aRTy without the Drivel!

The beauty of a “Doctor Who” Radio Times cover is that you can admire the visual without having to listen to what passes for a script in this day and age, not unlike watching Girls Aloud or the Sugababes on television with the sound switched off!

The opening couple of minutes of “The Next Doctor”, seen twice on “Children in Need”, showed exactly where Russell’s mind is at, regarding a possible future incarnation of the lead character… and I’m talking about the Doctor, not his companion! The next Doctor’s few lines of dialogue were enough to present its audience with an identikit version of the current incumbent of the TARDIS.

I believed David Morrissey would make an interestingly swarthy Doctor, well before I knew he’d been cast in this year’s Christmas Special. When I saw him as Colonel Brandon in “Sense and Sensibility”, at the very beginning of the year, I thought there’s your man!

But, folks, like Mr. Morrissey’s immediate predecessor and his predecessor before him (that’s Chris Eccleston, if you’ve lost me!) Morrissey’s Doctor is incorrigibly rude and very up his own bottom!! RTD’s Doctors will always be characterised thus so it doesn’t really matter who the eleventh Doctor will be…

More pertinent a question is whether or not the style of writing will change radically under a new leadership, if indeed there really is a new man at the helm of “Doctor Who”. Russell, it seems, is holding onto the reigns of “The Sarah Jane Adventures” which also refuses to move forward following the introduction of… yawn… a new family. Pretty as Rani is, she has yet to make her mark!

I’m ever hopeful “The Next Doctor” will surprise me. I know David Morrissey is simply playing what’s written, and following orders like John Simm before him, but I’m praying the new arrival will still shine, despite!

Three reasons to look forward to the “Doctor Who” Christmas Special include David Morrissey, the return of the Cybermen (even despite their bastardisation, it’s about time a familiar foe was featured in a festive instalment), and the fact that part of the story was filmed in College Green in my hometown.

The Other Doctor

Things are looking up in the world of “Doctor Who”! After a run of five poor episodes, beginning with the last two of last year’s season, taking in the Christmas special, and concluding with the first two of the latest series, we’ve now had three good ones on the trot, up to and including last night’s “The Poison Sky”!! I had my doubts about the return of the war-loving clones but all involved seemed to pull it off with more than a twinkle in their eye. It helped that the masks actually moved with each actor’s facial performance together with the fact that these marauding aliens are far more chatty than those from either Skaro or Mondas. Christopher Ryan, last seen in “Doctor Who” nearly twenty-two years ago as Mentor Kiv in the “Mindwarp” segment of “The Trial of a Time Lord”, really seemed to be enjoying himself! Rose popped up briefly again, this time on the TARDIS monitor, and appeared to be mouthing the syllables of “Doctor” in a panicked state. But, best of all was Bernard Cribbins who reminded me of the proprietor of the Shangri La holiday camp, Burton, as played by “Please Sir” actor Richard Davies in the seventh Doctor story “Delta and the Bannermen”, in that he accepts the situation, however bizarre, and just gets on with it. Donna’s grandfather is truly a refreshing change from every single family member we’ve been introduced to over the last few years!

And, next week’s story looks like being a corker, too! Not only does the episode ironically feature fifth Doctor Peter Davison’s real-life daughter Georgia Moffett, as “The Doctor’s Daughter”, but also accomplished Shakespearean actor Nigel Terry, whom you may have seen in “The Ruth Rendell Mysteries” whodunit “A Guilty Thing Surprised” or, more recently, as Professor Stephen Curtis in two episodes of “Spooks”. 2008 is shaping up to be a monster year for our favourite science fiction series, in more ways than one… We’ve seen the return of the Ood and the Sontarans, which may well have had something to do with the upturn in quality, though not necessarily, and the Daleks are still to resurface with the Cybermen at the end of the year. The original “Monster” Season was the Fifth, from the classic era of the programme, despite not actually featuring any Daleks, with the exception of a repeat of “The Evil of the Daleks” from the previous year. Nearly two decades later, producer John Nathan-Turner tried to emulate this theme in Season Twenty-One. So, maybe at the back of the mind of Russell T. Davies is a desire to have a go at this himself. He wouldn’t want to feel left out at not having left his mark in every conceivable area!

While the latest episodes have been transmitting, the “Doctor Who” crew have been filming just a few miles down the road from me, at Gloucester Cathedral, the location used for many of the school sequences in the earlier “Harry Potter” movies. David Tennant’s Doctor has been attending a funeral. College Green was covered with artificial snow for a scene in which mourners, in Victorian costume, marched in front of a horse-drawn carriage carrying a coffin. It isn’t clear who is in the coffin but, at one point, Tennant watches with a grim expression as the hearse passes him. Neither Billie Piper, Freema Agyeman or Catherine Tate were present for filming, so your guess is as good as mine! While none of the familiar ladies of the new series were here, actress Velile Tshabalala was. She is rumoured to be a new companion. But, whose? Also on location was David Morrissey and attached to his trailer were the mysterious words “The Other Doctor”!! As you can see, he is certainly dressed to look like a Doctor but is he the eleventh or an incarnation from another dimension? The two Davids have worked together before on the BBC musical serial “Blackpool”. Since seeing David Morrissey as Colonel Brandon earlier in the year in “Sense and Sensibility”, I’ve been thinking what a terrific Doctor he might make. Maybe Russell caught his performance, too?

Good Sense Prevails!

“Colonel Brandon is an exceptional man, I think. What sadness he has known. He kept faithful to his first love even after she had been torn away from him, even after she was dead. He is the true romantic, I think. It is not what we say or feel that makes us what we are, it is what we do… or fail to do.” So speaks a wiser Marianne to her sister Elinor, near the story’s completion, having learnt some of life’s lessons the hard way, resulting in a near-fatal illness. Andrew Davies’ three-part adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility” was exceptional; well acted, well directed, fast moving - much more so than his most famous six-part adaptation of “Pride and Prejudice” - and completely compelling, emotionally. For me, David Morrissey gave the standout performance as the highly moral Colonel Brandon. He showed that a man does not have to lie in another person’s lap in order to prove himself passionate, quite the contrary. While Willoughby played with the affections of numerous young women, regardless of consequence, Brandon’s steadfastness won through making him all the more desirable. Marianne’s initial objection to the Colonel, their age difference, is irrelevant in the end. You cannot choose with whom you fall in love and it is surprising, perhaps, that Brandon didn’t fall for the more sensible, though none-less-passionate, Elinor but, true to life, the narrative isn’t so predictable. Would all men were wholly like Colonel Brandon but I suspect most contain some of his good nature together with a little of Willoughby’s deceitfulness… sadly.

“Sense and Sensibility” is the latest in a recent spate of television adaptations of classic novels, all of which have proved excellent. Despite it being seemingly about manners, it has more of the wildness of Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights” about it than does the earlier “Pride and Prejudice”. When “Sense and Sensibility” began on New Year’s Day, despite the controversial opening, I thought it was going to err on the side of conservatism and, indeed, it wasn’t as radical an adaptation as the preceding five-part presentation of “Oliver Twist” which ran nightly on BBC One in the run up to Christmas. Timothy Spall transformed the character of Fagin, from what we’ve come to expect, and made it refreshingly his own. Before this, there was the female equivalent of “Pickwick Papers” in the five-hour dramatisation of three novels by Elizabeth Gaskell resulting in “Cranford”, another serial with a strong moral backbone. ITV responded to the BBC’s offerings with a new version of E. M. Forster’s “A Room with a View”, starring the gorgeous Elaine Cassidy, and, on Boxing Day, with another Dickens, “The Old Curiosity Shop”, featuring Derek Jacobi in the role of Little Nell’s gambling-addicted Grandfather. There are more costume dramas in production, to be shown at the end of the year. The BBC have yet to cast their four-part adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s “Tess of the d’Urbervilles” but I can’t wait! It is one of my favourite novels, if not my favourite. I only hope four episodes is long enough to do it justice. ITV will counteract with another version of the aforementioned “Wuthering Heights”. I hope they are both as good as the current crop of dramatisations and, in particular, as strong in every area as “Sense and Sensibility”.