Theme Time: The Word - 808 State

Ah yes it's time to look at that enfant terrible of Channel 4 in the 1990s, The Word

Love it or hate it, you cannot deny how influential and important The Word was. It's almost twenty-five-years since the last episode aired and yet almost everything The Word pioneered has now become absorbed by other shows and accepted into the mainstream.

Remember 'The Hopefuls' those shameless glory hunters who gave up their dignity by eating worms and sheep testicles (among other more disgusting stunts) because, as they would each gamely say to camera "I'll do anything to be on TV" Remember how offended and disgusted people were? They're all fairly quiet now when watching celebs eat the very same thing as part of an I'm a Celebrity bushtucker trial aren't they?

It wasn't just gross stunts though; The Word provided a platform for some of the best music of the day (often breaking new bands) and some brilliantly candid, off-the-cuff interviews with famous figures from the world of music, acting, sport and the arts, and the kind of through-the-looking-glass exposes of the weird and wonderful life in America that Louis Theroux would later mine. It was The Tube via a kind of X-rated Tiswas - perfect for the laddish, baggy, grungey, britpoppy 1990s.

Described by Wikipedia as 'a mayhemic mixture of pop music and teen attitude' The Word was must-see post pub viewing on a Friday night for some 49% of the viewing public at that time. It ran from 1990 to 1995 and featured presenters such as Amanda de Cadenet, Mark Lamarr, Dani Behr, Hufty and Katie Puckrick, the one constant being it's main presenter, Mancunian motormouth Terry Christian whose book, My Word, is an eye-opening, candid and funny read of his time with the show.

The theme tune was entitled Olympic, provided by Madchester's own 808 State.

Some full episodes of The Word are available on YouTube, whilst a series of compilations can be viewed on All 4. They're well worth watching, whether you simply fancy a bit of nostalgia or whether you just want to see some cutting edge tele before it become so diluted. Chris Evans was only just around the corner, and he had obviously been paying attention.

RIP Sandy Ratcliff

Sandy Ratcliff, the former EastEnders actress and star of Ken Loach's 1971 film Family Life has died at the age of seventy.

Born in London on October 2, 1950, Sandy Ratcliff seemed destined for a troubled and turbulent life. Expelled from Grammar School at the age of 12, Ratcliff began a relationship with drugs as a teenager, smoking and eventually supplying cannabis, which earned her some time in prison. After stints as a waitress, DJ and guitarist in two rock groups, she found some acclaim as a model, touted by photographer Lord Snowden as 'The Face of the 70s'. 

However it was acting that she became famous for. She took the lead role of Janice, a schizophrenic young woman, in Ken Loach's 1971 film Family Life, and went on to appear in films like The Final Programme, Yesterday's Hero, Hussy and Radio On, as well as TV programmes such as ITV soap opera Crossroads. But her biggest role was as one of the original cast members in another soap, the BBC's EastEnders. As Sue Osman, Ratcliff appeared in the very first episode in 1985 and played the part of the cafe owner until 1989 when she was sacked due to her addiction to heroin. In her four years on the soap she took centre stage in big issue-led storylines such as cot death, adultery and mental illness. 

Ill health and personal problems were something that dogged Ratcliff after leaving EastEnders, battling both cancer and drugs and hitting the headlines for providing a false alibi for her boyfriend Michael Shorey, who was subsequently sentenced to two life sentences for the murder of two women. Acting work dried up beyond appearances in Maigret and a couple of TV plays and, at some stage, Ratcliff retrained as a counsellor but had retired by the 2010. It was also revealed by the tabloids that she was living on disability benefit of just £70 per week. In her final years Ratcliff lived in sheltered accommodation and it was here that her body was found on the morning of 7th April, 2019. An inquest at Poplar Coroner's Court has been adjourned, pending tests, until October.

RIP

Who Burst the BBC Balloon?

It was, for my money, the best BBC ident they ever had. But the BBC hot air balloon lasted just four years as the station logo from 1997 to 2001.

In TV Years: The Nineties (on sale now) Martin Lambie-Nairn, the graphic designer behind it, as well as the original Channel 4 logo, the BBC1 globe and the sprightly BBC2 idents, reveals all about the balloon and why it was so cruelly shortlived.

Taking inspiration from footage of the Hindenburg airship at the 1936 Olympics, Lambie-Nairn hit upon the idea of creating a balloon and flying it over various parts of the UK to acknowledge how the BBC serves every corner of the land.

However, in 2001 the new channel controller Lorraine Heggessey (who had previously found fame as the head of Children's BBC when she appeared before the cameras to apologise for Blue Peter presenter Richard Bacon's cocaine use in 1998) arrived and demanded sweeping changes. "She walked into the room," Lambie-Nairn recounts, "and said, 'Right, the first thing - get rid of that fucking balloon!' She hadn't read the audience research that said, 'You've got a diamond here.' She wasn't interested in any of that" 

So true, these were an absolute delight and infinitely superior to anything that has followed. I mean, does anyone really like this Oneness nonsense like 'Cavers at Wemyss', 'Swing dancers in County Durham' and 'Skaters in Southwark' that introduces programmes now?

So here's the beautiful balloons in all their glory....

Noah's Castle (1980)

Mention Britain in the 1970s to anyone and you'll invariably get the same responses of 'winter of discontent', 'Dennis Healey going cap in hand to the IMF', 'streets piled high with rubbish because of council strikes' and 'gravediggers refusing to bury the dead'. These perceptions of the 1970s have become folkloric, leaving many to believe that British society was on the brink of collapse under Jim Callaghan's Labour government. Never mind that economic growth, at 2.4%, would go on to stay at exactly the same level in Thatcher's Britain of the 1980s, the 1970s is considered to be the sick decade.

It's this notion that clearly informed author John Rowe Townsend who, in 1975, wrote a book set in the near future that posits the notion of what could happen should the UK succumb to runaway inflation, critical food shortages and the breakdown of law and order. His book, telling the story of a family whose social conscience is tested to the limit by this situation when their overbearing father begins to hoard provisions in his cellar and hole the family up until they are safely through the crisis, was entitled Noah's Castle and it was subsequently adapted for television five years later.  For children. That's right - Noah's Castle, with its heavy themes of social and economic collapses, is a story children.

Adapted for the screen by Nick McCarty and produced and directed by Colin Nutley, the beauty of this eight-part drama series is that it makes no concessions to being mere children's entertainment, coming as it does from an era that understood that a programme principally featuring children needn't be childish. There's a commitment on display both in front of and behind the camera that would make your average socially aware post watershed drama envious. There's no tipping the wink, no 'it's alright kiddies really, we're only playing' glint in the eye from a cast that includes craggy faced David Neal as the stern patrician and ex-soldier Norman Mortimer (imagine a scrotum with military bearing), future EastEnder Mike Reid as a menacingly softly spoken cockney heavy and black marketeer, Alun Lewis as a charming anarchist, Christopher Fairbank as a morally conscientious food bank organiser and Simon Gipps-Kent as our lead, Mortimer's defiant son, Barry. 

Equally, there's no quarter given in the disturbing, distinctly adult themes that are present in the storyline; when Mortimer takes in his former employer, the snobbish and wily Mr Gerald (the fruity-voiced Jack May), the selfish old bastard not only starts to manipulate Mortimer's forelock-tugging nature by blackmailing him to keep him in the manner in which he's accustomed to, he also makes it very plain that he means to have Mortimer's teenage daughter, Nessie (Annette Ekblom who at the time was married to co-star Alun Lewis who plays her drop-out boyfriend) and expects Mortimer to pimp her out to him - something which Mortimer agrees to do. This theme of sexual bartering in a broken society is also suggested by Michèle Winstanley, who plays a teenage friend of Barry's, who at one point laments that she's not pretty enough to entice shopkeepers to provide her with the food she's so desperate for. 

If watched a couple of years ago, Noah's Castle would have been little more than a fun dystopic runaround that played on the fears of late '70s Britain. Watched now, this story of suspicion and selfishness, of shops and shelves left bare, of food banks facing incredibly high demands they cannot hope to meet, of looting and rioting in the streets and the heavy hand of martial law, feels increasingly like a primer for life in Britain under a hard Brexit.

It has a great theme tune from Jugg Music too.

RIP Shane Rimmer

Gutted to hear that Shane Rimmer, an actor who - if you grew up in the UK at any time in the 60s, 70s and 80s - has been such a part of all our lives, has passed away at the age of 89.

Canadian born Rimmer's most iconic role was one that only required his vocal talents, namely that of Scott Tracy in Thunderbirds, but he was instantly recognisable for several supporting roles in some of cinema's biggest franchises; Star Wars, Superman, Batman, and a total of three James Bond movies, You Only Live Twice, Diamonds are Forever, and The Spy Who Loved Me. Other film credits included Gandhi, Rollerball (pictured above), Doctor Strangelove, Reds, Out of Africa and Dark Shadows, whilst he appeared in TV dramas like Doctor Who, Coronation Street, Dockers, and the controversial 1977 April's Fools joke (which actually aired in June that year!) Alternative 3, a cod-science documentary about the 'brain drain' which revealed that the elite of society had actually left the soon-to-be-destroyed earth for a new life in space, that continues to resonate among conspiracy theorists to this day.

RIP

One Red Nose Day and a Wedding

Four Weddings and a Funeral is a film that means a hell of a lot to me. Indeed, it remains one of my all-time favourite movies. So believe me when I say I felt rather apprehensive about this one-off fifteen minute long reunion special for this year's Comic Relief - especially as I can't think of anything worse than sitting through the seven hour long live telethon.

Thankfully, the BBC condensed the whole thing into a 'Best Of' compilation this afternoon, which gave me the opportunity to see this. It was really nice to see so many of the original cast members back together and there were lots of nice little touches, such as the reveal that Charles and Carrie (Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell) never got round to marrying, Bernard and Lydia (David Haig and Sophie Thompson) still at it like rabbits, and Laura (Sara Crowe) throwing her usual, distinctive dance moves whilst still wearing the gaudy plastic ring that Scarlett substituted on her wedding day when best man Charles forgot the actual rings.

Which leads me to Scarlett. I know that twitter - being primarily a young person's arena - exploded with 'feels' at the reveal that this featured the wedding of Lily James (Charles and Carrie's daughter) and Alicia Vikander (Fiona's daughter), but my heart utterly melted at the brief, yet respectful and tender nod towards Scarlett not being here. I wept buckets the day that Charlotte Coleman died at the age of 33 and I nearly filled up again at her mention. 

But this needed to be more than just a reunion and unfortunately it wasn't. Richard Curtis essentially recycled the same jokes from Four Weddings and it's no surprise that what worked there, doesn't actually work here, feeling rather lazy instead. Don't get me wrong, it really tried to be its own thing in the rather nice sketching of James' and Vikander's relationship in their vows, but the whole thing was just too short to make either them or their own social circle in any way multidimensional. I've heard a bit of criticism online regarding Rowan Atkinson's return to the character of the bumbling vicar Gerald and I can see why. In Four Weddings, Gerald makes so many slips because, this being the first wedding he is officiating at, he's suffering from 'first night nerves'. The decision to make this his first same-sex marriage allows Curtis to recycle the gags, but with an undercurrent of bafflement at what he is officiating that has led to some questioning a slightly homophobic angle. Now, I don't personally think that that is the case or that it was ever intended as such, but I will argue that Richard Curtis often has poor judgement and a lapse in tact and diplomacy when it comes to his writing as many iffy sequences in his otherwise enjoyable films can attest to. Another criticism I heard which I can certainly agree with is that this just wasn't funny enough. Touching yes, but actually funny? No.

Elsewhere, this being Comic Relief and a reunion for something that is 25 years old, there's an attempt to tap into things with present day appeal. So, John Hannah's Matthew now reads from Ed Sheeran (and has a rather dull husband in the shape of that charismatic vacuum of an actor, Raza Jaffrey) rather than WH Auden, whilst Nicola Walker is back on singing duties as one half of what was credited in the original film as 'Frightful Folk Duo', this time accompanied by actual pop star Sam Smith. Funny, I guess, from a Comic Relief point of view, but it rather pulls you out of the moment. I mean, if they had to go for a celeb name joining the cast, couldn't they have had the balls to ask Prince Charles if he would play Fiona's (Kristin Scott Thomas') husband, as was alluded to in the closing moments of Four Weddings? 

In short, watch for James and Vikander's vows, the sight of familiar much-loved faces, the mention of a familiar, much-loved and much-missed name, and Hugh Grant delivering another faltering but heartfelt speech with the aid of his deaf BSL-speaking brother David Bower, but don't expect this to stand up against what remains to be one of the finest romcoms ever made.

Oh and if the hour I watched was the 'best of' Comic Relief this year, I'd hate to see what was left out! My decision to avoid the night itself once again proved wise.

Tonight's Tele Tip: Derry Girls

I was remiss not to mention that last week's tele tip was This Time with Alan Partridge (which continued last night with an even better second episode and, for what it's worth, the show that precedes it, Warren, starring Martin Clunes is worth a watch too) and I was  further remiss not to tip readers off to the new series of Fleabag which also started last night, but I'm not going to make the same mistake now - as Derry Girls returns for a second series on Channel 4 tonight at 9:15.

The show recently received the highest Derry accolade of all; a mural painted on the side of Badger's Bar, Orchard Street, Derry.

Watch it!

RIP Graeme Curry

I'm really saddened to hear of the death of Graeme Curry, the writer responsible for one of the best Doctor Who stories in its final 'classic' years, The Happiness Patrol.

The Happiness Patrol, a story about a planet where it was a crime to be unhappy and which featured a delicious satire on the then PM Margaret Thatcher and a divisive yet remarkable 'monster' in the shape of The Kandyman, was Curry's first TV commission. 

The Kandyman - for the record, I loved him!

Curry had started out as a journalist, winning the prestigious Cosmopolitan Young Journalist of the Year award in 1982. A professional singer and actor, Curry won a screenplay competition for his football comedy drama Over the Moon which was subsequently adapted for Radio 4. On the strength of this, he came into the orbit of Doctor Who script editor Andrew Cartmel and The Happiness Patrol was born - a story that was even referenced in the 2011 Easter sermon from the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams!

Curry subsequently wrote for TV serials such as The Bill and EastEnders, novelised The Happiness Patrol for Target and wrote the Radio 4 drama series Citizens.

RIP

Callan: Wet Job (1981)

I've been a Callan fan for years but there was always one I put off watching, because I'd heard so many bad things about it, and that is Wet Job, the 1981 one-off reunion and farewell episode. 

Well OK, I geared myself up and I finally watched it last night and...it's nowhere near as bad as I feared actually. The common criticism for this Callan 'reunion' is the direction from Shaun O'Riordan and the score from Cyril Ornadel and I have to agree both are utterly below par; O'Riordan's infuriating penchant for obscure close-ups and odd angles seems to want to emulate the visual styling of Sidney J. Furie in The Ipcress File, with one tense, climactic meeting shot from the ground so that we see only the protagonists legs,whilst Ornadel is clearly trying to ape Wendy Carlos' synth approach to classical chamber music, and fails dismally with a score that is both irritating and intrusive.

But there are some good things. I like how both Callan's creator James Mitchell and his performer Edward Woodward are keen to portray a changed man. Physically, with his grey hair, glasses and respectable suits, Woodward looks more like his other great former secret agent character, The Equalizer, than he does the short haired, man-on-the-street David Callan we are used too. Whilst, on the page, Mitchell is keen to address the passage of time and the inference that Callan is no longer the man he was. The subject of age is brought up by several characters, and it clearly rankles with him, whilst there's a pleasingly vulnerable moment when, despite the growing danger, the former deadshot now has to remove his glasses and give them a quick rub before finding his target. It goes without saying too that Woodward is excellent in the role. Having spent the past couple of weeks watching him in 1990, the series he did between the original Callan series and this one-off, it's clear to see that he was an actor who was almost always recognisably himself, but who had the skill to build some very different characters through performance, physicality and diction.  His Callan is always a joy to watch, bristling as it is with barely restrained civility. Unfortunately, Mitchell's script and characterisation here isn't giving Woodward the depth he needs. The set-up is all there - Callan is now a lodger/lover of the well-to-do Margaret (Angela Browne) and has his dream of owning a militaria collectables shop realised - but the premise of him being forced back for one last job doesn't adequately explore how painful it is for the man to summon up the killer hiding within this new veneer of respectability.

Of course the other great joy of Wet Job is the return of Russell Hunter as Lonely. It's a genuine pleasure to see Woodward and Hunter's effortless chemistry and their characters fascinating co-dependency relationship on screen, though it's clear this time around that Lonely has something of the upper hand. Whereas Callan is a civilised, respectable man for as long as the section allows it, Lonely truly has made the break. The once malodorous petty thief is now, if you can believe it (and it's clearly Mitchell's satire) the owner of the 'Fresh and Fragrant Plumbing Services', having been taught the trade during his last sojourn at Her Majesty's Pleasure. Not only does he have a successful business, he also has himself a twenty-seven-year-old  fiancé whom he is to marry the subsequent week! It's interesting to see Callan facing up to the reality that he needs Lonely more (and perhaps that has always been the case) than Lonely needs him, and there's some small satisfaction to be had in Callan having to relinquish his hold on the previously hapless sidekick, even though this means that Lonely has very little to do in terms of the actual drama of the plot. Just like Woodward, it's a real pleasure to see Hunter inhabit the role he was arguably most famous for one last time.

The return of the Section is less successful however. Hugh Walters stars as the latest inhabitant of the Hunter role, and he is his usually coldly effete self. There's a dialogue to be had here about the changing structure and persona of the secret service, how it now appears to be run by civil servants whose pen really is mightier than the sword of the previous retired army officers, but again Mitchells' script doesn't really dwell on it which makes the scenes between Woodward and Walters a little toothless beyond the basic tangible resentment and manipulation. There's yet another deadly chinless wonder in the mould of Meres and Cross but he's so forgettably drawn that I can't even recall his name. Incidentally Meres, we are told, was murdered by a diplomat in Washington after being caught in flagrante with said diplomat's wife. There's a brief reunion between Callan and Liz, but as Liz is now played by someone else it rather robs it off any impact - especially as the actress unfortunately seems quite aloof to his greeting.

As for the plot itself, it sort of falls into two threads. The first concerns Daniel Haggerty (George Sewell), an ex left wing reporter and MP who now works in demolition. He blames Callan for the death of his daughter (after Callan assassinated her boyfriend, she took up smoking and has succumbed to lung cancer - not very convincing and Mitchell's script seems to know it, as it becomes rather superfluous. It would have been much better and more morally edgier if Callan had been ordered to assassinate his daughter) and plans to expose Callan in his memoirs. Meanwhile Margaret’s niece, an Oxford don named Lucy Robson Smith (Helen Bourne), is not only helping Haggerty with the book, she’s also attempting to organise the safe passage of her lover Dobrovsky (Milos Kerek),  a dissident Czech philosopher, to the UK with the help of a left-wing student activist cell.

Unfortunately neither plotline is up to scratch and, despite the potential of the longer 80 minute structure to tell it, Mitchell muffs the opportunity badly. Somewhere along the lines it is revealed that Haggerty is in fact a KGB agent of one of Margaret's dinner party friends and he has to forego his vendetta with Callan to assassinate Dobrovsky instead, but it's hard for the audience to actually care by this convoluted stage. It doesn't help either that the characters are so poorly drawn and in some cases not very well performed. Sewell was a great actor (check out Special Branch for example) but he seems lost here and struggling with a sketchy character who seems to be drawn up by various different influences, disappointing all. Worse, he gets to share just two scenes with Callan, which rather robs them of any dramatic impetus. In short, he deserved a better role in Callan than this.

Weirdly despite being more recent, Wet Job has dated far worse than the Callan series of the 1960s and '70s. It's all very flatly shot on videotape and boasts some very of its time production values and styles. I know I've highlighted the problematic direction and music before, but it really does bear repeating, especially the latter. If we could somehow excise Ornadel's score this would be a significantly more enjoyable experience (indeed, I'd notch it up an extra half star). I just don't know what he was thinking, it's so intrusive and odd, spoiling the mood at every turn and often when music isn't really needed at all. Sometimes the score appears out of nowhere and disappears just as quickly and you're left wondering just what was everyone thinking?

If anyone expected further reunions to come for Callan after Wet Job they didn't happen. It's no surprise either as both Woodward and Hunter hated it, both citing the music as a major problem too. Instead Woodward went Stateside to become an unexpected star as the Callan-lite Robert McCall in The Equalizer (it is said the creators briefly resided in the UK in the early 70s and cast him as a result of seeing Callan then) whilst Hunter continued his hugely successful career as a jobbing actor, guest appearing in virtually every TV show you'd care to name. I know I've criticised many aspects of this one-off farewell but I do believe it is better than its reputation and I think I actually prefer it to the cinema spin-off because unlike that (which was a retread of the very first episode, A Magnum for Schneider) this does at least try to do something new.

RIP Albert Finney

Devastated to hear that one of my cinematic heroes, Albert Finney, has died at the age of 82.

Salford born Finney shot to fame in the early 1960s, cementing a screen persona as the original (and best) angry young man in groundbreaking films like The Entertainer and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. He became synonymous with Woodfall Films and a British New Wave movement that sought to bring northern working class life to the screen as realistically as possible, and Finney was unmistakably the real deal. What Brando was doing for American cinema, Finney was doing for the UK. He followed it up of course with Woodfall's bawdy romp Tom Jones and became an icon of the swinging 60s and a major international star.

The tail end of the '60s and '70s saw him stretch himself both in front of and behind the camera. He directed Charlie Bubbles, his one and only directorial effort and a highly personal film penned by fellow Salfordian Shelagh Delaney in 1968, and financed another Salfordian Mike Leigh's first film, Bleak Moments in 1971. Indeed Finney would never forget his Salford roots and would do much all his life to help the arts and culture in the city (he was key in developing the Lowry for example) and to encourage young people's opportunities. He could have comfortably continued to play straightforward leading man roles as he had done in the previous decade, but the 1970s saw him approach more character based roles, including the title role in the musical Scrooge and (for my money the best) Poirot in 1974's Murder on the Orient Express. This continued into the '80s with roles in The Dresser alongside Tom Courtenay and Under the Volcano, whilst the 1990s saw him feature in a variety of work from Dennis Potter's Karaoke and Cold Lazarus on television and becoming a favourite of US filmmakers like the Cohen brothers (Miller's Crossing), Steven Soderbergh (Erin Brockovich and Traffic) and Tim Burton (Corpse Bride and Big Fish). In more recent years, Finney found himself providing stately support in big budget blockbusters  such as the James Bond film Skyfall (a very amusing cameo) and its rival, the Bourne series.

He was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar four times in his career and once for Best Supporting Actor, and he won a BAFTA, an Emmy and a Golden Globe for his performance as Churchill in the 2002 TV movie The Gathering Storm. He refused a CBE in 1980 and a knighthood in 2000 on principle (good man!) and overcame a battle with kidney cancer in 2011.

There won't be another like him. A true great of cinema. RIP

RIP Clive Swift

Clive Swift, the Liverpool born British actor known to millions for his portrayal as henpecked Richard Bucket in 90s sitcom Keeping Up Appearances has died at the age of 82.

Swift many credits also included Born and Bred, The Old Guys and in two editions of the BBC's celebrated Ghost Stories For Christmas; The Stalls of Barchester and A Warning to the Curious. He also starred in films like Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy, John Boorman's Excalibur and David Lean's A Passage to India, as well as making two appearances in Doctor Who; firstly as Professor Jobel in 1985's Revelation of the Daleks and in 2007 Christmas special, Voyage of the Damned, as Mr Cooper.

RIP   

The Mad Death (1983)

This three part drama about a rabies outbreak in Scotland was based on a novel of the same name by Nigel Slater, and broadcast by the BBC in the summer of 1983. Despite Britain being rabies free since the early 1920s, it's hard to explain the fearful hold the disease still had over the UK in my youth; suitably chilling public information films produced in that period warned you of the horrors posed by importing potentially rabid animals from the continent, whilst it proved to be an ongoing concern for the protagonists in Terry Nation's post-apocalyptic TV series Survivors. So pressing was this threat that comedian Sarah Millican - just a couple of years senior to me - has since recalled how her father taught her as a child the best way to kill a dog, just in case! Tapping into this fear with disturbing aplomb, was The Mad Death.

When a cat owner decides to smuggle her pampered feline into the UK (from France - where else?!) she has no idea of the damage and tragedy she's about to unleash. The cat had got into a scrap with a rabid fox prior to leaving home and it's now a carrier for the zoonotic disease which eventually moves to its first human victim, in the shape of Scottish-based US businessman Tom Siegler (Ed Bishop - yup, not even UFO's Commander Ed Straker is safe here!). Gradually succumbing to the nightmarish death throes of rabies - a fear of water, an inability to tolerate any draught near his throat, weirdly surreal and erotically menacing dreams (though to be fair, that might just be a symptom for Siegler; a randy get who has already passed the disease on to his mistress) - and dies in a hospital isolation room where the cause of death is confirmed as rabies.  

A containment plan is immediately launched and the head of the strategy is veterinary officer, Michael Hilliard, played by Richard Heffer. Heffer was a very popular actor at the time, but it's hard to see the reason for his appeal here though. It's really not his fault though (indeed, I have enjoyed several of his performances elsewhere), it's really a flaw in the writing. You see, Hilliard is your typical 1970s disaster movie hero and by that I mean he's an incredibly dated cliche that now shows up the inherent silliness of The Mad Death. He isn't just a divisional veterinary officer and expert on rabies, he's also a Maverick divisional veterinary officer and expert on rabies - one who wears a permanent scowl, is having it off with Dr Anne Maitland (Barbara Kellerman - you can't really blame him can you?) behind her partner, Johnny Dalry (Richard Morant) of the landed gentry class, and is irked that the rabies outbreak has postponed his commencement of a new and cushy job in Brussels. Indeed, so pissed off is he that he initially turns down flat the opportunity to contain an outbreak that has already claimed two lives (one of which is a teenage girl!) because he doesn't feel his brilliance has been properly recognised by the bureaucrats he has had to work for and he's no time for the public relations exercise such a duty requires. In short, Hilliard is a bit of a prick and Heffer really struggles to make him attractive to this viewer at least. It's down to Jimmy Logan's genial, cigar chomping Scottish minister Bill Stanton to convince Hilliard to stay in the UK and, with the help of Maitland and a minor comic relief character in the shape of portly, bumbling Bob Nicol (Paul Brooke), curtail this threat   before more deaths occur.

Of course Hilliard's  work faces a bigger challenge than locating and destroying all infected animals and that's the horrified reaction his pragmatic and hard-nosed programme from this nation of animal lovers.  The greatest challenge to the kind of dick swinging that Hilliard employs? Why, a mad cat lady of course - the distinctly unhinged and eccentric spinster Miss Stonecroft (Brenda Bruce), who lives in a rambling old pile in the sticks and shares it with a host of cats and dogs who are soon infected. Aghast at the quarantine and murder on display, Stonecroft seeks a twisted kind of justice that could not only scupper Hilliard's work but spread the disease even further.

The Mad Death is a good example of the kind of unsettling, leftfield dramas that the BBC would make in the early '80s - the kind that had the tradition, commitment and feel of a Play for Today but would teeter on the edges of horror and science fiction. However, anyone expecting a kind of 'this could happen any day now' chilling experience so expertly crafted in the daddy of all these dramas - Threads - will be disappointed in The Mad Death, though that's not to say that it doesn't occasionally capture something of those knowing moments of character sleepwalking to their doom and a growing sense of dread. In reality, The Mad Death is something of a stablemate of the BBC's excellent adaptation of The Day of the Triffids, the aforementioned Survivors, and that other BBC Scotland drama, The Nightmare Man. There is however a streak of silliness that runs through it that unintentionally puts you more in mind of the great pastiche of such programmes, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. By the time we reach the concluding part, which features deeply repetitive sequences of dogs being tracked down and shot on the Scottish hillsides, the jealous Dalry debating whether to shoot them or Hilliard, the rival for his affections, and Dr Maitland being kidnapped by Miss Stonecroft, who has gone the full Hitchcock and decided to keep her as her new 'pet', and I was both rolling my eyes and chuckling. Still, there are enough moments of 'look away now' gruesomeness and a PIF style unsettling atmosphere to offset these.

Nostalgia wise, there's much that stands out from The Mad Death and I'm not just referring to a wonderful sequence in which a stray rabid dog finds its way into an East Kilbride shopping centre full of long-ago folded high street names like John Menzies (the store is soon evacuated, lending an eerie zombie apocalypse style atmosphere to the scenes and a touch of mad action as the off-road fan Dr Maitland takes her Land Rover around the deserted precinct!) either; there's a scene at the very start when a dog bites Hilliard's daughter during a day at the beach and no one does a thing about it. Hilliard doesn't approach the dog's owner (who is of course Miss Stonecroft - neither character aware at this point of what lies around the corner and how their fates are ultimately entwined) to rebuke her or raise the matter, it's just taken as a matter of course that, if you go to pet a dog off it's leash, you take the chance of being bitten. I can't imagine that happening now. 

Tense, but a little sensationalist and cheesy too, The Mad Death is nevertheless a good example of the kind of drama that British TV doesn't really make any more and an indicator of one of the nation's  now near forgotten concerns. It also possesses a genuinely unsettling and disturbing title sequence, which features an unseen child whispering the lyrics to the hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful over images of nature that seem to belong in the 1970s adaptation of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. There's a nice suitably early 80s synth score from Philip Sawyer (formerly of the Spencer Davis Group) used throughout too.

The Mad Death is now available on DVD from Simply Media.

Silent Sunday: Evil Takes a Holiday

RIP Windsor Davies

Very sad to hear of the death of Windsor Davies at the age of 88 on Thursday.

The burly, deep-voiced Welsh actor was best known for playing the Sergeant-Major in Croft and Perry's classic WWII set sitcom It Ain't Half Hot Mum which ran from 1974 to 1981. It was a role that not only made him a household name but also saw him typecast (not that he seemed to mind) as the bullish soldier putting others through their paces in everything from films like Carry on England and Adolf Hitler: My Part In His Downfall to children's series like Marmalade Atkins and Gerry Anderson's Terrahawks. When he wasn't playing the sergeant-major then he was often cast as policeman, appearing as one on TV in the likes of Z Cars, Softly Softly, Callan, Special Branch, Detective, The Mind of Mr J.G. Reader, and The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, and on film in The Playbirds, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, Endless Night, and Not Now, Comrade.

Other memorable roles include starring opposite Donald Sinden as rival antique dealers in the ITV sitcom Never the Twain which ran from 1981 to 1991, and the Welsh rugby comedies, Grand Slam and Old Scores. He also starred in Carry On Behind, played General Tufto in the BBC's excellent 1998 adaptation of Vanity Fair and David Lloyd George in Channel 4's Mosley. His last appearances on TV included guest appearances in Casualty in 2000 and in My Family in 2004, before retiring to France. His wife passed away in September last year and he is survived by five children.

RIP

Doctor Who: Resolution

Some 'fans', ie the Special People, threw their Dapol figures out of the pram when they heard that Jodie Whittaker's debut season would feature no returning villains. Like, how were they expected to cope with a female Doctor and no Daleks?

Personally, I breathed a sigh of relief. If there's one thing NuWho has been guilty of it's milking the Daleks to death. RTD re-introduced them so brilliantly in the first season, with Rob Shearman's excellent Dalek (still on of the very best Dalek stories ever) and a thrillingly old fashioned two-part space opera finale in Bad Wolf and The Parting of the Ways, but let's face it, they ought to have been used sparingly in subsequent seasons, just like in old Who. By the time we got to that hideous redesign, the Paradigm Daleks, there was only really one thing to do and that was to draw a discreet veil over proceedings and use them very carefully, or indeed not at all.

Resolution (c'mon, would it have hurt to call it Resolution of the Daleks?) brings the monsters of Skaro back with a palpable bang, first to back-hug (shades of Alien there) Charlotte Ritchie's archaeologist and force her to go on an epic killing spree, before rehousing itself in what the Doctor described as 'junk yard chic', wiping out a troop of soldiers and invading GCHQ. But perhaps the Daleks most cruelest play was in robbing bored and hungover families of their wifi on New Year's Day, forcing them to have...a conversation!

As with the last season, Resolution hits the ground running and continues to deliver something that is notably Who but yet at the same time unlike anything RTD or Moffat created. I especially liked the Limp Bizkit style score, which added to the relentless nature of the Daleks, and the regular cast continue to impress with Whittaker's Doctor getting a great moment, literally facing off against the Dalek (or rather Ritchie) who had foolishly laughed at her; "Do that again, to my face"

Some people continue to say that you can't have a female Doctor, some people continue to say that this doesn't feel like Doctor Who. I'm here to tell you that, having loved this show all my life (including the very dark period as a teenager in the 90s when all you had was DWM and the Virgin New Adventures) that these people are wrong. Dead wrong.