Keeping it in the family

Mother and daughter Dame Diana Rigg and Rachael Stirling are to star side-by-side in a Doctor Who adventure to be broadcast next year. Dame Diana is probably still best known for her role as high-kicking Mrs Emma Peel in two seasons of The Avengers during the Sixties. She has, of course, done much since including starring opposite James Wilby in the memorable BBC psychological drama Mother Love. She also played Lady Dedlock, to excellent effect, in the 1985 version of Bleak House, as well as appearing alongside Charles Dance and Emilia Fox in ITV’s adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca. Rachael, on the other hand, achieved notoriety appearing alongside Keeley Hawes in lesbian drama Tipping The Velvet and has more recently been seen in the BBC Four retelling of DH Lawrence’s Women In Love (pictured) and its prequel The Rainbow. It is the first time the pair have worked together on screen. The actresses will play “a mother and daughter with a dark secret” up against Matt Smith’s Doctor and new companion Jenna-Louise Coleman. Filming of the story began this week at Roath Lock Studios in Cardiff.

Meanwhile, over on the other side, Matt’s immediate Time Lord predecessor David Tennant will play a detective in new drama Broadchurch, about the death of a young boy in a seaside town, ITV1 has announced. The eight-part series has been penned by Doctor Who and Torchwood writer Chris Chibnall. He wrote the real-time episode 42 in which David’s Doctor had to prevent a spaceship from crashing into the Sun and, more recently, the two-part Silurian adventure for Matt’s Doctor. Tennant leads an ensemble cast featuring Rev actress Olivia Colman and Will Mellor, best known for the interminable Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps and, latterly, White Van Man although, to his credit, he did once appear in an early episode of Merlin! Arthur Darvill, who plays current Doctor Who Matt Smith’s sidekick Rory, will appear as the town priest. See what I mean about keeping it in the family? Nepotism just ain’t what it used to be! Still, something to look forward to on the independent channel, bearing in mind that the much-delayed transmission of the fifth season of Primeval, screening at a ridiculously early time, is currently ITV1’s best show!!

Don’t bring Harry

BBC spy drama Spooks will come to an end this autumn on BBC One with a final six-episode tenth series.

Jane Featherstone, chief executive of Kudos Film & Television, the company who created Spooks, calls it “a fitting end to a much-loved show”.

The final series of Spooks will focus on Section D’s Head of Counter-Terrorism Sir Harry Pearce KBE (Peter Firth) and a guilty secret that could destroy his relationship with Senior Intelligence Analyst Ruth Evershed (Nicola Walker). Joining the established cast, Robin Hood’s Lara Pulver plays an ambitious and hungry new spook determined to make her mark! She replaces Beth Bailey, portrayed by Sophia Myles in the last season. Also on board, for its final outing, are (Borg Queen) Alice Krige and the excellent Jonathan Hyde, of Titanic fame, whom I best remember in BBC Two’s period courtroom saga Shadow Of The Noose.

Spooks is responsible for making household names of numerous actors including Matthew Macfadyen, Keeley Hawes, Shauna Macdonald, who went on to star in the superb British horror flick The Descent, Rupert Penry-Jones and Miranda Raison, recently seen in Sugartown, to mention but five!

“We’ve followed the arc of Harry and Ruth’s personal story,” said Featherstone. “I think the team have brought Spooks to a natural end,” she concluded.

Pounding the Beat

Gene Hunt returned, last night, his reputation preceding him! And, I was along for the ride in the back of his Audi Quattro!! What a trip it was too. Laying my cards right on the table, I loved the opening episode of the new eight-part series “Ashes to Ashes”, successor to “Life on Mars”. I never got into the Seventies show which is strange in itself because that was the decade in which I grew up. The soundtrack is an important feature of both series and yet the Eighties was the decade when I began to lose interest in pop music of the time. But the producers have been clever enough to set the new show in 1981, before the Eighties have really gotten into full swing, which enables them to carry on using the music of the Seventies! Smart move!! Thus, many of the featured bands/artists originate, or were at their peak of success, in the preceding ten years. I absolutely adored the moment Gene and his fellow coppers sped through the Thames, in hot pursuit, to the guitar-crunching, keyboard-swirling, Hugh Cornwell-snarling sound of The Stranglers! I was at Uni in ’81, in the last year of my first degree, in a band called The Disturbed, and “No More Heroes” was one of a few cover versions we played to much acclaim. It was our calling card, if you like, and the energy of this particular scene, in “Ashes to Ashes”, brought it all back.

“No More Heroes” wasn’t the only song in the first episode to bring on feelings of nostalgia. Bizarrely, the show featured both “Vienna” by Ultravox and “I’m in Love with a German Film Star” by The Passions and I can clearly remember buying both records on the same day in Woolworths, in Beeston, while studying at Nottingham. There are so many records they could’ve chosen so it really made me sit up and take notice when the second of the pair filtered its way into my consciousness! As a teenager in the Seventies, two of my major influences were Roxy Music and David Bowie. Again, both featured in episode one. “Ashes to Ashes”, the song, is actually a sequel to the “2001: A Space Odyssey”-influenced Sixties hit “Space Oddity”, not the track “Life on Mars”, and details what happened to Major Tom once he returned to Earth from his voyage in space. The line “I’m happy, hope you’re happy too” was one of the driving forces of the narrative. Meanwhile, “Same Old Scene” by Roxy Music, from their penultimate album “Flesh and Blood”, closed the show, suggesting the familiar setup of the previous series is firmly re-established. For me, though, the male/female dynamic, of the two leads, is a more interesting one than the male/male partnership of the previous programme, and that’s despite my fondness for “The Sweeney”. Oh, and isn’t Montserrat Lombard cute as newcomer WPC Sharon “Shaz” Granger!

From Funk 2 Funky!!

Gene Hunt is back, bigger and brasher than ever before – but he’s no longer the self-styled “Sheriff of Manchester”. Gene has transferred from the Manchester of “Life on Mars” to London’s Met Police where he’s about to finally meet his match with DI Alex Drake.

He can’t take his eyes off her, he desperately wants her, knows he’ll never have her – and at the same time she drives him up the wall! Having risen through the ranks of the Met in the modern world of 2008, Alex is an intelligent, independent DI and single mother who suddenly finds herself in 1981 surrounded by speedboats, city dealers, guns, brothels, well-dressed criminals and New Romantics.

The police are no longer seen as friendly coppers – they’re resented by the communities they’re trying to police. It’s the year of the Brixton Riots, the Royal Wedding and the Docklands Development, and Thatcher is here to stay. DS Ray Carling, DC Chris Skelton and new team member WPC Sharon “Shaz” Granger are on the front line helping Gene and Alex in their quest against crime.

They’ve donned Ray-Bans, bomber jackets and leather ties, and Gene’s bought himself a brand, spanking new red Audi Quattro, but their attitude is still the same – scum is scum wherever you are and they’ll get results whichever way they can. “Ashes to Ashes” stars Philip Glenister, Keeley Hawes, Dean Andrews, Marshall Lancaster and Montserrat Lombard. The eight-part BBC One series starts Thursday, 7 February, at 9pm.

Thanks 2 the Beeb 4 the blurb!

Cast Away!

Fans of time-travel cop drama “Life on Mars” should be counting their blessings! While “Doctor Who” fans have been lumbered with Catherine Tate for the whole of its fourth season in what feels like a lump-it-or-leave-it scenario, “Ashes to Ashes”, the sequel series to the two eight-episode seasons of “Life on Mars”, has fared rather better in the casting stakes. The lovely Keeley Hawes is to replace the dastardly John Simm alongside the abrupt Philip Glenister, reprising his role as no-nonsense DCI Gene Hunt from the original. Keeley is perhaps best known for her portrayal of Zoë Reynolds in MI5 drama “Spooks” which she left in 2004. She has, of course, starred in many other things, not least the notorious lesbian drama “Tipping the Velvet”. In “Ashes to Ashes”, Ms Hawes will play psychological profiler DI Alex Drake, an up-and-coming member of the police force in 2008, who finds herself trapped in 1981, eight years on from the previous series. Named after another David Bowie song, it will be broadcast on BBC1 in 2008. Roxy Music and The Human League will feature on the soundtrack which, to my ears, is preferable to the choice of tunes recently featured in “Doctor Who” but, more importantly, appropriate to the setting! “You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar, When I met you”!! Maybe I should switch allegiance? Only kidding, but it should be worth a look…

In casting news pertaining to the third “Doctor Who” Christmas Special, and greeted with more optimism by me than the inclusion of La Tate next year, Clive Swift is to appear in “Voyage of the Damned”. He has appeared in the series once before, opposite Colin Baker’s Doctor back in 1985, as Chief Embalmer Jobel, a bit of a ladies’ man lusting after Peri - the cad, in one of my all-time favourite stories “Revelation of the Daleks”. He’s, no doubt, best-known as Richard Bucket, put-upon husband of Hyacinth, in the dreadful BBC1 sitcom “Keeping Up Appearances”, though I prefer to remember him as the equally downtrodden Bishop Proudie in “The Barchester Chronicles”. My imagination has been working overtime at the thought of Mr Swift having a read-through with Kylie! Equally intriguing is the casting of Geoffrey Palmer as the Captain of the Titanic. Another good actor but I wonder if, at 80, he isn’t a little too old to be playing Edward Smith. He, like Clive, has worked on the classic series, though in his case twice and both times opposite Jon Pertwee. 37 years ago, he appeared in “Doctor Who and the Silurians”, by far the best of the pair, and resurfaced two years later in “The Mutants”. His son Charles directed the first two episodes and the Paul Cornell two-parter of the most recent series so it’s likely Geoffrey has watched it since he last took part himself! Like Clive Swift, Mr Palmer senior is probably also best-known for his sitcom work, notably in “Butterflies”, the excellent “Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin”, and opposite Dame Judi Dench in the appropriately titled, considering this latest role, “As Time Goes By”!

Who would you like to see?

On “Parkinson”, a week ago, appearing alongside David Tennant, actress Amanda Holden made the remark that all her friends have appeared in “Doctor Who” except her and that she would like to appear in the programme. I suspect “all her friends” was a bit of an exaggeration and that she was actually referring to Sarah (Empress of the Racnoss) Parish with whom she worked on Debbie Horsfield’s “Cutting It”. Amanda’s an ok actress, and I enjoyed her as schoolteacher Miss Titley in “The Grimleys” to a certain extent, but there are better actresses out there who have yet to appear in the programme. I don’t think Kylie is one of them! However, it’s just been confirmed that Miss Minogue will be appearing in the Christmas Special, despite Russell T Davies’ recent denial, but not as a baddie. So, Kylie’s not booked up for the next two years as the Executive Producer of “Doctor Who” would have us believe! As filming special-guest roles often requires just two-to-three days work, I didn’t think for a minute that the Aussie songstress wouldn’t be able to fit an appearance into her busy schedule. Oh, and Russell, I don’t believe a word you say about anything!

With more stunt casting to look forward to, and with the ratings’ continued decline being the real reason behind the decision to take a week’s hiatus before relaunching with “42”, it’s reassuring to know that Russell ploughs on, regardless, with more of the same! “42” is on at 7:15pm this coming Saturday. There was no reason why it couldn’t have been on last night, at that same time, with “The Eurovision” at 8pm! But, in their infinite wisdom, the BBC, despite having a three-and-a-quarter hour “Song Contest” to wade through, chose to run with “Any Dream Will Do” for a further third of that time giving us a grand total of four hours and twenty minutes of something purporting to be music! Who said variety is dead? The very fact that “Neighbours” has been on our screens for more than twenty years, five days a week and in the same time slot, not to mention twice a day, proves the powers that be aren’t remotely interested in providing a little variety. Interminable waffle about superficial relationships for brain-dead dumb heads is, about, what it all boils down to. And, talking about this most-popular of Aussie soaps brings us neatly back to Kylie. So, if not her, which actors and actresses would you rather see making a guest appearance in “Doctor Who”?