Category Archives: Essays

Sherlock: A Study in Pink (2010) and Holmes on TV

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by DAVID ROLINSON

Writer: Steven Moffat; Director: Paul McGuigan

The most impressive thing about A Study in Pink, the brilliant first episode of new series Sherlock, is that, for all the modern-day rebooting and visual invention, its spirit and detail are so faithful to the source work by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. As in his Doctor Who work, writer Steven Moffat brings a fan’s eye to the strengths and weaknesses of his beloved source material, developing the series format with fellow executive producers Sue Vertue and fellow Holmes and Who expert (and writer of episode 3) Mark Gatiss. A Study in Pink captures the essence of Holmes’s 19th century debut – reworking A Study in Scarlet (1887) and elements of Holmes’s second story, The Sign of Four (1890) – in a package that, with the impressive pace and technique of director Paul McGuigan, makes for one of the 21st century’s sharpest 90 minutes of popular drama to date.

Doctor Who: The Eleventh Hour (2010)

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by DAVID ROLINSON

Writer: Steven Moffat; Director: Adam Smith

For me, Doctor Who literally is a fairy tale. It’s not really science fiction. It’s not set in space, it’s set under your bed. – Steven Moffat1

If you look at the stories I’ve written so far I suppose I might be slightly more at the fairy-tale and Tim Burton end of Doctor Who, whereas Russell is probably more at the blockbuster and Superman end of the show. – Steven Moffat2

Here are a few thoughts on the ideas at work in The Eleventh Hour, the first episode of the 2010 season of Doctor Who. It’s not a straight ‘review’, because there are enough of those on the internet already. But it’s also not the type of researched essay you expect from this site, because I’m interested in the episode’s ambiguities and the thoughts circulating in my head after seeing it, and don’t want to re-watch the episode to death or wait until the end of the season when some of those ideas will have been resolved. This piece will discuss the ideas relating to the ‘storybook quality’ that new lead writer Steven Moffat has talked about3, think about how style and imagery support characterisation and theme, and work out why my mind has made associations with the classic Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger film A Matter of Life and Death (1946). This piece contains spoilers, and, unlike other essays on this site, you will need to have seen the episode to know what I’m talking about.

  1. Steven Moffat, quoted in Gareth McLean, ‘The man with a monster of a job’, The Guardian, Media Guardian, 22 March 2010, p. 5. ↩

  2. Steven Moffat, quoted in BBC press release, available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2010/03_march/19/doctor_who2.shtml. ↩

  3. McLean, ‘The man with a monster of a job’, p. 5. ↩

Whisper It But Perhaps Malcolm Tucker Is Good For Us

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by MATTHEW BAILEY

Plato and Hazel Blears do not often make it into the same sentence but they do share a common concern: from ancient Greece to the Salford Chipmunk, the arts have troubled the polis.

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Admittedly Hazel Blears is not as extreme in her views as Plato, who sought to banish poets from his Republic for fear of their deleterious effect on the citizenry. Nonetheless Blears, speaking last year when still a Minister, expressed her worries about the corrosive effect of fictional accounts of politics and politicians on this country. Wondering why people might be deterred from participation in politics, she ruminated that one factor might be its portrayal on our TV screens. While Americans enjoy a tradition of uplifting political narratives from Mr Smith Goes to Washington to The West Wing, by contrast the British, she argued, are served with a diet of either the incompetent (Yes, Minister) or Machiavellian (House of Cards); two tendencies synthesized today in The Thick of It where clueless ministers are the playthings of conniving spin doctor Malcolm Tucker.

Michael Palin, Halfway to Hollywood: Diaries 1980-1988 (2009)

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by DAVID ROLINSON

For anyone interested in British television drama or cinema, this second volume of Michael Palin’s diaries is just as engrossing as the first. Although some reviewers wonder if this book will be about ‘the less exciting stuff that happened in between’ the peak period of Monty Python covered in the first volume and the travel programmes that Palin embarks upon as this volume closes, it is all the more enjoyable and rewarding for its grounding in the reality of solo writing and the production process.1

For visitors to this site, I recommend Palin’s detailed coverage of East of Ipswich (1987)2, from gestation and writing through castinPalinHalfwayCoverpicg, production, post-production, critical reception and awards nominations (plus Palin’s unusually scathing comment that the London Film Festival were ‘Snobs’ to pass on it).3 I’ve adored East of Ipswich for many years, so I’m delighted to see Palin assert that ‘Nothing I’ve done gives me as much unqualified pleasure’ and that ‘I’ve never felt something done as close to the way I wanted it done as this’.4 Other material relevant to British television drama includes Palin’s script for Number 27 (1988)5 which starred the legendary Joyce Carey, working relationships with Tristram Powell, Charles Sturridge, Innes Lloyd and others, and television’s importance in British filmmaking: with fifteen films made a year and directors like Gavin Millar and Alan Clarke involved, ‘this shabbily-appointed fifth floor at TV Centre is where the British Film Industry exists’.6 Palin details the postponement of Sturridge’s Troubles (1988) after a week of filming with Palin in a major role, after which it was remounted without him.7

  1. Alfred Hickling, The Guardian, 17 October 2009. ↩

  2. Screen Two:‘East of Ipswich’, tx. BBC2, 1 February 1987. ↩

  3. Palin, p. 435. ↩

  4. Palin, pp. 447, 425 ↩

  5. BBC, 23 October 1988 ↩

  6. Palin, p. 416 ↩

  7. Adaptation of the novel by J.G. Farrell. A dispute over the cinematography escalated. The remounted version was ultimately transmitted on ITV in two parts, 1 and 8 May 1988. ↩

Out of this World (1962)

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by OLIVER WAKE

Writers: Clive Exton, Leon Griffiths, Leo Lehman, Terry Nation, Julian Bond, Bruce Stewart, Richard Waring, Denis Butler; Adapted from: John Wyndham, Rog Philips, Isaac Asimov, Tom Godwin, Philip K Dick, Robert Moore Williams, Katherine Maclean, Raymond F. Jones, Frank Crisp, Clifford D Simak, Arthur Sellings; Directors: Charles Jarrott, Jonathan Alwyn, Douglas James, Paul Bernard, Peter Hammond, Guy Verney, Richmond Harding, John Knight, Don Leaver, John Knight, Alan Cooke

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There are many reasons why a television series may languish in obscurity, perhaps primarily because it simply does not merit any interest. However, this is not the case with ABC’s 1962 series Out of This World – British television’s first science fiction anthology – which suffers obscurity due to two factors independent of the programme itself. Only one episode exists in full, leaving little scope for re-evaluation, and the series has long been overshadowed by its celebrated longer-running BBC cousin Out of the Unknown. However, Out of This World is not just worthy of attention as a curiosity, but as an original and successful series in its own right.