Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to Robert Valentine about his choice of The Daemons (1/5)

Transcript

Talks to Robert Valentine about his choice of The Daemons (1/5) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:33
  Hamster with a blunt pen knife for doing quicker.
• 0:36
  Welcome back to a Hamster with a blunt pen knife the Doctor Who
• 0:40
  Commentary podcast. My name is Mr. Robert Valentine
• 0:44
  and with me is Mr. Joe Ford. The Moon is in the 7th house and
• 0:48
  Jupiter has aligned itself with Mars which can only mean it is
• 0:52
  the dawning of the Age of Aquarius and we are going to let
• 0:55
  the sunshine in on the demons. The signs are there for all the
• 1:00
  theme. I cast the ruins only this
• 1:04
  morning, Rob. Well, so did I.
• 1:08
  And yeah, we we're doing this. This is a daytime record for us,
• 1:11
  which we don't usually do, but no.
• 1:14
  I know it's actually for such a spooky story.
• 1:16
  Such a spooky story and we are sort of doing this one so
• 1:21
  erroneously for Halloween. Absolutely.
• 1:24
  Yeah, we're going to Halloween week.
• 1:26
  Yeah, yeah, Even though we are, we're six months out because
• 1:29
  really, this is a, this is a Beltane May Mayday story.
• 1:33
  This is all we know, the rites of spring and all that.
• 1:36
  But, you know, it's sufficiently spooky.
• 1:38
  So you haven't got a book coming out Halloween, have you, by any
• 1:41
  chance like Professor Horner? I'm afraid I haven't.
• 1:44
  No. Maybe lucky for me, I don't.
• 1:46
  Yeah. He's so wonderful.
• 1:49
  My God, the characters in this are so wonderful.
• 1:53
  Rob, how do we set upon the demons now?
• 1:56
  Please, Anyone who hasn't heard our previous hamsters?
• 2:00
  And if not, why not? Fabulous.
• 2:03
  We've done such luminaries as Pyramids of Mars, The Abominable
• 2:07
  Snowmen, the Brain of Morbius. Sharda one of my favourites.
• 2:12
  Oh my God, the greatest show in the Galaxy, which you could even
• 2:14
  watching. You know, amazing commentaries.
• 2:18
  Now we've sort of settled upon a formula, haven't we?
• 2:21
  We, yeah, we've kind of quite naturally.
• 2:25
  Well, you know, I, I'm, I'm, I'm a writer.
• 2:27
  So I like to look at things then pull them apart to see how they
• 2:31
  worked before you pull them apart.
• 2:33
  A bit like Light and ghost light actually with, with maids.
• 2:36
  But yeah, so we're we're looking at the the demons this time and
• 2:40
  now the demons, unlike something like, you know, the brain of
• 2:43
  Morbius or towns of Wang Chai Yang.
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  This is not based on a particular text.
• 2:49
  There's not one single influence.
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  This is more really this is a story that's feeding into a
• 2:54
  certain strain in popular culture of witchcraft and
• 2:59
  Satanic panic and all that. All that good.
• 3:02
  Stuff. Satanic Panic?
• 3:04
  Yes, one. Was there a panic in the 70s
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  about Satan? Oh.
• 3:08
  The the the in in the 80s OK it's one of those things that
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  kind of it comes in tabloid waves really, I think when when
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  newspapers and the like get bored or there's nothing else to
• 3:19
  complain about. I.
• 3:21
  Was depressed not not the church then.
• 3:24
  Oh no, all these things there's usually, I think from from like
• 3:28
  from my occasional trips to like the London Fort in society.
• 3:31
  My understanding from the last lecture on this, on this kind of
• 3:34
  thing I went to was usually you'll get some someone in the
• 3:38
  church maybe, but really, you know, making some kind of noise,
• 3:43
  some crank or whatever. And then the press will leap on
• 3:47
  it. But apparently the Satanic
• 3:49
  panics are apparently quite big with evangelicals because
• 3:53
  evangelical Christians, they need an enemy.
• 3:56
  And yeah. So yeah, that's kind of, yeah,
• 3:59
  that's, that's where they kind of come from.
• 4:01
  But you know, but it's amazing that in some ways I think in
• 4:04
  1971, this episode of Doctor Who got made at all, considering.
• 4:09
  You know, wow. I mean, I'd rather hear that the
• 4:12
  central heating is always on down below, you know, I hear
• 4:15
  it's quite chilly up above. So I think I know where I want
• 4:18
  to go, you know, morally speaking.
• 4:21
  Well, yes, yeah, we're speaking, but you know, I'm, I'm quite
• 4:24
  chilly, hence I'm as you see in my in my big fluffy dressing
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  gown. Like, as a bug.
• 4:29
  In fact, he looks like a child waiting to watch the demons in
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  1971. You know, just had his beans on
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  toast. He's wrapped up in his dressing
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  gown and his mum's gone. Right, Doctor Who's on?
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  Sit down and watch that. And then they sit there and
• 4:42
  watch this episode 1 of the Demons Imagine.
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  That's a gorgeous image and that's very much this one evokes
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  for me because you know how I've said often times I'll watch I'll
• 4:51
  watch an episode of Doctor Who the once and then not bother
• 4:53
  again. I'm I'm I'm you know, I'm one
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  shot. Remember, kind of the demons
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  does not count. I have seen the demons a lot
• 5:02
  over the years. I love it.
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  And it's just one of those ones that, you know, it's sort of,
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  you know, there are certain bits of TV or film, whatever, or
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  books, Chicken Soup for the Soul, as they say.
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  And it's just, it's just, it's a proper good bit of Doctor Who,
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  really, but. Is it the sort of the mythology
• 5:20
  in there? Is it the Satanism?
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  Is it the? It's always Regular Show.
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  Yeah, well, I. Met you recently, you know I
• 5:29
  did. Worry.
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  Bells going off while we were talking.
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  Yeah, we were. We, we were very close to the
• 5:35
  cliffs at Beachy Head as well. So you know you, you know you've
• 5:38
  got away lightly. I hear, you know, there is a
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  coffin that go down there, you know, waving the elements about
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  on fountain and. Things.
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  Oh, damn, we missed them. We missed them.
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  But yeah, yeah. Is this one of the best?
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  Is it as good as we think it is when we're not watching it?
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  I'm looking forward to kind of watching it now and finding out.
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  Goes in waves. Isn't it as well like
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  popularity? I think there was a period where
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  it was untouchable and that was mostly stories from the people
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  that made it sort of filtering down.
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  Then everyone was sort of watching it.
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  And in the 90s when everyone had a bit of an issue with Pertwee
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  for some reason. Not the character, not the
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  actor, but the era. It's sort of like, oh, is this
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  is the discontinuity guide, what a load of old tribe the demons
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  is, you know? And suddenly they were trounced
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  in that opinion. Now it seems to have sort of
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  come round again and everyone's going, no, this is a very
• 6:28
  polished piece of work. This is a very good piece of
• 6:31
  Doctor Who. OK, Yeah, OK.
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  Because my sense was that are we still in a phase where people
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  do, you know, it's kind of the hip thing to say it's a bit
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  pony. We've come out of that again,
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  you reckon? Yeah, well you can transition
• 6:45
  people, you know, saying that sort of thing, people like
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  Fraser Gregory, you know, they love the Dominators and things
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  like that. But I mean, I've got a question
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  to ask you though before we press play an episode 1.
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  I realise we have to go in, we've got 5 episodes to get
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  through here, but and that is like we've done our research
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  again, haven't we? For this and I, we will talk
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  about things, but just quickly, let's talk about the things.
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  I think you and me have watched different things.
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  You. Know we have well because
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  there's there's lots of things to watch because again, there's
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  not this is not based on a particular text.
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  This is drawing in from stuff in the culture.
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  So you've got anything with the you know which witchcraft and
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  it's are the witches, which is a a hammer film called the Witches
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  written by Nigel Neil again. What a surprise.
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  Big surprise considering it's a Pertu era.
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  Story if it's the greatest influence you know on cult
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  television in the 1970s. Nigel Neil.
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  I reckon there's a good argument for that.
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  Made probably want to be made by people more knowledgeable than
• 7:38
  me. But yeah, I reckon so.
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  What you're. Talking about there.
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  You got the stories of Dennis Wheatley and you know the Devil
• 7:44
  Rides out and another one of my favorite hammers.
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  Now that I haven't watched, but Mark insists that I'm gonna
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  watch it this week anyway. Oh, brilliant.
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  Because. Because he absolutely adores it.
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  I did watch Curse of the Demon, I believe.
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  Sometimes also called Knight of the Demon.
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  Oh yeah, Curse of the Demon is Knight of the Demon with a few
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  minutes cut out. Curse of the Demon is the
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  American Cup. Knight of the Demon is the
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  original British Cup. It was about it might.
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  It might be like 2 or 3 minutes longer, but there's a bit more
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  stuff in there. The steals from that in this is
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  unbelievable. So the.
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  Elements and wind coming down and attacking people.
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  Even the demon and Azar themselves I a.
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  Sinister bearded man in a position of authority.
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  You know, there was just so much in there.
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  Yeah. Purple robes, encrypts.
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  Yeah, complete all that stuff. Quite a mass, Rob.
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  Quite a mass the quite a mass experiment.
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  You've got all the news broadcast outside broadcast
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  stuff. You've got all the the aliens
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  were here already, stuff from Quatermass and the Pit and the
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  Wild Hunt and the Devil, that kind of thing.
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  You got the Village of the Damned with the the shield in
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  around the village. You've got the Wicker Man.
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  Now here's the thing. The Wicker Man comes out two
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  years after the demons, but the novel that the Wicked Man is
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  based on, The Ritual, was published in 1967.
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  Thank you very much. So all this stuff is in the
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  culture you've got from much earlier in the century.
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  You've got a short story, Randall's Round by Eleanor
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  Scott, which is a guy, he goes to village one night and the
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  villagers are going to perform a sort of a, some kind of
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  nighttime ceremony around a Barrow because there's something
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  that lurks so that they're terrified of.
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  So you got all these different things.
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  You've got, if any more come up as we go, they'll come up as we
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  go. But there is a strong vein of
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  witchcraft running through the culture at this point.
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  And it's it's zapping Doctor Who like, like lightning zapping a
• 9:47
  weather vane. I mean, I was so curious about
• 9:50
  the witches. This was the last one you
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  recommended to me and you sent me these two fabulous sort of
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  pop art posters for which I thought, my God, I've got to
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  watch that before we go in. Could I find it anywhere?
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  Could I? Fuck, it's on no streaming
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  services whatsoever. So I've ordered a copy.
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  So I am going to watch it. But I did find some clips on
• 10:08
  YouTube, right? And it is absolutely doing that.
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  It's sort of all within one rural setting, isn't it?
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  I mean, I saw this scene, this fabulous woman, the the lead
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  character, she's in the house and suddenly this great fucking
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  mask comes walking in the room and a whole load of tribes
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  people. I thought this looks so
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  sinister. I mean it.
• 10:29
  I was getting Wookie Man vibes from it.
• 10:31
  But she's come back from Africa, right?
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  That's right. That's right.
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  So there is kind of, she's experienced sort of a African
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  witchcraft and then she comes back to Green, Green and
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  Pleasant England and this. And it's here too, because it's
• 10:49
  yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually Paul Cornell and
• 10:52
  Elizabeth Miles on their Hammer podcast, they have an episode
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  discussing the witches because they go through all the horrors
• 10:58
  of of of Hammer. And that's and I think they both
• 11:02
  like that one a lot. That's get over my distaste of
• 11:05
  the arrogance of Paul Cornell and listen to that episode.
• 11:08
  So I've been so mean about people these days.
• 11:10
  You've got to ignore me. All right, OK.
• 11:13
  What's what's it? What's he what's he say about me
• 11:15
  when I'm not around? Listener.
• 11:16
  That's why What's. You, man.
• 11:18
  Now I've met you in person and I can see you're even more
• 11:21
  handsome than you are on a screen.
• 11:23
  Nothing at all but complimentary things, I assure you.
• 11:28
  That's sure he's got. Right.
• 11:33
  We, we, we, we, we better we better get con, shouldn't we?
• 11:36
  Really worse than hey dope you are when after a compliment.
• 11:39
  Well, shall I count this in? You start us off.
• 11:42
  Oh yeah, go ahead, you counters in.
• 11:44
  OK, well then let's go into the demons and alive.
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  One SEC I'm going to I'm hovering, I'm hovering over
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  play, OK. Good.
• 11:52
  BBC Three broadcast on Beltane in 321.
• 12:00
  Off we go. Oh, dayglow, Jesus.
• 12:05
  Yeah, but but this is this is one of my favourite title
• 12:09
  sequences. It's it's the promise.
• 12:11
  It's tea and biscuits, you know. It's, it's, it promises a very
• 12:14
  cosy time to come. I just thought weirdness, you
• 12:17
  see how perk we appears, right? A very comforting figure.
• 12:21
  And then it just sort of goes off in all this sort of weird
• 12:24
  Jelly into the. Yeah, now the title.
• 12:27
  The demons obviously spelt with an ash, the AE that's sometimes
• 12:31
  called an ash ash. It's pronounced yeah, demons.
• 12:35
  It's not demons. I sometimes say David's, you
• 12:38
  know, thank you for. Well, the Doctor.
• 12:40
  So does the doctor. You're not alone, you know.
• 12:44
  You do know why that's in there, right?
• 12:45
  That aye, it's Christopher Barry, he said.
• 12:48
  No, let's make it sound a bit more interesting than just the
• 12:51
  divans. It's more interesting and also
• 12:53
  it kind of it, it makes it unique to it's, it's, it's
• 12:57
  absolutely the right decision. Pure instant Atmos Yes, amazing.
• 13:04
  Storms, lightning, winds, it's rain.
• 13:08
  The poor man struggling with his dog because he leaves the pub
• 13:11
  and and. And we've both been to Aldborne,
• 13:15
  haven't we? I went for the first time this
• 13:16
  May so all these locations I know exactly where they are now
• 13:19
  and it makes you realise how tiny this environment is.
• 13:22
  Next time we should go together, Robin.
• 13:24
  I'll be lovely. Weekend.
• 13:26
  Yeah, this is obviously written by Guy Leopold, which is a
• 13:29
  pseudonym for Barry Letts and Robert Sloman.
• 13:32
  That's right, this poor man doesn't get much of A part, does
• 13:34
  he? No, and what I'm confused about
• 13:37
  is what kills him. Is it Bach or the master or a
• 13:40
  zow at this? Point The man died of fright.
• 13:43
  Rob, I don't care what you say in your medical terminologies,
• 13:52
  Miss Hawthorne. Okay, I'm gonna make a bold
• 13:55
  claim that Miss Hawthorne is one of the very best guest
• 13:59
  characters ever. I entirely agree, and she cast
• 14:05
  the runes only this morning. It's almost certainly a
• 14:08
  reference to casting the runes by Emma James, which became,
• 14:12
  which is what? And that became the, the, you
• 14:16
  know, the, the classic British film Knight of the Demon.
• 14:19
  So Knight of the Demon is based on casting the runes, and she
• 14:23
  cast the runes this morning. Is that a deliberate reference
• 14:26
  you think? Yes, yes, yes, yes, absolutely.
• 14:29
  You think that Slowman and Letts knew what they were doing with
• 14:33
  these with this dialogue? They this this episode
• 14:35
  especially is just jam packed. Rob, it really is the dawning of
• 14:41
  the Age of Aquarius. Oh yes.
• 14:42
  Which is, of course, is a song from the musical Hair by the
• 14:47
  very suitable, suitably named band The 5th Dimension.
• 14:50
  So clearly this morning by Rob and what the scene.
• 14:53
  I sent you that. Forgot all right, but.
• 14:57
  Actually, in the Target novel, it's even clearer.
• 14:59
  That's what Joe and the doctor, or at least Joe's, been talking
• 15:02
  about that song before the scene begins.
• 15:05
  Which, by glorious coincidence, I have just read a few weeks ago
• 15:10
  for the Hamster Book Club. Oh, fantastic.
• 15:13
  Yes, it's really. Yeah, you get a.
• 15:15
  Lot more. Well, you get a lot more about
• 15:18
  the villagers and the characters.
• 15:19
  There's a lot more character stuff in the book, which I
• 15:21
  really. Yeah, because I will say as we
• 15:23
  go on, you, you don't really get that much character stuff for a
• 15:27
  lot of the villagers are ciphers who don't really have much life.
• 15:31
  But in the book that, yeah, that's where they get it, which.
• 15:34
  Is hard, right? Because there is an extra
• 15:35
  episode to play about with here. Yeah, there is, there is.
• 15:40
  It's just, it's, it's used in other ways, but it just just on
• 15:44
  it. While we're on the subject, the
• 15:45
  Age of Aquarius is an astrological belief that the
• 15:49
  world will be entering the Age of Aquarius, which is a period
• 15:52
  of love and light. Because I think we might be in
• 15:55
  it now, but the age before was the Age of Pisces, which I think
• 15:58
  was more warlike. So it's an optimistic new age
• 16:01
  idea that we're going to get a new age of light and love is
• 16:05
  going to which. Will you look me in the eye?
• 16:08
  Hasn't happened yet. Will you tell me You've just
• 16:10
  said it might be now you think we're in an age of love and
• 16:13
  light, right? Now, no, but I think no.
• 16:15
  I think no. But technically, I think we are
• 16:17
  astrologically in what is considered to be the Age of
• 16:20
  Aquarius, just by the position of where we are and where the
• 16:22
  stars are. What about perhaps to have a
• 16:24
  blood pen knife? Rob?
• 16:25
  That's an age of love and light, I'd say.
• 16:27
  I think it's an, it's an Oasis of love and light and very
• 16:30
  Oasis, a pleasant world, I think at the moment.
• 16:33
  Oh. Look at my yeah, he's come in.
• 16:35
  He's absolutely desperate to watch that TV programme with
• 16:38
  Joe. Grant, he really is.
• 16:39
  Yeah. And we've we've what we've had
• 16:40
  now is the the kind of the thesis of what this story is
• 16:43
  about, which is magic versus science.
• 16:47
  I think the doctor says everything that happens in life
• 16:49
  must happen for a subway must have a scientific explanation.
• 16:52
  If you know where to look, that is now.
• 16:55
  Do you concern? A thesis later, yes I do, but I
• 16:59
  don't I don't think the the doctor succeeds in doing that in
• 17:02
  this story. I rather like the idea of myths,
• 17:07
  legends and magic existing in Doctor Who without a scientific
• 17:12
  rationale. I don't mind when it does, but I
• 17:14
  rather like the idea of it. You know, demons and Satan and
• 17:18
  and things like that. You know, vampires.
• 17:21
  Oh yeah. Me too.
• 17:22
  I'm a bit in the in the real world, I'm, I'm definitely a,
• 17:25
  I'm a rationalist. Oh, here we have Alastair Fergus
• 17:31
  again, one of the great characters who's not in this
• 17:34
  enough for my liking. But he's such a he's a great
• 17:38
  lover. You know when he's preparing his
• 17:40
  hair later on to go on and he's getting very snappy.
• 17:43
  Yeah, and there's a lot of there's so much jam packed in
• 17:46
  here. The notorious cavern.
• 17:49
  I've got some notes here. The notorious cavern underneath
• 17:52
  the church with the third Lord of Aldborn played at his 18th
• 17:55
  century parody of black magic. So Aldborn gets name checked in
• 17:59
  this, but the Lord all all born. Sounds to me like Lord Francis
• 18:04
  Dashwood and the Hellfire Club. You know the Hellfire caves at
• 18:08
  West Wickham? If you've ever been there, it's
• 18:10
  a fascinating. Havoc, but by a pure chance I
• 18:13
  just did covered Minuet in Hell for 200 TV which covers Dashwood
• 18:17
  and the Hellfire Club. Yeah, well, that's that's that's
• 18:20
  kind of what this is a reference to.
• 18:22
  He also mentions in this cavern Pagan man performed his
• 18:25
  unspeakable rites. And that sounds very Nigel Neil
• 18:29
  quite mass in the pit. He also mentions Matthew Hopkins
• 18:32
  Witch hunt Extraordinary, which is obviously the Witch Finder
• 18:35
  general and there's a great 60s horror film Witch Finder
• 18:38
  General. But Matthew Hopkins operated in
• 18:41
  East Anglia, not Wiltshire. So to me that says that Devil's
• 18:45
  End is in East Anglia, not Wiltshire.
• 18:48
  But that might just be. It's not specific.
• 18:52
  You said it's Wiltshire, Is it in the story?
• 18:54
  Not in the story, no. So I I kind of think Devil's End
• 18:57
  just simply because if Matthew Hopkins was rattling around
• 19:01
  there, that to me suggests it's East Anglia.
• 19:04
  I rather like the idea that is any village, every village, it
• 19:08
  could be the one near you, you know?
• 19:11
  Exactly. Exactly.
• 19:14
  All of this because Luke Maloy was saying when about when he
• 19:17
  did cover the demons on strictly come hamster.
• 19:20
  He loved all of this because he get it's the closest Doctor Who
• 19:23
  kind of gets to most haunted and that sort of thing.
• 19:26
  You know, or ghost watch doing that sort of live podcast.
• 19:30
  And, and Nigel Neil did all this stuff, but this is I think
• 19:33
  episode 1. There's an argument that episode
• 19:36
  1 is not just the best episode of this five parter, but it's
• 19:40
  one of the best episode 1. It's one of the great single
• 19:43
  episodes of of Doctor Who. It's this.
• 19:46
  Alastair, Fergus, Harry and Professor Horner are incredible.
• 19:51
  Characters deserve a sitcom Rob, all right.
• 19:53
  Yeah, yeah. But obviously we're getting
• 19:57
  Sutton who name checked again. Sutton who?
• 19:59
  There's a museum there now. That's a really great place to
• 20:01
  go if you ever. Never mind Sutton.
• 20:04
  Who? Rob.
• 20:04
  OK, that's what it says anyway. I mean, these, these, these
• 20:13
  three characters, man, they are just perfect for ripe, eccentric
• 20:18
  70s character actors aren't. They, yeah, it's also, I think,
• 20:21
  you know, you get the really strong sense this is a real kind
• 20:25
  of, this is BBCTV satire as well in a way.
• 20:29
  And you got, you got the the Unit family all back at base
• 20:34
  watching, watching TV. They're watching it unfold.
• 20:38
  He is at some fancy dinner though, isn't he?
• 20:40
  At the. Moment he is, he is, he is.
• 20:41
  And there are some questions that arise from that in a bit.
• 20:44
  But I mean, there's so much sort of back story in world building.
• 20:48
  In this first episode they mentioned the 1793 when Sir
• 20:52
  Percival Flint's miners ran back to Cornwall, leaving him for
• 20:56
  dead. This gets used in the Big Finish
• 20:59
  story, the spectre of Lanyon Moore a bit.
• 21:01
  Oh, that does great. There's also reference to a
• 21:03
  Cambridge University fiasco of 1939.
• 21:07
  It's elegantly done though, right?
• 21:08
  I don't think it feels shoehorned in any of this
• 21:10
  research. No, no, no, it's not good.
• 21:12
  No, it's not because it's all it's all fictitious, but it's
• 21:15
  all there to create a sense of verisolamitude, which is exactly
• 21:19
  what ghost watch does as well. This feels really authentic.
• 21:23
  It's so rich with stuff. It's not stuffed in it's but
• 21:27
  it's it's an embarrassment of riches in terms of atmosphere
• 21:31
  and world building. I, I, it's hats off to it every
• 21:34
  single. And disaster awaits you, believe
• 21:37
  me, I know. I mean, it's got such a palpable
• 21:41
  sense of suspense about it, doesn't it?
• 21:43
  Yeah, and, and just the the whole, the whole using, you
• 21:46
  know, the, the live broadcast as a storytelling tool.
• 21:50
  This is this, this is from New York.
• 21:52
  But it's it's also such a brilliant way of doing.
• 21:55
  It has an immediately to it, doesn't it?
• 21:57
  That everybody home is experiencing it just as we are
• 22:01
  experiencing it as ATV show. Yeah, we are characters in
• 22:05
  Doctor Who watching the TV of events like as the Doctor is of
• 22:09
  events which are happening right now as we speak.
• 22:12
  That's the excitement of it. Why does the doctor suddenly
• 22:14
  change his mind just hearing? So madly.
• 22:17
  Yeah, that's the thing. I this is one of the weaknesses
• 22:20
  in this story, that the doctor in this one is utterly
• 22:23
  obnoxious. Also, he doesn't really make
• 22:25
  sense. I kind of.
• 22:26
  Don't like that. I'd rather like that about him
• 22:29
  in this. There comes a point where, I
• 22:32
  mean, the third doctor is largely based on or one of the
• 22:37
  influences is Professor Quaitomas, but he goes, let's
• 22:41
  say he goes full Brandon Levy in this one, which he's just Iras.
• 22:46
  He's just really pissed off and not obnoxious throughout.
• 22:49
  But also he's kind of inconsistent.
• 22:51
  We we don't know what he knows about Devil's End.
• 22:55
  He goes to great lengths to say that it's all nonsense, only to
• 22:59
  eventually pull a 180 and say no, it's all true, but just not
• 23:02
  in the way you think it's true, but you're actually still right.
• 23:05
  Anyway, we'll get, we'll get there as we get there.
• 23:07
  That's terrific, right? Cut to the pub.
• 23:09
  We haven't done this. We haven't done this in a
• 23:12
  contemporary setting I don't think, since the Coffee Bar and
• 23:16
  Evil of the Daleks and I just don't understand why.
• 23:19
  Recently I talked about the war machines with the nightclub and
• 23:22
  I'm like, that should have set the standard for contemporary
• 23:24
  stories going ahead, bars, pubs, clubs, and we just don't do it
• 23:29
  very often. But I don't think it really
• 23:31
  creates a lovely cosy feel. Yeah, and actually in this first
• 23:35
  scene, all the villagers were interviewed.
• 23:37
  This is a great way to introduce this cast of characters.
• 23:43
  What does it say about the hens? They've all been laying or
• 23:46
  saying he's my best battery. He is.
• 23:48
  He'll get my best room. Oh, I have actually replayed
• 23:54
  this scene, you know, with the, I was the, the, the policeman
• 23:58
  with the rock. And Pete Lambert was Miss
• 24:00
  Hawthorne while we were in Albourne.
• 24:03
  Oh, yes, yeah. Avaunt Elementals.
• 24:07
  Now this scene literally plays out in Curse of the Demon with a
• 24:11
  load of wind and these poor children playing in a park.
• 24:15
  Yes, yeah. But The thing is, though, that
• 24:17
  Miss Hawthorne clearly has a degree of magical, or as a
• 24:24
  doctor put it. Or, you know, science.
• 24:26
  Magical psionic ability. So she's sympathetic to the sort
• 24:32
  of the science fiction ideals rather than actual magic.
• 24:36
  Well, as far as she can said it's actual magic.
• 24:38
  But then later the we'll fight, we'll learn from the doctor that
• 24:40
  it isn't magic. It's, it's a, it's a, it's a
• 24:43
  rarefied form of science, apparently.
• 24:46
  It's the supernatural Rob magic. Well, if we if you want to get
• 24:51
  on to that, then science. Science is a practice of study
• 24:57
  and measurement that deals with the real natural world.
• 25:02
  And magic is a subjective and deliberate control by your own
• 25:07
  will over the world beyond the natural, hence supernatural.
• 25:12
  So if something happens in nature, it can be measured in
• 25:17
  magic. It can't because then it because
• 25:19
  if it can then it becomes branch of science.
• 25:22
  Any point of this commentary you start quoting Battlefield to me
• 25:26
  or any advanced form of sciences?
• 25:28
  All right, I'm leaving. OK.
• 25:31
  Duly noted. The one If you do go to Auburn,
• 25:35
  dear Lister, it doesn't take very long to visit all the
• 25:40
  locations because you very quickly discover everything is
• 25:44
  filmed in in the village. It's filmed immediately in the
• 25:47
  vicinity of the Green, the pub and the church.
• 25:50
  Within about 10 metres of everywhere.
• 25:52
  Else, yes, yeah, yeah. So I've seen, it's like I've
• 25:54
  seen that door. I know that wall well.
• 25:57
  Yeah, not if you listen to Dylan Riso, because we walked up to
• 25:59
  the Barrow and it's literally only like 15 minutes, but to him
• 26:03
  it sounded like it was about 5 hours.
• 26:06
  Yeah, yeah, the walk up to the barrel is if you if you if miss
• 26:10
  Hawthorne and Garbin, they're talking or hit in the.
• 26:12
  Master me, Rob, I should hope that violence will not be
• 26:15
  necessary. See the the having the master
• 26:20
  dressed in a vicar is not too dissimilar from his usual Nehru
• 26:24
  suit, and it's just a brilliant, brilliant.
• 26:27
  Look at the Brigadier. Now look at the Brig.
• 26:29
  Regimental dressed great. What a handsome man.
• 26:34
  Let's shout out to Lucy McCall right now, who's probably very
• 26:36
  happy if she's watching alongside us.
• 26:40
  What a handsome bloke. He's stuck here.
• 26:41
  Look, with a plate of corned beef sandwiches.
• 26:43
  I mean, all this stuff is wonderful.
• 26:46
  I I I watched this the other evening and I got hungry so I
• 26:49
  bought some corned beef so I could.
• 26:50
  Have some. Oh, Robs.
• 26:51
  No. Yeah.
• 26:53
  You don't like corned beef, do you?
• 26:55
  The the the thoughts got implanted and I'm I'm my flesh
• 26:58
  is very weak. My nan used to force it down me.
• 27:01
  Oh, I love what he says. He, you know the soul.
• 27:03
  Miss Hawthorne is a very outdated prospect.
• 27:06
  What sort of a vicar are you? Isn't it great?
• 27:09
  And that's the thing, Mr. Carswell in Knight of the Demon
• 27:13
  and Reverend Magister would get on very well.
• 27:17
  Look very similar. Don't.
• 27:19
  I Yeah, Well, you have that figure, the kind of the Mr.
• 27:21
  Carswell or the Makata figure from The Devil Writes Out Plays
• 27:25
  by Charles Gray from Rocky Horror Picture Show.
• 27:28
  Yeah, it's the they're all sort of what Mr. Carswell isn't
• 27:35
  because he predates Mr. James's knowledge of him, but that he's
• 27:39
  very Crowley esque Aleister Crowley, the Great Beast.
• 27:43
  Give me a bit of quote in this, but a rationalist existentialist
• 27:47
  writer indeed on my podcast. Oh, and here we have Bessie.
• 27:54
  Bessie this. Is very, very true.
• 27:57
  In this one. Oh yeah, indeed.
• 28:00
  Apparently Katie Manning regularly had the map upside
• 28:02
  down as well. So Richard Franklin says in the
• 28:07
  documentary, he goes, clearly this is written by somebody who
• 28:10
  knows us as actors and who knows our characters because they're
• 28:14
  they're writing to all of their strengths.
• 28:17
  But it's so authentic to the people playing them as well.
• 28:20
  Yes, yeah. That shot there, look at that
• 28:23
  long shot of the Barrow. That's.
• 28:24
  Fabulous. Yeah, yeah.
• 28:25
  And also when you realise that the the entrance to the Barrow
• 28:28
  is just a little bit of tense. Yes, it's basically a a little
• 28:33
  mound, isn't it the actual? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 28:35
  It's, it's brilliant. And they all film it on this
• 28:39
  side of it. They basically they got the, the
• 28:41
  truck up to the gate and then just filmed out, you know,
• 28:45
  filmed, filmed that way. Really.
• 28:46
  That's that's that's how they did this.
• 28:48
  Any sign of that for woman Rob? These these guys, Harry and
• 28:55
  Horner work so well together. Harry's great.
• 28:59
  Yeah, I love it. What will you do if he turns up?
• 29:01
  Well get your chatty fella over there to have a chat with him.
• 29:04
  This is so good. And I I'm, I miss these guys
• 29:07
  when they're gone. I really do.
• 29:09
  They're very, very funny. And you know what?
• 29:11
  It is odd that this is the only episode that's actually filmed
• 29:14
  at night. I know it's expensive, but with
• 29:17
  after episode 1 we're completely in the daytime, aren't we?
• 29:21
  Yeah, it's a spring, but you don't need to be at night.
• 29:23
  When you're trapped within a heat barrier, a bit like in
• 29:27
  Pyramids of Mars. You know you're trapped.
• 29:29
  It doesn't need to be dark too frightening anymore.
• 29:31
  You say that to the hungry Earth and cold blood, all right, in
• 29:34
  Series 5. Oh look, they're watching the
• 29:38
  footy now. I'm sorry, Mike Yates going.
• 29:42
  Oh, that'll learn them. I mean, I'm not convinced at
• 29:45
  all. You are a poet, Mike Yates.
• 29:47
  You are not a big British soldier.
• 29:48
  You know, we were talking the other day about Fox Mulder and
• 29:53
  as played by David Duchovny in the first couple of episodes of
• 29:55
  The X-Files, Mike Yates on paper and Mike Yates as played by
• 30:02
  Richard Franklin are two very different things, aren't they?
• 30:05
  It's not just me. No, not at all.
• 30:08
  And I think they realized that and after a they move away from
• 30:12
  having him on motorbikes and punch ups and things like this.
• 30:15
  Although he acquits himself well in this when he's on a bike and
• 30:19
  he becomes a more thoughtful man, doesn't he?
• 30:22
  By the time you get to Invasion of the Dinosaurs, he's talking
• 30:24
  about the silence in the middle of London and all of this.
• 30:27
  He's he's a different character, I think.
• 30:30
  Yeah, and here we have the the doctor just being in a filthy
• 30:33
  mood in the pub with all the villagers.
• 30:36
  They think he's ATV, Blur, Don't even you know, the hair, the
• 30:38
  wig. Wig, he goes.
• 30:41
  Yeah, I just find him. I'm going to use the Nathan both
• 30:43
  me phrase here. I find him tiresome.
• 30:45
  I find him really tiresome in this story.
• 30:47
  Whatever, I always think the joke is on him though, that's
• 30:50
  why it works for me. It is, but he's meant to be your
• 30:53
  protagonist, and in this story he's really not.
• 30:56
  I think. I think in the demons, this,
• 30:59
  this is a story where it really feels like Doctor Who.
• 31:02
  The TV show is an ensemble that is called Doctor Who, you know.
• 31:08
  But I mean, don't you, don't you subscribe to the Pete Lambert
• 31:11
  assertion that the climax of this story is as how totally
• 31:16
  confused as to why Joe Grant is sacrificing herself to the
• 31:20
  villain of Doctor Who, the Doctor?
• 31:24
  That's what he thinks. He thinks That's why he has that
• 31:26
  nervous breakdown. There's a strong argument to be
• 31:28
  made for that because there are a couple of head scratches in
• 31:31
  this that. Yeah.
• 31:32
  The Master gets a cliffhanger in this.
• 31:34
  That's how we know he's the hero.
• 31:36
  Exactly. Oh, look at even these sinister.
• 31:42
  I mean fuck me Rob, look at the lighting here.
• 31:45
  It is just so atmospheric. Now I've got so many notes we're
• 31:50
  not covering because this. Is moving?
• 31:51
  Go on. Oh no.
• 31:52
  No, no, no. It's moving so quickly and I've
• 31:54
  got so many notes because it's so episode 1 is so dense.
• 31:59
  Saying that pertinent points, or at least after we'll have 10
• 32:02
  minutes at the end of 1 so you can cover them all right.
• 32:04
  Oh. Fair enough, fair enough.
• 32:06
  But yeah. I want your research to be
• 32:07
  wasted. We have, we have.
• 32:09
  We're having a classic black mass going on at the moment.
• 32:13
  Oh, quiet please. Lots of lovely hush.
• 32:15
  Insect heart with the preparations for this, so we
• 32:19
  know we're building up to something.
• 32:21
  Now, yeah, it works so damn well.
• 32:23
  He's. Playing with his hair and
• 32:26
  action. Welcome back viewers on here at
• 32:29
  the Devil's Hump. The excitement is intense.
• 32:32
  I think I'll be quite good news anchor, actually.
• 32:35
  I think you'd be excellent. I think you'd be excellent.
• 32:37
  A bit a bit rude, but excellent. Well, you know I get the best
• 32:40
  out of my guests, though I think as my will so mote it be now all
• 32:47
  this sort of gobbledygook that he talks in a minute.
• 32:49
  You know, evil, evil way as all is that real sort of cultures
• 32:54
  speak or? I mean Amen and Neymar which
• 32:59
  they say is Amen backwards. Famously a lot of this is Mary
• 33:02
  had little Lamb backwards. Actually many years ago I Co
• 33:06
  wrote a series for Wireless theatre called the Springfield
• 33:09
  Saga and I wrote a Black Mass for that which I had Julian
• 33:13
  Glover do and I had him restricting Glover.
• 33:16
  Then I had him. I had him reciting Mary had
• 33:19
  Little Lamb backwards in homage to this.
• 33:22
  But all this stuff, you know, ancient and awful.
• 33:25
  Yeah, some of it, some of it a bit later, comes from Thalamer,
• 33:29
  which is Aleister Crowley's sort of a cult philosophy.
• 33:34
  But this is the It's the Master performing a Black Mass for a
• 33:37
  Saturday tea time audience in 1971.
• 33:41
  Considering those kids huddled up in their dressing gowns,
• 33:44
  terrified, fish fingers abandoned.
• 33:47
  Yeah, exactly. I'm amazed the Doctor Who could
• 33:49
  do this because, you know, people were a lot more shockable
• 33:53
  when it comes to kind of satanic and demonic stuff back.
• 33:56
  Well, I mean the the story does go to great lengths in episode 3
• 34:00
  to point out that this is all rational and scientific, but at
• 34:04
  the. Fortnight from now.
• 34:05
  At this point, yeah, exactly. It is just the supernatural,
• 34:09
  right? Yeah, it's gorgeous.
• 34:15
  And the, and the Master is the perfect villain to have in this
• 34:19
  story. And yeah, I am aware of there
• 34:21
  are arguments that, you know, if you watch season 8 in order,
• 34:26
  it's a bit of a yawn that the Master is back again.
• 34:29
  It's. Delgado, Who cares?
• 34:31
  Yeah, exactly, exactly. You know.
• 34:33
  I think there's an argument to be made that the moment in a
• 34:36
  second where all hell breaks loose and the camera starts
• 34:39
  shaking and pulling back from the master going oh that is peak
• 34:44
  master. Unfortunately it's all downhill
• 34:46
  from there for the master. It doesn't get any better than
• 34:49
  that. Yeah, exactly.
• 34:51
  Look, there's a lovely little bit of CSO here to make that
• 34:53
  that for the outcrop of rock works.
• 34:56
  Yeah, it does. Yeah, Well, it gives us a.
• 34:58
  Scale as well, doesn't it? And also makes you realise this
• 35:01
  is a cab. It's not.
• 35:02
  They famously don't call it the crypt, they call it the Cavern
• 35:06
  because it is older. Oh, and here we have.
• 35:08
  Don't pull that stone. Oh my God.
• 35:12
  Now the all this, all this chaos here feels very quite a mass in
• 35:15
  the pit, Jesus Christ of nowhere.
• 35:18
  All the coffee's gone everywhere.
• 35:20
  Coffee. There are the cameras.
• 35:22
  The cameraman's flying. Oh my God, look, here we go.
• 35:27
  The camera pulls back. He's loving the chaos.
• 35:30
  He's an agent of fucking chaos at this point.
• 35:35
  And that let's. Fuck, it's.
• 35:39
  Fucking gorgeous. Oh my God.
• 35:44
  I always got confused though when I first saw this on the BBC
• 35:46
  Two. Repeat.
• 35:47
  I I such a fuzzy sort of copy on my screen.
• 35:50
  I couldn't figure out what was going on with the Doctor there.
• 35:52
  It was a bit indistinct. Yes, I know what you mean.
• 35:55
  I know exactly what you mean. But then.
• 35:56
  But then we snap into the cliffhanger, the Doctor and
• 35:59
  Horner apparently dead. You are right that is I mean
• 36:04
  that build up to that and the last five minutes it.
• 36:07
  Is Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I I genuinely think that this,
• 36:10
  this episode of Doctor Who is one of the great episodes,
• 36:13
  period. There's so much the world of
• 36:16
  Devil's End, the villagers that the the thesis of science versus
• 36:21
  magic, the master in disguise as a vicar who's actually leading
• 36:26
  the local coven in a black mass. Yeah, this is this stuff is
• 36:31
  absolutely phenomenal. I just all the peripheral
• 36:34
  characters, just juicy as hell, eccentric, vivid, funny.
• 36:39
  Oh my God. Well, look, come on, what didn't
• 36:42
  we cover? And from your notes.
• 36:43
  Honestly, there might not have been anything too major, but
• 36:45
  let's see. Obviously this was broadcast on
• 36:49
  April the 1st. No, it wasn't on the 22nd of May
• 36:52
  Episode 1 was broadcast 22nd of May 1971.
• 36:55
  So really culturally, this is still like the 1960s in many
• 36:58
  ways. Because I think technically
• 36:59
  London is still swinging at this point and we're still a year
• 37:03
  away from Dracula 1972 ADA. Lot of people will be watching
• 37:07
  this on black and white TV's, wouldn't they I.
• 37:10
  Think most would not Most people would be watching this in black
• 37:12
  and white. Jesus, yeah, the only way it
• 37:15
  could possibly be more scary that first episode is watching
• 37:18
  it black and white. Yeah, no, exactly.
• 37:21
  Exactly. What other notes have I got?
• 37:24
  Nothing. Nothing too major.
• 37:25
  I mean Olive Hawthorne. Obviously her name Hawthorne
• 37:28
  does have a cock significance, as is a plant that wards off
• 37:31
  witches and it was placed above doorways to keep witches out.
• 37:36
  It's also a good choice if wooden steak if you want to slay
• 37:39
  a vampire. And Merlin the magician was
• 37:41
  trapped inside of Hawthorne Bush by Nimiwe, the Lady of the Lake.
• 37:45
  And also, yeah. The main star of Benson and
• 37:50
  Hawthorne as written by Lucy McCall, which I will be
• 37:53
  mentioning in every. Episode.
• 37:54
  Oh, yeah. No, you must do.
• 37:55
  You must do. Yes, yeah.
• 37:57
  Obviously the name Alistair Fergus, but I think it's the
• 38:00
  deliberately evocative of Alistair Crowley.
• 38:04
  What else we got? We've done the the magic versus
• 38:09
  science bit. Oh yeah, when the doctors, when
• 38:12
  Joe asks the doctor, how do you know?
• 38:14
  And the doctor says, I just know that's all that is no fucking
• 38:17
  answer, doctor. That's a belief in science.
• 38:20
  That's not the that that is the that is not the scientific
• 38:23
  method. He.
• 38:24
  It's such an about turn when he goes from mocking her about all
• 38:27
  of this, so then suddenly believing it and there's just no
• 38:30
  rationale, no explanation for it at all, is there?
• 38:33
  Yeah, exactly. It's his he's in a terrible
• 38:37
  mood. He's not sharing what he knows
• 38:40
  and therefore, as as a character, what he's doing is
• 38:43
  not making sense and he's not making any friends.
• 38:46
  He's yeah, he's even if he's right, he's he's basically being
• 38:51
  a lot, lot like Richard Dawkins in this episode.
• 38:53
  I. Think I do much prefer the
• 38:56
  moments of charm John Perkwee of the later seasons.
• 38:59
  I think he's just glorious. But I do love the idea of the
• 39:03
  season 8 of John Perkwee. Dr. goes around being so
• 39:07
  condescending and rude to everybody and poor Joe Grant is
• 39:10
  there in his wake, charming everybody and trying to find a
• 39:14
  way socially through all of these situations.
• 39:17
  Yeah, exactly. I think, I think the, I think
• 39:19
  the Doctor is easier to take in this story if you do think of it
• 39:22
  as an ensemble piece. And he's not the star.
• 39:26
  He's part of the team that way. He's he's like Doctor Zachary
• 39:29
  Smith in Lost in Space. He's allowed to be a jerk
• 39:32
  because he's part of a group and he's not.
• 39:34
  He's not your. He's not your one audience
• 39:37
  identification figure in the story.
• 39:38
  I get it when he's he's pointing that ire at characters we don't
• 39:43
  know and because we don't care about them, it's when he points
• 39:46
  it at Joe and that's when it feels a bit, you know, there's a
• 39:49
  bit in episode 3 where, you know, since she is your superior
• 39:52
  officer Joe, you know, you might give him a bit of respect even
• 39:56
  though I've been fucking patronizing him for the last two
• 39:58
  episodes. It's like, shut up doctor,
• 40:01
  you're a cunt. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
• 40:03
  A couple of just a couple more bits.
• 40:05
  Sorry for being I'm not being tedious, I just want to get this
• 40:07
  stuff in. Please come on.
• 40:09
  This is why everyone's here. Miss Hawthorne is clearly
• 40:12
  wearing an Egyptian ank or ankh around her neck.
• 40:16
  It means she's a fervent of Phutec is what that means.
• 40:21
  She also mentioned Phutec, yes. Yeah, she also mentions the
• 40:26
  Talisman of Mercury and that's the most astrological Talisman
• 40:29
  used in divination, the Prince of Evil, the Dark One and the
• 40:31
  Horned Beast. She's not talking about the
• 40:36
  Brig, despite what we find out a bit later and or just place
• 40:41
  names. So we have Devil's End on the
• 40:43
  signpost. We also have Satan Hall, which
• 40:45
  would Coven Stone and Abbott Byrne.
• 40:49
  So yeah, the the production, the production design department
• 40:53
  were having fun on this one. You're right, it is a delicious.
• 40:56
  Portman too, of all of these references, isn't it?
• 40:59
  It's impossible not to just get immersed in the atmosphere of it
• 41:03
  all. It is dripping.
• 41:05
  With a cult, mystical, astrological, and also it was
• 41:12
  pop cultural touchstones of all this stuff.
• 41:16
  It's yeah. Episode 1 of Doctor Who and the
• 41:20
  Demons is it's devilishly good and I won't end it.
• 41:27
  There. But unfortunately I could.
• 41:29
  There's only one way I could possibly end Episode 1, and that
• 41:31
  is to say lots of lovely hush.