-out-loud funny, starting with the first when Gilbert returns to the Kandy Kitchen and the Kandyman angrily asks him “What time do you call this?“.
I also love this exchange in episode two.
KANDYMAN: What’s affected me? Help me!
GILBERT: It’s quite simple. Created as you are out of glucose based substances, your joints need constant movement to avoid coagulation.
KANDYMAN: What do you mean?
GILBERT: You’re turning into a slab of toffee. I saw this at the planning stage, and then I realised what the solution was.
KANDYMAN: What’s that?
GILBERT: I’ve forgotten.
The Kandyman does rather fade out of the story after episode two though. He only has one good scene in the last episode before meeting a rather sticky end. So whilst many people, I’m sure, would have been happy if he had fewer (or no) scenes, when re-watching the story I’m always disappointed he doesn’t have more.
The Doctor and Ace are in the thick of the action. Ace gets to make friends with Susan Q and the Pipe People, as well as tangle with Helen A’s pet, Fifi. Aldred continues to impress, especially since given her inexperience she’s always mixing with actors who have had much more experience than her – but she more than holds her own.
McCoy has several stand-out moments – the final scene with Helen A and the encounter with the two snipers in episode two (“Why don’t you do it then? Look me in the eye, pull the trigger, end my life. Why not?”). This is a defining moment for the Seventh Doctor, which McCoy pulls off very well. As previously mentioned, when he downplays, McCoy’s very effective.
The notion of the Doctor initiating a regime-change during the course of one night does seem a little unlikely, so it’s best to suppose that the rebellion was already well under way and the Doctor’s arrival was simply the spark that lit the flame.
There’s very little that I can find fault with – although I do wish that it had ended on the pull-back shot of Helen A comforting Fifi. That seemed to be the ideal ending – and the typical good-bye scene with Susan Q and Earl Sigma that actually closed the story did seem like something of an anti-climax.
It would have been the easy option to fill all the stories from S25 with old monsters, but thankfully with The Happiness Patrol they wanted to do something different and they certainly succeeded.
If Full Frontal Nudity is an example of Python at its best, then The Ant – An Introduction doesn’t quite hit the same heights. It does have the Llamas and the Lumberjack Song but overall it’s a little more bitty and fragmented (not an uncommon problem for Python, particularly in later series).
It opens brightly with many fascinating facts about Llamas (“The llama is a quadruped which lives in the big rivers like the Amazon. It has two ears, a heart, a forehead, and a beak for eating honey. But it is provided with fins for swimming“). The sketch is terminated by Chapman, wearing a dress and driving a moped, bursting a paper bag. Which is as good as way as any, I suppose.
Sir George Head (Cleese) is planning an expedition to scale both both peaks of Mount Kilimanjaro and Idle is keen, at first, to join him. After Idle points out it only has one peak, it becomes clear that Head sees everything in double, which explains the failure of last year’s expedition (his brother was going to build a bridge between the two peaks). It’s a nice enough sketch and does have, unusually, a punch-line. After Idle has stormed out, it’s revealed there’s another Idle in the room who’s still keen to join Head.
The Lumberjack Song is another moment from these early shows which was to remain a staple of all their live performances. The sketch which leads into it never did though, which is a pity as it has some nice moments. Palin is a hairdresser with a “terrible un-un-uncontrollable fear whenever I see hair”. Jones is the hapless customer who obviously hasn’t noticed Palin’s blood-soaked overalls and simply wants a short back and sides.
I love the part when Palin switches on a tape recorder that has the sound of hair being cut as well as the typical small talk that hairdressers seem obliged to indulge in. And even when Jones misses a comment from the recording it’s clever enough to be repeated!
Given that most of the well-known Python songs were composed by Idle, the Lumberjack Song (written by Palin/Jones) is one of the exceptions. Even though it’s incredibly familiar, it still manages to raise a smile, thanks to Palin’s enthusiasm, Connie Booth’s slow dawning realisation that Bevis isn’t quite the man she thought he was and the disgust of the Fred Tomlinson Singers (plus Cleese and Chapman).
And there’s a good follow-on, with another letter delivered in the style familiar from Points of View.
Dear Sir, I wish to complain in the strongest possible terms about the song which you have just broadcast, about the lumberjack who wears women’s clothes. Many of my best friends are lumberjacks and only a few of them are transvestites. Yours faithfully, Brigadier Sir Charles Arthur Strong (Mrs.) PS I have never kissed the editor of the Radio Times.
We then have our first sighting of a Gumby, before Idle appears as a smarmy Nightclub host. There’s not a great deal of wordplay in this episode, so Idle’s monologue is welcome.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Refreshment Room here at Bletchley. My name is Kenny Lust and I’m your compere for tonight. You know, once in a while it is my pleasure, and my privilege, to welcome here at the Refreshment Room, some of the truly great international artists of our time. And tonight we have one such artist. Ladies and gentlemen, someone whom I’ve always personally admired, perhaps more deeply, more strongly, more abjectly than ever before. A man, well more than a man, a god, a great god, whose personality is so totally and utterly wonderful my feeble words of welcome sound wretchedly and pathetically inadequate. Someone whose boots I would gladly lick clean until holes wore through my tongue, a man who is so totally and utterly wonderful, that I would rather be sealed in a pit of my own filth, than dare tread on the same stage with him.Ladies and gentlemen, the incomparably superior human being, Harry Fink!
By the end of this, Idle is prostrate on the floor, although he isn’t particularly concerned when he’s told that Fink hasn’t turned up, as Ken Buddha and his inflatable knees is a more than adequate subsistence.
After a film sequence featuring some visual comedy of the “hunting, shooting, fishing” type, we’re into the last sketch which features Chapman and Carol Cleveland as a young couple who are keen to enjoy a quiet night in.
Naturally enough, this doesn’t happen. Firstly, Idle turns up at the door (“Remember me? In the pub. The tall thin one with the moustache, remember? About three years ago?”) playing essentially the same character from the Nudge, Nudge sketch. A three-handed sketch with Idle, Chapman and Cleveland would have been logical – but Python rarely did logical, so instead we get an ever increasing guest list of grotesques.
There’s Cleese as Mr Equator (“Good evening. My name is Equator, Mr Equator. Equator. Like round the middle of the Earth, only with an L”) and Jones as his wife (“She smells a bit but she has a heart of gold”). Gilliam’s next, acting incredibly camp and wearing little more than a cape and a pair of speedos. He’s brought a friend (Palin) who’s had to bring his goat along (“He’s not well. I only hope he don’t go on the carpet.”)
As so often, Chapman is the sensible one, cast adrift in a sea of lunatics. And the point of the sketch? Well, Chapman is shot dead by Mr Equator and Cleveland disappears, so that’s a difficult one – maybe that the world is full of lunatics and it’s impossible to stop them?
Archive Television Musings 