Up on the Ruth

No sooner had I posted my previous piece, on the demise of Spooks, when I chanced upon the first publicity still for the new-but-last series. Always the way of things! So, a brief additional post showing Nicola Walker and Peter Firth, in character as Ruth and Harry, on the verge of an embrace… five years on from the Series Five promo used last time! In between, Peter has appeared as a corrupt local councillor, in the three-part Sunday evening serial South Riding, while Nicola has been a guest star - married to a murderous taxi driver played by Eddie the barman from Hustle! - in the first and best series of Luther. Quite a revelation she was, too. Now the two actors are reunited in perhaps their best known roles for one final time.

Yvonne, You Turn Me On

As television becomes less and less entertaining but increasingly neurotic, it’s a relief to be able to tune into ITV4 for the latest reruns of the Sixties’ light-hearted take on comic book hero “Batman”. No doubt Jenny, a downtrodden prostitute in the latest series of “Luther”, might insist on me calling a comic a graphic novel, in order to give such colourful publications increased stature, but I’ll stick with the less pretentious terminology! Comic is more suited to the small screen version of “Batman”, made between 1966 and 1968, because that is what it is, an amusing diversion. Adam West played Batman, with his tongue firmly inside his cheek for a total of 120 episodes, while his trusty sidekick, Robin, the Boy Wonder, was brought to life by Burt Ward. But it was the added attraction of Batgirl, who joined the show for its final season, portrayed delightfully by Yvonne Joyce Craig, that brings back fondest memories!

Without Yvonne Craig, “Batman” would have been cancelled at the end of its second series. Introduced to engage female viewers, though I would’ve thought her addition to the cast might serve only to attract more male admirers, she helped sustain the show for a further twenty-six episodes though sadly not beyond. It was mooted, at one point, that Batgirl would replace Robin as Batman’s sidekick in a fourth series, the boy blunder being written out along with Chief O’Hara. I wonder how that would’ve worked because, throughout the third and final series, Bruce Wayne is unaware of Batgirl’s true identity just as the Commissioner’s mild-mannered librarian daughter, Barbara Gordon, is ignorant of the millionaire playboy behind the mask. The writing joyfully teases the audience, often having the characters on the verge of making a startling discovery then pulling back at the last possible moment, but only Alfred the Butler knows the real identities of both caped crusaders!

Before the groovy Batgirl came on the scene, the most dominant female figure in “Batman” was on the wrong side of the law! I’m talking about Catwoman, though, in her original incarnation, played to purrfection by Julie Newmar, she appears in only twelve of the first ninety-four episodes that comprise the first two seasons. My one disappointment, regarding the series as a whole, is that Yvonne Craig had no scenes with the former “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” actress. Yes, Batgirl comes up against Catwoman in several of her episodes but by now the villain has not only changed identity but race as interpreted by Eartha Kitt. Eartha certainly has the right surname to play the feline, exaggerating the mannerisms for which she is famous, but for this viewer it’s all a little too bizarre. I would’ve loved to see Yvonne slugging it out with Julie but then maybe that’s my own purrsonal predilection! Wham! Bam!! Thank you, Mam!!!

Warden’s Watch Special: Highlights of the Year

It hasn’t been a particularly memorable year for those of us interested in brilliantly-crafted television drama. The fifth series of new “Doctor Who” was disappointing but my expectations weren’t that high to begin with. I worried that, under Steven Moffat, the stories would become increasingly esoteric and my fears proved well-founded. One of the problems is that, creatively, the most-successful stories written by both the new Executive Producer and Mark Gatiss were the ones they wrote back in 2005 for Christopher Eccleston! It’s a bit like Ben Aaronovitch trying to top “Remembrance of the Daleks”, in the late Eighties, and coming up with the vastly-inferior “Battlefield”, itself a reworking of one of his earlier scripts. The irony is that the finest story of the year to feature the new, eleventh, Doctor, played brilliantly by Matt Smith, was one of “The Sarah Jane Adventures”! And, to compound the irony, “Death of the Doctor” was the one written by Russell!! It almost made me feel sorry he’s gone and I’m sure that that was his intention. This third story in the fourth series of “The Sarah Jane Adventures” was equalled, if not bettered, two stories later by Rupert Laight’s “Lost in Time”, a two-episode reworking of an entire twenty-six episode (“The Key to Time”) season of classic “Doctor Who”. With segments reminiscent of “Ghost Light” and “The Curse of Fenric”, and another nodding to the Hartnell historicals, the story gently acknowledged the 47th anniversary of “Doctor Who” with the dateline of the newspaper cutting which the three adventurers had initially set out to investigate.

Aside from stories set in space and time, another mainstay of 2010 has been the continuing dreamlike-investigations of American “Medium” Allison DuBois. Freeview viewers have got as far as Season Five while, if you subscribe to satellite, then you’re enjoying Season Six and, for the more impatient among us, Season Seven episodes have been materialising on the internet from the early hours of Saturday mornings for the ten weeks up to the beginning of December with the remaining six scheduled to resume in the New Year! It’s a miracle the show is still with us, having been picked up by CBS after cancellation, while other series, such as “Heroes”, have fallen by the wayside. Back in the UK, we were treated to the second, and sadly final, series of “Survivors” which I believe to be a more successful reworking of an old hit than the reincarnation and enduring saga of everyone’s favourite Time Lord. Why the BBC have picked up ITV’s “Primeval” and dumped their own is beyond me! I wasn’t as enamoured by Season Six of “Hustle”, at the beginning of the year, as I was Season Five in 2009, despite guest appearances by Brian Murphy, Colin Baker and Danny Webb. Last year it was given a new lease of life with the introduction of two new regular characters, as well as the return of a familiar face, so, by this year, the con seemed to have settled back into a familiar routine once again. On the other hand, “Spooks” has benefited from the introduction of new characters! Still not as good as when Rupert Penry-Jones led the cast, Season Nine was a distinct improvement over recent years. “Luther” was this year’s detective success story, although I’m sure there are those who preferred Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’s modernisation of “Sherlock”, but it doesn’t look as though the BBC know where to take Idris Elba’s character next as there isn’t to be a second series as such, just a couple of one-hour specials! Bizarre or what?!

The real triumphs of the year came in the form of selected repeats. I’m not talking about the endless rotation of “Inspector Morse”, “Poirot”, “A Touch of Frost” and “Foyle’s War”, for the older generation on ITV3, or the constant repetition of “The Sweeney”, “The Professionals”, “Minder” and “The Prisoner”, for real men on ITV4, as good as all these series undoubtedly are, but a couple of gems that have surfaced on Yesterday. First was a rerun of the six-part Dennis Potter serial “Lipstick on Your Collar”, originally a Channel Four conclusion to the musical trilogy begun and continued on the BBC with “Pennies from Heaven” and “The Singing Detective” but much-underrated in their shadow! Secondly, and unquestionably one of the ten best series ever to come out of Britain, the two seasons of “Colditz” have recently enjoyed a long-overdue re-screening. The first season is the most consistent, especially when dealing with the psychological aspects of imprisonment rather than boy’s own heroics, while the second suffered a smidgen after the “escape” of Edward Hardwicke’s Pat Reid though his replacement, a new character in the German ranks played with thorough viciousness by Anthony Valentine, aids the drama in delving into the infighting of Nazi politics of the time. There’s no incidental music to tell you what to think or how to feel just bloody good writing, acting and directing from the likes of “Doctor Who” stalwarts Michael Ferguson and Terence Dudley. They just don’t make thought-provoking series like “Colditz” anymore.

Telly Visions: Ruth Wilson

It seems a little ironic that, a few years ago, Ruth Wilson made her name playing plain “Jane Eyre” when she is clearly one of the best-looking actresses working in television today! It’s the long red hair, searing eyes, and that thing she does with her lips that make her so striking. More than a regular femme fatale!! However, with the use of theatrical cosmetics, and unflattering costumes, an actor can be made to appear dowdy where, in the everyday world, makeup would be applied to enhance one’s appearance. It seems a shame to go out of the way to make a beautiful girl look less pretty. Jane Eyre, the character, is renowned for her inner beauty but television, being mainly a visual medium, has to express this loveliness outwardly so Ruth Wilson seems perfectly cast.

I discovered recently that Ruth and I have a number of things in common. Before her breakthrough role, she read history at Nottingham University. This is the same establishment of further education I attended, though my subject was music. Whilst there she participated in amateur dramatics, as some of us do with a theatrical inclination! If we ever cross paths at least we’ll have something to talk about!! She was born in the same month as me so we’re both Capricorns. And, she’s also a big fan of American soap-cum-murder-mystery “Twin Peaks”. That revelation may go some of the way to explain why she took one of her most recent roles…

Ruth Wilson is currently appearing in two television series. On ITV1 she is 313, appearing alongside Sir Ian McKellen in the six-part remake of the 1967 cult classic “The Prisoner”. She says she took the part because of similarities to David Lynch’s earlier surreal television series “Twin Peaks”. In last Saturday’s episode, “Schizoid”, Bill Gallagher, screenwriter of the new version of “The Prisoner”, even went so far as to quote “Twin Peaks” delight of food stuffs. Perhaps it was that which made Ruth think of her childhood favourite. I’m not sure how well the new series works. It quotes the original’s catchphrases in abundance but is colder and less colourful. The interiors of Number Two’s residence, for example, are shot in a manner similar to “Blade Runner”. It may all be going on in his wife’s medicated mind but Sir Ian assures us that, unlike the end of the original series, everything will be explained in this week’s final episode.

On BBC One Ruth is playing Alice Morgan, a psychopathic genius who has murdered her parents, in the six-part classy crime thriller “Luther”. Detective John Luther is played by Idris Elba while a whole host of famous names pop up throughout the run. Eighth “Doctor Who” Paul McGann comes to blows with the lead in the first episode while Third Doctor Jon Pertwee’s son Sean battles the police from within his prison cell in the following instalment. You may recognise Suzie (“Torchwood”) Costello actress Indira Varma as Luther’s wife with whom McGann’s character is having an affair. There’s a marvellously stylish moment, near the end of part one, where Luther is holding Alice over a bridge and she invites him to “kiss me, kill me”! He should’ve reluctantly unhanded Ruth at that moment and said “be seeing you”!!