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.

Warden’s Watch: Journey’s End

Disappointment set in right from the outset of the concluding episode of the Fourth Season of Russell T. Davies’s reincarnation of “Doctor Who”. I wanted the writer to go through with the regeneration and have a brand new Doctor conclude a story begun by his predecessor. But, it wasn’t to be. In fact, instead of having no David Tennant, we were actually presented with two of the pesky fella! And, there was me wishfully thinking he was about to get another week off!! It’s not that I dislike the actor, just not overly keen on his portrayal of the character, although I’ve grown to accept it a little more over the recent series. As if to compound my dissatisfaction with the opening of the final instalment, up pops Rose’s Mum, Jackie. Lovely woman and all that, just not my cup of tea. Very convenient, too, that both Rose’s ex, Mickey, and Mrs Tyler should appear, out of the blue, armed to the teeth, guns aimed directly at the two Daleks about to exterminate the suddenly-rather-fragile Sarah Jane Smith. The suddenly-rather-comely Gwen Cooper was also saved by something hitherto unmentioned that the late Toshiko had been working on before her death. Altogether, too convenient. At least, in the case of the Doctor, the resolution of his part in the previous episode’s triple cliff-hanger had been properly set up, that the hand would have its part to play in the denouement of the adventure. The other two instances were cheats, like a whodunit in which the murderer is revealed to be someone who hasn’t appeared in the story until the moment of revelation! It’s not the first time “Doctor Who” has resolved certain demise with the Saturday morning cinema serial approach. 1985’s “The Mark of the Rani” immediately springs to mind, in which a character is inserted into the recap, at the start of the final part, rushing out of a wood to save the seemingly doomed Doctor from the clutches of dastardly death!

Just imagine how different the episode might’ve been had a new dynamic been set up by suddenly, and surprisingly, introducing us to the eleventh Doctor. It would have taken the story, and indeed the series, in a completely new and much welcomed change of direction. I suppose Russell wasn’t ready to do that just yet and, instead, presented the viewer with the ultimate tease. A simple rule of drama is the tighter you tighten the tension, when the balloon is burst, it’s more than likely to be something of a let down. Davies made it hard for the story to recover from this point in and, sadly, it didn’t. Robert Holmes turned down the offer to write “The Five Doctors”, in 1983, citing too many leading men as the reason. And, despite there being plenty of space, the console room of the TARDIS became overcrowded in “Journey’s End” through the writer’s inability to resist this shameless get-together. Because of this, the participation of Davros is restricted. The scientific schemer doesn’t reappear, after last week’s reintroduction following an absence from our screens of almost twenty years, until nearly twenty minutes into the extended second half of the story and is despatched approximately twenty-five minutes later with still over fifteen minutes to run. Yes, on second viewing, I was watching the clock. A whopping twenty-five percent of the final episode is taken up with tearful farewells, making it even more soppy than the gushing conclusion of “Doomsday”, two years ago. On the plus side, Julian Bleach was terrific as Davros and, maybe, deserved more air time considering the iconic stature of the character within the series. Unless you believe less is more which, in just about every other aspect of the production, wasn’t the case. The other standout performance, and not just here but throughout the entire Fourth Season, was that of Bernard Cribbins, a consistently strong character. I like him. I could’ve done with a little more of Eve Myles in her red sweater, too, but that’s a personal preference rather than a dramatic one! Like the two Peter Cushing movies of the Sixties, this was good Dalek material whilst being lousy “Doctor Who”.