The Actor Factor

As pop temptress Rihanna embarks on her maiden voyage of discovery, in the acting world, aboard Peter Berg’s Battleship, it’s as good as time as any to take a brief look at how other chart-toppers have fared upon leaving the relative comfort of the recording studio to try their hand at this alternative profession! Rihanna isn’t the first honey to don combats. Kylie’s already been there, done that… and surprisingly good in them she looked too. Street Fighter was terrible, also based on a video/computer game, but she was sufficiently distracting to take our attention from villain Raul Julia’s over-the-top performance. Sometimes the line is blurred as to whether or not a singer is a singer, from the outset of their career, or an actor/actress first. Kylie Minogue started out in Neighbours, of course, and she recently returned to acting for a one-off appearance in Doctor Who, appropriately on board the luxury Starship Titanic, but she’s best known as a pop starlet whose snug bottom fits golden hot pants to perfection! Rihanna’s debut, as Raikes, looks like being an even more explosive affair, as she kicks butt all the way to kingdom come, although the director insists that, unlike other movies of this type, Battleship doesn’t lose sight of its characters.

Billie Piper trained as an actress but started in show business, at the tender age of 16, as a pop star and it wasn’t until she joined the cast of Doctor Who that anyone seemed to realise. Unlike Kylie, we won’t be hearing any new recordings from Billie for a while… she now seems embarrassed by her former career and has put it well and truly behind her! The same seems to be the case for Hannah Spearritt. After initial success with S Club 7, she’s perhaps better known, at present, for her starring role in Primeval. But will she find any more acting work in the future, once the ITV sci-fi series has expired for good? Irish songstress Samantha Mumba also had a brief flirtation with the genre, when she appeared in the most recent adaptation of HG Wells’ The Time Machine, but it doesn’t seem to have led to greater roles or a return to pop. Britney Spears dabbled, in buddy movie Crossroads (no, not the Birmingham-based soap opera of the same name!), but seems happier when strutting her funky star-spangled stuff (spank her booty, one more time)!! The less said about Madonna the better, except when blow-drying her armpits, while playing herself opposite Rosanna Arquette, in Desperately Seeking Susan.

Perhaps the most successful collaborations between pop singers and moviemakers has occurred when the groove merchants have teamed up with director Nicolas Roeg. First there was Mick Jagger, working with James Fox, in gangster flick Performance. Art Garfunkel had a tempestuous relationship with Roeg’s wife, Theresa Russell, in Bad Timing. Best of all, however, was when David Bowie played alien Thomas Jerome Newton in Nic’s adaptation of Walter Tevis’s novel The Man Who Fell To Earth. I suppose you could argue Bowie was playing himself, after a succession of pop alter egos that include Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane and The Thin White Duke, but the result is still one of the most thought-provoking science fiction films about alienation ever made. Bowie’s had a reasonably successful stint as an actor, also starring in Tony Scott’s dreamlike vampire-fest The Hunger; as a goblin in Terry Jones’s Labyrinth, a sort of cross between Monty Python and Sesame Street; and alongside Tom Conti and Ryuichi Sakamoto in harrowing prisoner of war saga Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence. He even made a cameo in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks prequel Fire Walk With Me. So, I guess you could say the Starman is multitalented!

Paranoid Android

The Second Season of “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” has begun broadcasting in the States with a surprise piece of casting. In retrospect, the addition of Shirley Manson, lead singer of rock band Garbage, to the original team of actors shouldn’t have caught me unawares, due to the recent penchant for substituting pop stars for actresses in science fiction, but, nonetheless, I was slightly taken aback. I think that’s probably down to the fact that unlike Billie Piper, Hannah Spearritt and Kylie Minogue, Shirley Manson at least has some credibility! The difference is that Scot’s lass Shirley hasn’t built her career on a succession of namby-pamby pop hits exploiting the easily satisfied. I mean, let’s be honest, who on earth handed Billie her initial success for “Because We Want To”?!! It’s unmitigated dross. But, she wouldn’t have landed her plum role in “Doctor Who” without it! And, while Garbage isn’t exactly Beethoven, “I’m Only Happy When It Rains” is a step up from the likes of songs in the mould of “I Should Be So Lucky” or “Don’t Stop Moving”!! Some may argue each to their own, in defence of the Pied Piper, but what makes Billie anymore suitable a piece of casting, in a serious sf series, than the much-maligned Bonnie Langford? If Bonnie was wrong for “Doctor Who”, because she lacked the necessary authority, why, twenty years on, do fans who criticise her then accept someone equally suspect of wanting in gravitas?

Shirley Manson has yet to prove herself as an actress, of course, but her image, in the rock arena, is that of a tough cookie. “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” is a hard-as-nails series so it’s likely to suit her perceived persona. There’s no light relief waffle about handy hands in this show! She trained at a theatre school before joining a band so, like Billie Piper, it could be claimed Shirley is returning to her roots. In “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles”, Manson plays both Catherine Weaver, the CEO of a major technology company, ZeiraCorp, and also a new type of liquid-metal terminator, T-1001, sent by SkyNet to continue the hunt for the Connor family. In addition, she sings the Blind Willie Johnson song heard in the opening scene of “Samson and Delilah”, the first episode of the new season. The episode concludes with an already much-discussed cliff-hanger in which one of the characters, about to take a leak in the men’s washroom, suddenly observes the urinal before him morph into Miss Manson! Happens to me every time I feel the call of nature!! One can only hope she managed to complete the transformation before the possibility of receiving what she herself sings about in the Garbage song “When I Grow Up”. And, before you all rush off to checkout the lyrics, let me reassure you that the guy - having royally pissed her off - is, naturally, quickly dispatched in a manner similar to one of the early death scenes in “Terminator 2: Judgment Day”.

Stardust

I was really hoping for good things from “Voyage of the Damned”, the third successive “Doctor Who” Christmas Special. It couldn’t be any worse than last year’s “The Runaway Bride”, if only for the sole reason that Catherine Tate isn’t in the new episode! I tried to convince myself that, despite it being written by Russell T. Davies, the compensation would come from no less than four quality guest actors. Three of them, Geoffrey Palmer, George Costigan and Bernard Cribbins, I felt were sadly underused while, although good, Clive Swift was better as Mister Jobel in “Revelation of the Daleks”. This wasn’t the actor’s fault but the writer’s. Eric Saward, although heavily lambasted at the time, wrote much better “Doctor Who” stories than does the current head writer. And, producer Phil Collinson set himself up for a fall in a recent online interview with SFX magazine. The interviewer suggested the plot outline of “Voyage of the Damned” was not dissimilar to that of “Delta and the Bannermen” to which Phil replied that his latest production was better. It wasn’t. Interestingly, both stories are the same length but the twenty-year-old “Delta and the Bannermen” is both faster and funnier, more entertaining and even more exciting! The Heavenly Hosts featured in the current story, for example, were highly derivative; Angel masks replacing Santa ones from the two previous Christmas Specials!! They aped the mannerisms of the Ood and it felt, at times, as though we were either back on board the space liner Hyperion III, from the “Terror of the Vervoids” segment of “The Trial of a Time Lord”, or the massive sandminer vehicle which features in “The Robots of Death”. And, seafaring ships in space is, of course, an idea pinched from “Enlightenment”!

I find both Russell T. Davies and Phil Collinson to be more than a little immature and it comes across through the writing and production but, if you need further proof, rewatch the “Doctor Who Confidential” episode that accompanies “Time Crash”. In that same programme you’ll find Steven Moffat and Graeme Harper acquit themselves with far more credibility. Russell recently claimed that the production team can’t afford to make a poor episode, with over eight million viewers watching their every move, and yet the last two years have produced the worst four episodes (“Love & Monsters”, “Fear Her”, “The Runaway Bride”, “Last of the Time Lords”) in the entire history of the series. Even David Tennant seemed shocked by Russell’s recent offensive and insensitive remark that Hitler would’ve made a good Doctor! Huh?!! Davies isn’t even particularly good at bullshitting it seems!!! As was the case with the guest actors, I didn’t think there was enough of guest-companion Kylie Minogue, as Astrid Peth, in the story either. Kylie’s waitress never got to see inside the TARDIS. She was sacrificially-abandoned, along with other characters before her, well before the end; which only served to highlight the inadequacies of the script’s structure. Ironic that there’s an Aussie actress in the show, now the programme is based in Cardiff, when “Delta and the Bannermen” had a real Welsh guest-companion in Ray played by Sara Griffiths (pictured on the back of a Vincent motorcycle with seventh Doctor Sylvester McCoy)! The moments of self-sacrifice in “Voyage of the Damned”, together with Mister Copper’s closing contemplations, were good, however, in what, otherwise, left me with that sinking feeling!!

Sibling Rivalry?

I wonder which of the Minogue sisters is the more successful? How do you judge their success? Financially or artistically?!! I don’t suppose they care or even see it in that way. The public sees Kylie as the dominant one but it’s Dannii who has the most air time, currently on British TV, appearing as one of the judges in “The X Factor”. I can’t offer an opinion as to whether or not she’s any good in this role because I’ve never watched it and never will. As far as I’m concerned, appearing on a talent show in order to try and find fame in the pop industry is a waste of time. Join a band. Form a band. Rehearse. Play gigs. Old fashioned approach, I know, but maybe that’s why the songs of yesteryear are way better than most of the ones on offer today. Dannii may be on our screens more than her sister, at the moment, but Kylie is the one with the anticipated tenth album “X”. And it’s Kylie who’ll be on our screens Christmas Day!

Dannii was initially considered the more successful of the pair in the Minogue’s native Australia. Both sisters were first seen in the UK in daily soap operas but Dannii was already successful as a regular performer on the weekly music programme “Young Talent Time”. Kylie only started to overshadow her younger sister when she took on the role of the girl next door type in “Neighbours” while Dannii tried her own hand at acting as a teen tearaway in rival show “Home and Away”. I wonder if these two parts have had a knock on effect where Kylie is seen as the nice one and Dannii the nuisance. The public do tend to take these things to heart, often believing that characters and the actors and actresses who play them are one and the same, interchangeable personalities, even if only subconsciously! I’ve even seen Dannii described as always looking constipated whereas, once upon a time, I thought she was the more attractive of the two girls.

Both of the Minogue sisters went on to have successful pop careers although Kylie’s has, without doubt, far eclipsed Dannii’s. I must confess to not being able to remember a single song title by the younger sister despite having watched her on numerous occasions on the now sadly defunct “Top of the Pops”. When I worked in a CD store during the Eighties, it was a running joke how much I couldn’t stand Kylie. But, I have mellowed towards her which is more than will ever happen regards Robbie Williams, with whom the poor lass once had the misfortune to duet! On the plus side, I think her work with the Manics but especially the duet with Nick Cave, “Where the Wild Roses Grow”, helped me enormously in appreciating her a little more. I was particularly partial to the languorous “Confide in Me” which allows itself some room to breathe where the more robotic disco of “Can’t Get You out of My Head” somehow lacks soul. Still a very good pop single though.

Both Minogue girls’ careers definitely seem to be going through a bit of a renaissance and it’s nice to see Kylie’s positivity following her recent health problems. Both sisters are also, undeniably, better grounded than a certain Miss Britney Spears. While the American seems content to wallow in sleaze, Kylie and Dannii - at least - still know the meaning of fun!

Space Girl

Perhaps this is where the rumour came from that David Bowie is to appear in an episode of the next series of “Doctor Who”! The sleeve for Kylie’s new single, “2 Hearts”, is more than a little reminiscent of David Bowie’s early-Seventies’ “Aladdin Sane” album cover with perhaps an added touch of Kiss. That’s the makeup sorted while the hair is very much Bowie again, combed over and slicked back, circa his “Young Americans” period. Ms Minogue’s single is released on November 12th with her tenth studio album, appropriately titled “X”, to follow a fortnight later on the 26th. I wonder who she’s met recently with 2 hearts, who also happens to be the tenth, to inspire her so?!!

Hey Who?

Kylie Minogue, in costume as Titanic waitress Astrid for the 2007 “Doctor Who” Christmas special “Voyage of the Damned”, leaves Morgan’s hotel in Swansea, post shoot, by the tradesman’s entrance but is still captured by the waiting photographer! This snap was taken only two days ago, on Monday. Apparently, Kylie was mistaken by an elderly customer, having no idea who she is, for a member of staff and promptly asked her if it was too late for a cup of tea? It’s believed the Australian actress-turned-songstress-turned-actress-turned-domestic replied, “It’s never too late”! But, it might well be in the case of “Doctor Who”!! And, there was me thinking this particular ship was unsinkable!!!

Pudsey Malone

Do you trust the BBC? I’ve long since lost faith in them. It didn’t take this week’s melodramatic revelations, that some of their competitions were faked, for me to feel this way but it certainly bolstered up my argument against the almighty corporation. The BBC have been found guilty of cheating the public during “Children in Need” and “Comic Relief”, to name but two! Is this not a criminal offence, to encourage the public to spend their hard-earned phoning in, essentially, to simply give it away to big business? Were I a charity, and who’s to say that I’m not (!), I would want to distance myself from such shenanigans. It makes the BBC look like gangsters, fiddling money from people any way they can. It even happened on “Blue Peter”, which makes one think that Fagin is running the show! But, in actuality, television lies all the time, especially in the world of marketing and advertising. Pre-recorded video cassettes used to be sold under the slogan, “Own it for life”! That’s assuming the player didn’t mangle the tape during rewind! Now, you can’t purchase a player assuming you still have the tape! You may still own the tapes, you just won’t be able to use them!! When the digital switchover arrives, you won’t be able to record programmes onto videotape in the way that you used to. There won’t be anything worth recording on them anyway! So, what exactly is the incentive to make the investment in order to be able to carry on watching, once the analogue signal is switched off?

Russell T Davies (Yes, him again! You just knew I’d get around to the “Doctor Who” impresario!!) stated a few months ago that Kylie couldn’t possibly be in the Christmas Special because a woman of her stature would be fully-booked for at least two years in advance. Obviously, this was said to dispel internet rumours. But, the writer lied to the public. He deceived us or, at least, attempted to! The truth is that Ms Minogue isn’t in as great a demand as Russell would have us believe!! In other words, she’s not really as popular as the media want us to think she is. It’s all marketing, hype, lies, to manipulate the public into a position where they will feel compelled to watch. Wouldn’t the world be a better place without it? If Russell puts out a statement that “Voyage of the Damned” will be the biggest and best episode yet, there are gullible people out there ready-and-willing to believe him because he is well-known and in the public eye. It must be the truth, it was in the newspaper or on television! There are some of us, in television la-la land, that feel the very-title “Doctor Who”, as used currently, is a misnomer. The series I understand as “Doctor Who” finished in 1989. The current version hasn’t retained enough of the original’s characteristics. So, is it alright to lie? Is avoiding the truth, in truth, a lie? And, is lying only an issue when it affects us financially?

Christmas be Damned!

I originally started this journal just before the launch of, and in order to comment on, the revamped series of “Doctor Who”, back in February, 2005. I didn’t review every episode of the Christopher Eccleston season that year, only “The Unquiet Dead”. I posted about the series, and other shows such as new “Captain Scarlet”, in a more general way. The following year, as David Tennant took control of the console room, I began commenting on each episode more earnestly and have continued to do so ever since. After last year’s supposed Christmas Special, “The Runaway Bride”, I found myself extremely reluctant to write anything about the story. I did, after a few days, put down some thoughts but was dissatisfied with the finished article. It was at this point I considered finishing with blogging. Analysing the 2006 series was, in a way, a depressing experience because I invariably ended up being negative about the programme. I longed to be bowled over by a story, in the way that some of you seem to be by this year’s “Human Nature”, and even had to twist my own arm to convince myself “The Impossible Planet” wasn’t too bad! I still think it’s Tennant’s best story despite a lousy beginning and poor resolution of the multiple cliff-hanger!! I determined to be more positive about the new series’ third year but, little-by-little, I felt the rot beginning to set in again. There’s an old saying goes, “If you haven’t got anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all” and there’s something to be said for that although nothing would ever improve without criticism.

Russell T Davies, seemingly, ignores criticism. He doesn’t even acknowledge its existence. He hardly ever criticises his own show. Only once have I heard him say something could be improved and that was the Santa masks in “The Christmas Invasion”. Thus, we had mark-2 Santas inflicted on us in last year’s “extravaganza”! The Executive Producer sings his own praises ad nauseam… This monster has been beautifully redesigned, that pre-titles sequence is the best teaser you’re ever likely to see etc. etc. I wonder who he is trying to convince? Himself, maybe?!! He doesn’t convince me. He seems to believe he is right about everything and I find him so about very little. I don’t believe he knows how to write or make a good “Doctor Who” story. I thought he did, in the early Nineties, when he wrote “Dark Season” and “Century Falls”. Had he, immediately, followed those with “Doctor Who”, things might’ve been different. He has achieved nothing except to tarnish something I’ve always cherished. I’m not precious about the series. I’m fully aware that a fair percentage of the original run was poorly written and cheaply made. The difference now is that Russell’s version of the show tries to pass itself off as something worthwhile. He doesn’t have a clue about what’s appropriate family viewing otherwise sexual humour of the kind in “Love & Monsters” or domestic violence in “Last of the Time Lords” would’ve been script-edited out. He wouldn’t have written these things into his scripts in the first place if he knew what he was doing!

RTD’s disastrous attempt to turn the Master’s character from the sinister rogue of old to repulsive baboon actually makes me feel physically sick in the stomach. Why didn’t someone say to Russell, this isn’t how the Master is. Do you think it appropriate to show an old man being punched in the face who is kept by his nemesis as a “Dog”? These scripted-behavioural patterns speak volumes about the author’s nature, seemingly not altogether that human. Newly-revered writer Paul Cornell, who isn’t going to speak any home truths any day soon, has this to say about last Saturday’s concluding episode, “Phew, wasn’t that great? I refer, of course, to the Doctor Who season closer, ‘The Last of the Time Lords’. It felt, to me, genuinely epic, and emotionally true, and I love the shapes Russell makes of episodes and seasons. John Simm was so frightening, such a monster, that I worried about the nation’s children. And how great was Lucy? Such an acting performance with so few lines needed. Apart from anything else, the story made sense of and completed the character of the Master, and, across the span of all Doctor Who, that really took (some) doing. Bravo!” I worried about the nation’s children, too, but I suspect for different reasons!! So, what of the future? Maybe the comma is in the wrong place and that last sentence should read… So what, of the future? I shall watch “Voyage of the Damned” this coming Christmas, to see how Kylie fares, but not season four, next year, now that Catherine Tate has been cast in all thirteen episodes as the “new” companion. Like the demise of the scarecrows in “The Family of Blood”, the reappearance of Donna Noble is the last straw.

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”?

Santa Baby?

The “Doctor Who” rumour mill has been working overtime again! The “News of the World” announced last Sunday that Australian actress and pop star Kylie Minogue will be guest starring in this year’s Christmas special of everyone’s favourite science fiction series. The report claims that Ms Minogue was persuaded to take the role by her friend and stylist Will Baker, a “Doctor Who” fan who has included several sets and costumes inspired by the programme in her stage tour in recent years. The paper also claims she will appear in the programme as a Cyberwoman, but this is not substantiated in any of their “insider” quotes.

Kylie is, of course, best known for hits such as “I Should Be So Lucky”, which I believe she has recently remixed, and “Can’t Get You Out of My Head”. She began her acting career, however, in Aussie soap opera “Neighbours” moving to the big screen for films such as “Street Fighter” and “Moulin Rouge”. Maybe she should’ve been one of the showgirls in the latest “Doctor Who” story! No disrespect to Kylie but I would’ve thought her a little on the short side if she is indeed going to appear as the next Cyberwoman. I always thought they should be at least six feet tall, and the novelisations describe them as having the strength of ten men.

One thing Kylie has in her favour is her lack of arrogance. I would definitely prefer to see her in “Doctor Who” than a certain loud-mouthed comedienne who shall remain nameless! But it does seem to continue the trend for stunt casting. Who will Russell consider next? Mariah Carey as the Rani?! Billie Piper as the companion?!! Oh, he’s already done that. Silly me, I was forgetting! If he casts Robbie Williams as the Doctor I will stop watching. I had enough difficulty accepting Billie because, unfortunately, I could remember the awfulness that is “Because We Want To”! Never forget, Robbie was once a member of a boy band!!! Anyway, “break a leg”, Kylie.