The Tracks Of My Tears

London’s Leicester Square was transformed into a running track, earlier in the week, for the premiere of new athletics film Fast Girls. The British drama, released only weeks before the London Olympics (oh, how I’m looking forward to that!), follows a female sprint relay team as they attempt to qualify for a world championship. Its main actresses, who faced a gruelling training regime before making the film, swapped their sweaty Lycra running costumes for designer gowns as they arrived on a red carpet complete with track markings at the Odeon West End. Leading lovelies Lenora Crichlow, best known for her role as Annie in Being Human, and Lily James were joined by co-stars Whitechapel actor Phil Davis and Rose’s on/off boyfriend in Doctor Who Noel Clarke - who co-wrote the film - and real-life sporting personalities including Dame Kelly Holmes.

James said the rigorous exercise and diet routine, to prepare for the part, drove her to tears at times. “It was such a change physically and mentally at first,” she explained. “It was really, really hard. When filming wrapped, it was Christmas, so I ate and I ate and I ate. My stomach was bursting at the seams.” It sounds as though Lily should be in the next Alien sequel! The actress went on to say she had more respect for real athletes since making the film, and joked that she was keen to show off her new skills at the Olympics. “I might compete! I’ve been thinking about it,” she quipped. “But, I’ll let them have their day!”

Crichlow, who plays James’ rival on the track, said she could not stop reading the script when she first received it. “I think it’s a really fresh, unique way of telling an age-old underdog story,” she said. For my money, the extraordinarily beautiful Lenora is the black answer to Billie Piper. “It’s got fantastic female British leads,” she added. “They’re the heroes of the piece. It’s a really positive way of depicting women.”

Fast Girls is released nationwide on Friday, June 15th.

Baptism Of Fire

The Doctor Who production team have confirmed that Jenna-Louise Coleman will first be seen as the Doctor’s new companion in the series on Christmas Day. The actress was briefly questioned about her new role when she appeared on This Morning recently, alongside Perdita Weeks, to promote ITV1’s Titanic. Her lips were sealed, however, as she wasn’t giving anything away! It’s still not known what will be the name of her character or if Karen Gillan’s Amy Pond will leave during the same episode or exit during the previous story. I still predict Amy will depart on Christmas Day. There are many examples to back either possibility, of course, littered throughout the programme’s history. Katy Manning’s Jo Grant left at the end of The Green Death to be replaced by Elisabeth Sladen’s Sarah Jane Smith in the following story, The Time Warrior, whereas Bonnie Langford’s Mel left in Dragonfire, the same story in which Sophie Aldred’s Ace arrived. We’ll just have to wait and see.

On the scripting front, if you enjoyed the Doctor Who episodes School Reunion, The Vampires Of Venice and The God Complex, in the revival of the series, then you’ll be pleased to learn that, despite his writing commitments on horror comedy Being Human, Toby Whithouse will be returning to everyone’s favourite science fiction series for its Seventh Season. It’s believed he will be penning one of the early episodes so will be writing one of Amy’s final tales. It has also been decided there will be no two-parters this time around which, I think, is a shame. It’s the only real opportunity for a story to develop and allow an audience to get to know some of the peripheral characters, as well as build up to an increasingly rare but all-important cliff-hanger… even if they are not always resolved that convincingly, it’s still fun to include them. So, it only remains to wish you all a very Happy Easter and send Jenna-Louise Coleman best wishes as she is thrown in at the deep end!

Something wicked this way comes…

I’ve never been much of a fan of Being Human… until now! I’ve always watched it because I believe in supporting what little telefantasy comes our way. I can only put my change of heart down to the change of cast. Over eight episodes, the Fourth Series - completed on Sunday on the otherwise ghastly BBC Three - dispensed with the entire original cast of vampire Mitchell (Aidan Turner), werewolves Nina (Sinead Keenan) and George (Russell Tovey), and finally ghost Annie (Lenora Crichlow) in favour of new werewolf Tom (Michael Socha), new vampire Hal (Damien Molony), and introducing new ghost Alex (Kate Bracken). I’m hoping that Series Five will see a return of the other new werewolf-in-the-pack Allison (Ellie Kendrick), introduced in my favourite episode of the season, Puppy Love, as a replacement for Nina and partner for Tom. The transitional nature of this series was reminiscent of the Twenty-First Series of Doctor Who, which underwent a similarly radical change of cast… back in 1984! Michael Socha made semi-regular appearances in last year’s run of Being Human and returned - full-time - as lovable as ever, more so. I anticipated Lenora Crichlow’s departure and Kate Bracken looks like being a worthy successor but what really astounded was the performance of Damien Molony, in the light that Hal Yorke is his first television role. The original cast were fine but, for me, the new cast is a marked improvement.

The main plot of this year’s series of Being Human centred around baby Eve, daughter of George and Nina and would-be-saviour of mankind, whom Annie takes it upon herself to mother. Future Eve (Gina Bramhill) has herself killed (as you do) and returns through time, via purgatory (as you do when you’re deceased!), in order to terminate herself as infant because her survival will mean the survival of the vampire species and the end of human civilisation as we know it! Eve is both saviour and nemesis which she flippantly dismisses with the line, “Talk about multitasking!”. This is, of course, the same time paradox set up as in the Jon Pertwee Doctor Who story The Day Of The Daleks and reused in The Terminator franchise but, if you’re going to borrow, you might as well borrow from the best! The real dilemma though is how can anyone bring it upon themselves to kill a defenceless infant despite the knowledge that, otherwise, they will initiate the downfall of mankind. This is also the essential premise of the Tom Baker Doctor Who story Genesis Of The Daleks. In Being Human, there is no cop-out! Writer, and series creator, Toby Whithouse is clearly a man with balls of steel!! The baby dies. It’s not dwelt on excessively but, nevertheless, the infant passes over to the other side, along with Annie, to rejoin its natural parents and reunite the original house-sharing quartet.

Although much humour is to be had over the last two months of Being Human, most - admittedly - of a very dark nature, it could be argued that the series does take an awfully long time for the arc to reach the point at which it can begin to resolve itself. It isn’t until the end of the penultimate episode that the vampire-threat-en-masse The Old Ones arrive, led by the ever-reliable Mark Gatiss (perhaps typecast after the Doctor Who story The Lazarus Experiment?), as Mr Snow, at which point he utters just four words, “Well then… who’s hungry?”. Compare this with the three-part Sylvester McCoy Doctor Who story Survival, from 1989, in which the Doctor comes face-to-face with his nemesis The Master after just twenty-five minutes! The arch-enemy turns to the Doctor and wryly exclaims, “Why Doctor… what an unexpected pleasure!”. It takes seven of its eight hours for Series Four of Being Human to arrive at the same point! The Doctor Who story runs to just an hour-and-a-quarter, in total, so speed is of the essence! Usually, I prefer my science fiction/fantasy straight but, in the case of Being Human, I like the humour and adore the domesticity. I can believe in it. For that reason, my preference is for the first three-quarters of this series over the last two instalments in which events reverted to the darker nature of Series Two and Three after, earlier, rediscovering the humour of the First!

Warden’s Watch: Doctor Who - Series Five, Episodes Four to Six

The new series of “Doctor Who” continues to be a mix of the good and the downright awful! Episodes four and five, “The Time of Angels” and “Flesh and Stone”, attempt to develop ideas from two of Steven Moffat’s earlier stories, the Weeping Angel statues from Series Three’s “Blink” and Alex Kingston’s River Song from the two-part library story of the Fourth Series. I like the former, not so keen on the latter! All this “sweetie” nonsense, and continued reference to “spoilers”, is a bit cringe-making. For heaven’s sake, it was only in the previous story, “Victory of the Daleks”, that the Doctor called one of the pepper pots “sweetheart”! Despite liking the statues in the Carey Mulligan episode, I’m not so sure it was a good idea to bring them back. The new story seemed to virtually ignore the original concept of what happens to an Angel’s victims. Less importantly, but nonetheless irritatingly, the Doctor loses his jacket to one of the stone beasties, at one point, then, unseen by the viewer, somehow manages to retrieve his tweed threads by the end!

The best scene in the Fifth Series, so far, came in the second part of the Weeping Angel yarn. I’d go so far as to say it’s the best scene since Jefferson’s eulogy to Scooti Manista, four years ago, in “The Impossible Planet”. I’m talking about the marvellous dialogue between the Doctor and Father Octavian upon the latter’s demise. Genuinely moving. The trouble is, it is almost immediately undermined by the ending of “Flesh and Stone”. New “Doctor Who” does this a lot. It’s afraid to capitalise on truly emotional moments. What does Moffat do? He has new companion Amy come on to the Doctor in the most ludicrous manner. We’ve been there before. Russell did all that ad nauseam… for five blooming years! I’d hoped we’d put such crassness behind us. At first I thought it was padding because the story had under run again, like the Dalek episode two weeks earlier, but its dubious purpose is to set up a ménage à trois between the Doctor, Rory and Amy exploited during the sixth episode, “The Vampires of Venice”, written by Toby Whithouse - the man behind “Being Human”, the “Doctor Who” episode “School Reunion” and the “Torchwood” episode “Greeks Bearing Gifts”.

And what a flippant beginning to the much-awaited vampire tale. It would’ve been amusing in any other drama but “Doctor Who”. We’d already had Amy as a WPC kissagram, in the opening story of the series, and so we return to the idea with the Doctor replacing the stripper at Rory’s stag night! I was hoping for some genuine gothic horror, just for once, but “The Vampires of Venice” is undermined before it has barely begun. Why does the series try so hard to be domestic just to appeal to the “EastEnders” crowd? Why doesn’t it simply be itself? It managed it for twenty-six years. I don’t buy into the notion it had to change to appeal to a modern audience. Only if said audience lacks intelligence! (There is a current series does domestic brilliantly, by the way, even though it’s ostensibly a supernatural drama. I won’t reveal its name here as I hope to devote a future post to it.) The vampires themselves were terrific looking, as you can see from the above picture - a scene reminiscent of the Haemovores breaking in through a vestry window in “The Curse of Fenric”, while their two leaders were portrayed suitably seriously until being revealed, predictably pseudo-scientifically, as “fish from space”! “They bite”!!