"You see shadows where there is no sun"

Review: THE MASSACRE
Audio soundtrack of missing story, written by John Lucarotti and Donald Tosh, directed by Paddy Russell, 1966

When considering the sixties, people tend to focus on the stories most obviously comparable to the series at large (ie, the ‘spacey’ stories; anything with Daleks). While this is understandable, it does limit appreciation for this period, because it’s those stories that can’t help but be dated by comparison to subsequent eras. Therefore, the stories which take approaches unique to the period tend to get overlooked – tragically, as a story like The Massacre shows they can still work brilliantly on their own terms.

Given its attendant ‘best story ever!’ hype, I always wanted The Massacre to be amazing, and so was perhaps understandably slightly disappointed on my first listen – exactly because it’s one of the type of stories that don’t have any equivalents outside of the sixties (or even outside Hartnell’s era): straight, no-holds-barred historical drama. Also, I can’t quite get a handle on this story through its soundtrack alone – perhaps because the only roughly analogous stories feature the more familiar Ian and Babs, whereas season three is a more obscure period. As such it feels less like Doctor Who than it would with more highly-regarded companions. (The lack of photographs doesn’t help, either.)

However, having listened to it for a second time, I am more and more impressed. A high-minded, Doctor-lite, religious historical from the sixties – I can see why people go for a Dalek invasion over that; this should be turgid and worthy, whereas actually it’s the other way round. This is a tight, adult piece of drama. It’s so strange that this is from the same overall series as, say… Gridlock or, I dunno, Four to Doomsday – or even from the same season as basic genre pulp like Galaxy 4 or The Ark.

It’s so surprising that the BBC was permissive enough forty-four years ago to broadcast a story with religious content which might today be deemed potentially inflammatory – even an episode called ‘War of God’ would be too strong these days. It’d be like an Eleventh Doctor story dealing with fundamentalist Islam. I do love that ‘silly,’ ‘childish’ Doctor Who has dealt with such a subject, and with total conviction – and in the sixties, a period paradoxically humoured as being twee and harmless, but which contains the most adult, gruelling, and bleak stories of the series’ run.

I know next to nothing of this period (which I suppose can be seen as a vindication for the show’s early educational remit…), but the use of a detailed historical situation, rather than the historical window-dressing of something like The Pandorica Opens (much as I love it) is one of this story’s triumphs. The sheer amount of detail and apparent realism is massively impressive, and has the kind of built-in detail and richness that an entirely fictionalised context can never emulate. The performances also duly rise to the occasion. I adore The Myth Makers, the preceding historical, and obviously part of the joke there is its stiff received pronunciation, but there is nothing so mannered here; in fact, it’s extraordinary how wildly different The Massacre is tonally, and how compellingly naturalistic.

Even the relative incongruity (within Doctor Who) of the range of Parisian streets and French names we are presented with (Roger Colbert, Admiral de Coligny, Abbot of Amboise, Catherine de Medici) lends power and veracity to the plot. The large cast of characters with varied, complex motives outdoes anything sci-fi or contemporary-set stories could hope for, and is extremely compelling, for example in the loaded menace of the conversation between Tavannes and de Coligny. It’s also laudably ambiguous, with the distinction of ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’ being largely irrelevant – the story is resolutely un-melodramatic. (Even Nicholas – playing a part you’d expect to be sympathetic – is suspicious and untrusting of our sympathetic hero, Steven.)

The game-raising nature of the script extends to the regulars: Steven may not be a desperately interesting or well-developed character, but the understated nuances of Peter Purves’ performance are truly striking, and the part of the naïf is well suited to him. His increasing anguish is very successful, in that the more out of his depth, the more appealing he gets.

In episode one, the Doctor is also particularly charming in his interest in Preslin’s germ research – I like that the story gives him time to track someone down purely on the basis of an interest in their work. Even in such relatively simple scenes, Hartnell’s competence as an actor particularly struck me, in contrast to his perceived reputation, in that he really brings alive relatively undemanding dialogue. (Perhaps because we aren’t spoiled with interviews or behind the scenes footage, more than any other incumbent Hartnell simply is the Doctor, rather than an actor playing a part, so I forget he’s even acting at all.)

Hartnell’s dual performance is one of the elements of this production that seemed like a bit of a let down first time round, not seeming as radical as it is often claimed to be – that is, until you realise it actually is entirely “hmm”-free. Incidentally, it’s surprising how notably unimportant the device of the Doctor’s double is (the Abbot isn’t even the top dog like Salamander), only really functioning to further destabilise Steven’s situation.

The idea of isolating a single story out of two-hundred plus as the ‘best’ is patently absurd, but the more this story sinks in, the more appreciation I have for the fact that people actually vindicate the high-mindedness of this story. Even on this re-listen, The Massacre didn’t blow me away in the event – but then, crowd-pleasing isn’t its style (once again, stand up Dalek Invasion of Earth, and show where that approach got you…), and it’s all the better for that.

The fact that such an accomplished – and uncompromised – story exists within the series’ canon is staggering, and quite wonderful. Even generally comparable dramatic historicals like The Aztecs or The Crusade have more action-adventure content; this is like Doctor Who has temporarily collided with a historical drama, and is elevated by the depth and detail of its real-life machinations and players. A worthy historical-cum-period political thriller, with a double and an astronaut thrown in; I’m not quite sure how those elements gel, but they do.

It’s a laudable story which is entirely worthy of being so acclaimed – even if its relative complexity doesn’t translate so well to audio (despite its ‘talkiness’), as in more straight-forward stories of which The Smugglers is a good example.

It goes without saying then that it’s a tragedy this is a story we’ll never get to actually watch. I’ve heard that the soundtrack of the massacre itself was played over woodcuts on-screen, which particularly intrigues me – one of the rare but brilliantly innovative devices that were only ever attempted in the sixties. Considering similar moments of visual brio in films like Lady Snowblood, or the Hoichi the Earless section of Japanese portmanteau Kwaidan, I can only imagine this might have been as effective as The Chase’s La Jetée-style closing photomontage. Similarly, I have absolute admiration for the brave – and deceptively simplistic – stylistic device of using regional British accents to suggest different classes in sixteenth century France (a device reused recently in Vincent and the Doctor).

As an aside, I coincidently saw the 1994 film of Dumas’ La Reine Margot soon after listening to this soundtrack, which approaches the events surrounding the massacre in a rather different way – all boisterous sensuality and sumptuous violence. In fact, though decent enough for a mainstream French film, it’s almost too sumptuous – in a rugged, grimy-but-sexy kind of way. Considering how radically different these two interpretations are – especially since The Massacre is audio-only, so we’re effectively talking different media – as a kids’ programme/family show, Doctor Who’s take compares surprisingly well with the more obviously ‘adult,’ sexual, violent feature film.

It’s not very often that Doctor Who is directly comparable to anything else – which, naturally, is a large part of the appeal - but I think I actually prefer The Massacre’s taught, controlled political thriller to La Reine Margot’s slightly overplayed sexuality. The Massacre may be more formalised in its performances, but it works as a kind of shorthand for a historical setting.

I suppose it’s perverse to pump for the recording of an otherwise-wiped historical story from a sixties sci-fi show, over a feature film with a budget of millions, but then… I’m a Doctor Who fan. That says it all, really, doesn’t it?

Review: WHO KILLED KENNEDY

Missing Adventure novel written by David Bishop, 1996

A relatively obscure Doctor-lite Missing Adventure novel from fourteen years ago might seem a strange choice to review straight after the dizzy heights of a brand new series. But then, that’s why I like the novels, as they offer a more tangential approach to Doctor Who than the series ever can. In that way, they’re a satisfying counterpoint to the on-screen adventures - which almost by definition have to be far more broadly accessible.

Frustratingly, then, I haven’t read any Doctor Who novels in ages – not deliberately, just because of lack of time. Which, upsettingly, is why I left Doctor Who behind back in the nineties, because I felt I was missing out on so many other amazing books and films. So, since getting back into it, I’ve tried to alternate with ‘real’ novels (if you will), so I don’t burn myself out on it, or feel like I’m denying myself more varied things too.

There’s so much I want to enjoy though, Doctor Who-wise: at the moment alone I still have a big proportion of a 30-plus Oxfam novel haul to get through; I really want to reread the collected DWM strips to date; old DWMs I’ve eBayed from after I stopped buying them; and re-listen to several sixties audio soundtracks (I tend to listen to them at night, with the inherent danger of falling asleep and not giving them the attention they deserve).

It’s the novels that seem most important to me though. The Virgin series especially – at their best – represents Doctor Who at its most ‘right,’ for me. It upsets me, actually, how they are becoming more and more forgotten – even that they’ll never be reprinted and will gradually fall apart (which seems unfair considering they kept the series going, and their continued influence on the revived TV series; I really wish more could find their way online, for posterity).

In a way, I think that’s why I write these reviews, to sort of commemorate the books I feel are worthwhile, cos they mean so much to me!

Therefore, it’s really nice coming back to a book I read in the past but don’t have a huge memory of.

Who Killed Kennedy, while an aberration in published Doctor Who fiction, is a fascinating one, following journalist James Stevens on an investigation that takes in the events and cover-ups of various UNIT-era stories. With even on-screen, irrefutably ‘canon’ stories like Love and Monsters viewing the Doctor’s adventures from an oblique angle, it’s easy to overlook how radical and unprecedented Who Killed Kennedy’s outsider perspective was, and it’s actually much more successful that you might be given to expect. (I like the idea of viewing this as a Third Doctor era ‘Doctor-lite’ story. In fact, the replaying of events from recent adventures from an everyman, outsider context is present, particularly, in both Love and Monsters and Turn Left.)

There’s something about contextualising the outlandish events of Doctor Who within the default ‘real world’ setting it always returns to which I find really interesting. Having the events of The War Machines (C-day), Spearhead from Space (Black Thursday) – et al – mentioned alongside Asian flu, the fall of the Wilson government, or the death of Charles De Gaulle, is therefore rather wonderful, especially as these sorts of things never really impinge on the Doctor’s world.

Not only that, but seen from the point of view of reporter James Stevens, and grounded in the context of a life involving drink, sex, affairs, and divorce – creates a persuasive dichotomy. (And isn’t as jarring as it could easily be, perhaps because a realistic approach is brought even to characters like usually anonymous UNIT rookies like Private Cleary, whose letters bring to life a usually overlooked position. I always feel – especially given my appreciation for the NAs’ adult approach – that though sex and swearing and other ‘unsavoury’ activities don’t feature in televised Doctor Who, it’s not that they don’t exist in that world, just that we’re not permitted to see them; a viewpoint which David Bishop realises nicely here.)

Obviously the NAs put sex and drugs into Doctor Who, but they were dealing with the on-going adventures of the then-current Doctor; having such realism applied to a past era is unusual, and surprisingly doesn’t feel ‘wrong’. Whereas – in the first of possibly many comparisons with Gary Russell’s The Scales of Injustice – shoving some violence into a typical Third Doctor story just doesn’t work, and shows how facile that approach is. (Incidentally, I’ll be posting a review/defamation of Scales at some point.)

Subtle nods to Doctor Who tropes like Metropolitan magazine and a pre-digital BBC3 also show a relative subtlety unknown to the Gary Russells of this world, which help blur the boundaries between reality and the earth of Doctor Who. Even interviews with characters like Greg Sutton or Ralph Cornish don’t feel overdone – I guess because, in the context of a journalistic investigation, it makes sense they’d be tracked down, whereas Scales arbitrarily namedrops any and all characters imaginable.

(I also particularly liked the justification of the British Mars missions from The Ambassadors of Death within an otherwise recognisable seventies England – linking Ralph Cornish to the leftovers of Tobias Vaughn’s International Electromatics, and thus advanced Cyber-technology. Ooh, neat.)

Stevens’ integration and presence in existing stories is also very elegant and constrained (Spearhead, Doctor Who and the Silurians, The Mind of Evil). This is perhaps because, as Bishop himself was a journalist, it feels as if the concept for an investigation of these UNIT stories’ events was inspired by the pre-existing presence of journalists in those stories, rather than shoehorning these links in later.

The cover-ups Stevens faces, and the conspiracy thriller elements of the book also seem quite believable (or at least believably unpleasant), whereas, watching the stories in question, it’s all too easy to scoff and deride the fact that their events are apparently forgotten next week.

It’s also pleasing to have conspiracy thriller tropes applied to the usually morally black and white Doctor Who world, especially when the Doctor himself and the UNIT family are present in the background (and especially since they are made ambiguous themselves by distance).

Again, this is a less broad approach than in Scales, but to similar ideas, with Bishop taking a more believable and genuinely unpleasant approach (rather than just throwing in the odd arbitrary decapitation). These conspiracy sections might be trashy to an extent – beatings and firebombings – but it is to the author’s credit that, in keeping with this realistic perspective, they are also terrestrial, and don’t veer toward slavering dogs infected with Inferno-ooze, Cyberised villains, or partially-Auton henchmen.

Given that this deals with the first prolonged period of alien activity apparently in the public eye (the UNIT era), tellingly, this book wouldn’t work with regard to the second (the Davies era), because Russell T Davies repeatedly went out of his way to point out the whole world couldn’t possibly avoid this invasion… Only for it to be mentioned once more down the line and then forgotten, with our suspension of disbelief in tatters. At least it does seem conceivable that the events of The Web of Fear could be put down to some kind of tear gas attack.

(I guess this approach to existing Doctor Who stories – presenting them as events within a continuous timeline – could go on for ever; I’d love to see more stories presented in such a way as to believably fit within a near-real world, but it’s probably a blessing that Bishop exercised as much restraint as he did.)

I also particularly liked the idea of the Master’s ‘Victor Magister’ persona being portrayed as a terrorist by the media after the events of The Dæmons, used as a scapegoat for what, from the public PoV we are seeing through Stevens’ eyes, appears to be a spate of terrorist attacks. Having said that, I sort of wish the Master weren’t any more directly involved with the story than this, as it does seem slightly predictable within a UNIT era novel.

However, this is balanced by possibly the bravest element of this book; its use of Dodo. Seeing even such an unloved companion homeless and hopeless following her ignominious departure from the Doctor, is quite horrifying. There is also added pathos given her treatment as a real person in The Man in the Velvet Mask, while, like in that book, it’s kind of sweet that she’s allowed a starring role (especially outside of her era, and over Liz, say). It’s also nice having an earlier companion linked to the mainly UNIT-oriented situation here, making Doctor Who’s twentieth century seem like a coherent whole. It does seem a shame however that, given this novel’s proximity to The Man in the Velvet Mask in the schedules, that more wasn’t done to link them.)

It’s to David Bishop’s credit that a melange of elements including the Master, Dodo Chaplet, Liz Shaw, et al, feels cohesive, and not overly unrestrained.

Some of the journalistic wranglings and access to important and/or convenient contacts seems a bit too easy, but we’ll let that one slide in the name of dramatic licence. The sections toward the end where Stevens is locked up, and comes face to face with the Master (nefariously posing as the Director of the Glasshouse), followed by his all-action escape, and live-television humiliation - while necessary in terms of genre conventions, does seem at odds with the realism previously built up, but I can also forgive this as central to the gradually-building degradation and defamation the character is put through, resulting in not only the murder of ‘the woman he loves’ and their unborn child, but his arrest for said crime.

Stevens really does get put through the ringer in a way that wouldn’t really be achievable with a companion. Although, look at Dodo – at least not during their time with the Doctor, then. Similarly though – as in The Man in the Velvet Glass – Dodo’s fate was probably only sanctioned because of how unloved a character she is. (Can you imagine anything comparable happening to, say, Martha, these days?)

The Master’s dastardly (and, let’s face it, somewhat overcomplicated) plan – which I suppose is true to the character – also jars, though the major letdown is just how unrelated (and unnecessary) the Kennedy assassination seems. It feels very much shoehorned in, especially given the coincidence that Stevens happens to have always been interested in this, which remains nothing more than a coincidence, and doesn’t have any particular significance aside from providing him with the requisite detailed knowledge back in 1963.

Overall, Who Killed Kennedy is an unexpectedly brave formula experiment. Though well done, there isn’t quite enough invention for it to be brilliant, even though it takes an interesting perspective. That it avoids becoming a list recounting the events of various familiar stories is probably the books greatest feat (though there is perhaps – if necessarily – a little too much of this). Most of all though, and not for the first time, this novel makes me wish a similarly experimental series of books were still being published…


Next Time: SILVER NEMESIS

"One heart, soon to meet its twin"

Review: THE MAN IN THE VELVET MASK
Missing Adventure novel written by Daniel O'Mahony, 1996

Given its reputation, you could be forgiven for thinking that this is Doctor Who’s equivalent of Pasolini’s Salò. But no (no-one eats poo here, for one thing) – although there is an appropriately depraved tone to this novel, given that it features the Marquis de Sade as this week’s historical personage. (No-one seems to have really picked up on the fact that this book is Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Marquis de Sade! How fabulously horrifying is that? That le 6 is one of the most likeable characters in the book gives you some idea of what to expect.)

Here we have a murder machine, clockwork automata, rapists, killers, murderous rituals, and a hideous plan to weaken the population’s self-control with the introduction of maggot carriers – not to mention the ever-present drizzle and mud. Yes, you wouldn’t want every book to be like this, but, despite its depravity, it really is excellent. “It’s just… pain and sex and death,” Dodo says at one point, and that pretty much sums this book up.

O’Mahony is one of Doctor Who’s best writers – to the extent of almost being too good for the series (like maybe Cartmel or Aaronovitch’s New Adventures). This is a literary and darkly poetic work; while it may smack slightly of student angst at times, this doesn’t seem inappropriate given its twisted French Revolution setting (the recurrence of which is intriguing and seems appropriate to the First Doctor’s era). Besides, he went on to write the staggering Telos novella The Cabinet of Light and the Faction Paradox novel Newtons Sleep (which in some ways reads like a more detailed and complete version of this novel) – both of which I couldn’t recommend more. (Falls the Shadow was shit though; too confused to be effective.)

What I like best here is that this is in no way a rehash of its given era. (Who wants to be bound by that sort of reductive attitude anyway? That’s what DVDs are for.) I love seeing familiar elements pushed beyond their screen confines – though equally I can see why this novel didn’t go down well with those expecting something ‘traditional’. Personally I feel that while past Doctor stories should fit into a given slot, continuity-wise, what’s really important is that the characters remain true to their characteristics, no matter how unprecedented a situation the author might place them in. As for authors deliberately replicating capture-escape shenanigans, or mimicking Hartnell’s TV absences – what the hell is that!? Written Doctor Who shouldn’t replicate the exact approach of the series – it’s a different medium, for god’s sake!

One of the joys of Doctor Who’s ‘expanded universe’ is authors making the effort to rehabilitate ineffective elements from the series, rather than rehashing the popular parts. No-one needs more of the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane, or the Second and Jamie, because their stories worked in the first place!

Dodo exemplifies this approach. Amazingly, given her nondescript on-screen appearances, her voice feels strikingly accurate. Her thoughts are convincingly insecure too: she is variously described – often by herself – as having bad teeth, and being spotty, pudgy, and dull. Strangely, this insecurity makes her likeable, and she actually seems like a real person (fortunately without idealising her, or giving her an ‘edgy’ history of child abuse or mental illness). It is great to see that she is actually affected by the events of The Ark, Steven’s departure, and that she is aware she’ll soon be leaving the Doctor. It’s also quite appallingly twisted (but almost perversely sweet) for Dodo to willingly accept Minski’s infection, so as to remember her lover in this world.

I like Dodo here (almost to the extent of feeling bad that she’s homeless, unbalanced, and shot dead in Who Killed Kennedy!), and rereading this novel makes me wish ‘Viet Cong!’, O’Mahony’s planned follow-up, a “freewheeling black comedy new wave historical set in 1916” (!) had got to see the light of day.

The Doctor’s characterisation is sparer, but equally authentic, while his progressive frailty is a fascinating take on a usually infallible hero. He is particularly effective in opposition to the grotesque Minski, Sade’s dwarfish adoptive son – a callous, cherubic child with the voice of an adult (a memorably hideous image). The Doctor’s disgust at and refusal to rest on the female guards Minski uses as human furniture at one point, is rather wonderful.

It’s such a shame this novel was popularly dismissed (despite the largely positive reviews on sites like the Ratings Guide. A mark of its quality is that even when the relatively minor character Bressac dies, you are – unusually – made to feel the magnitude of his death, in a way most authors wouldn’t devote any time to. Things feel oxymoronically real in his novel (considering this is not only Doctor Who we’re talking about, but an anathema Alternate World!), thanks to O’Mahony’s depth and perception as an author.

Heinously, this came last in a nineties DWM poll of the Missing Adventure novels (while the equally gorgeous Transit languished at the bottom of the New Adventures list). Tsk. It’s depressing when fandom shuns things because they aren’t accessible enough – although I suppose it’s unsurprising: here we have an (unjustifiably!) unpopular Doctor, a flat-out hated companion, not to mention the novel’s generally dark tone.

I’ve never had a problem with a darker tone in Doctor Who – in fact, I love it; the depravity here highlights all the things the Doctor stands against. Despite the way the sixties are often looked down upon as being quaint, it doesn’t seem at all odd to see the First Doctor exposed to these things – after all, I would argue he is one of the most adult and convincing of all the Doctors. Seeing him struggling by himself in this horrific world, you rally for him all the more.

The Man in the Velvet Mask is bleak, unpleasant – and beautiful. I’d recommend it to anyone who isn’t so po-faced as to think Doctor Who shouldn’t be allowed to stretch its boundaries.