"a Ukrainian's marital status is always reflected on his or her passport"

Links  Tonight is one of those rare occasions when there's a televisual pile up with Doctor Who, The Thick of It, Last Night of the Proms and the final night of the Paralympics all vying for our attention.  Luckily I hate The X Factor and everything it stands for so at least I'll have some breathing space.  What it does mean is I'm unlikely to be posting a Who review.  Which is fine.  There's time. And so ...

Sleeping Beauty becomes a political and personal allegory in Ukraine.
"Once upon a time, in the beautiful and politically volatile eastern European nation of Ukraine, five young women took turns lying on a bed in the National Art Museum, waiting for a true love's kiss. Their potential princes, after having presented their passports to the security guards (a Ukrainian's marital status is always reflected on his or her passport) and undergone a test for oral herpes, were allowed to kiss whichever young woman was on duty. Should she open her eyes during the kiss, they would be married instantly. Both the visitors to the museum and the sleeping beauties on display had previously signed a contract agreeing to the quickie marriage."

Candy Wrapper Archive

Abandoned Walmart is Now America’s Largest Library.
"The design won the International Interior Design Association’s 2012 Library Interior Design Competition. MSR stripped out the old ceiling and walls of the building, gave the perimeter walls and bare warehouse ceiling a coat of white paint, and set to work adding glass-enclosed spaces, bright architectural details and row after row of books."

Little Boots on her stylophone, laser harp & Tenori-on.
"We found out the hard way not to use old analogue synthesizers whilst touring. Luckily there are no plenty of reliable (ish) new analogue synths like the Moog Little Phatty which sonically lives up to its name. I was lucky enough to get the original tribute edition, which means it has pretty coloured light up buttons and sexy wooden sides, but unluckily seems to be prone to tuning bugs."

Arcade Games: How do the Claw crane 'arcade game' machines work?
"Basically, most crane games are designed so the claw is randomly (and only once in many games) strong enough to let players win. Some even weaken in strength after a short time so players get close to victory only to see it slip from their grasp! Since the manuals for many skill games are available online, this is not hard to verify."

Birds hold 'funerals' for dead.
"When western scrub jays encounter a dead bird, they call out to one another and stop foraging. The jays then often fly down to the dead body and gather around it, scientists have discovered."

A Conversation With Whit Stillman About The Script Of 'Metropolitan'.
"At a certain point, the script for Metropolitan started naturally coming together; the idea was to think back to a time that had been very important for me. And I remembered this experience, after my freshman year in college [at Harvard], of coming back to New York and being invited to some of these debutante parties. A lot of stuff in the script is actually true: the escort shortage, things like that. I had a friend who was kind of from that milieu more than I was, and I think the mothers felt they could call me or him as escorts for their daughters, and they'd get both of us, a sort of 2-for-1 deal."

The Word the Media Won’t Use.
"People and institutions are frequently criticized for the words they use. Lately, the mainstream news media has been getting heat for a word it habitually does not use. The word is lie—both the root noun and the verb that derives from it. Throw in the epithet liar while you’re at it."

Stacey Champion took on the Tea Party — and won.
"People assume that such spectacularly bad ideas will run up against political checks and balances and die early deaths — and often they do, even in Arizona, says Sandy Bahr, director of the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon chapter. But sometimes they don’t, and sometimes these proposals are pushed through in such a sneaky fashion that no one has a chance to shoot them down. [...] That’s where Champion came in."

Your handy Asylum of the Daleks observer's guide
It's me. Yes indeed, it seems there were more old Daleks on show, including a 1963 model, but only if you looked really, really carefully. I agree with most other observers. The final moments in which the Doctor was attacked by the so called survivors of his previous fights against them should have been a perfect opportunity to showcase them. Having the golden models made no particular sense other than perhaps some practicality.

1906 Athens 'Intercalated' Olympic Games.
"Athens held the first modern Olympics in 1896, and also wanted to host the 1900 edition. Paris was offered this honour instead, but by way of compensation Athens was presented with the option of hosting an 'Intercalated' games series. The idea was that every four years the Olympic Games could go to an international host city, and in between, the 'Intercalated' games would return to Athens, also every four years. 1906 was the first time this was deemed practical to organise."

Swap Shop’s Trek parody

Comics Just awful. After an issue that amounted to a stand alone Who story, another which was half stand alone Trek, half an issue of missing the scenes we’d all been waiting for and a third which amounted to a flashback we’re finally in the two teams working together material and since I haven’t read enough Trek comics to suggest it’s one of the worst Trek comics I’ve ever read, I have read enough Who comics to at least able to say its one of the worst Who comics I’ve ever read. At least the mid-70s World annuals have a certain surreal charm. This takes what is one of the best ideas for a comic ever then pisses it down a Jeffries tube.

Once again the storytelling is modular enough that the issue can be split up into roughly three chunks. The first resolves the cliffhanger ending of the Doctor meeting Guinan which should have enough material for a whole issue, but we’re presented with six pages in which the two of them agree that something’s gone wrong with the timeline to the point of effecting their memories, in other words, pretty much what we’ve already gathered from the previous two issues. Once again, the writers are simply repeating exposition rather than moving the story forward. Once again they’ve squandered the potential to do something interesting.

Next we’re into another scene in the Enterprise’s meeting room in which Data miraculously offers a set up for the next chunk of the issue, a visit to a planet which has been attacked by the Cybermen and Borg. It’s fairly typical of Trek that some useful information turns up like this via the ship’s scanners like some electronic Huggy Bear but it’s a boring approach to storytelling and doesn’t come naturally in the flow of the narrative. Ultimately it leads to Riker being asked to mount an away team and unsurprisingly the Doctor asks if he and the Ponds can tag along. Cue the expected transporter scene which is efficient if predictable (see below).

The rest of the issue’s about the investigation and aftermath. The Enterprise crew meet a Cyberman for the first time and vis-versa. Both have malfunctioned so they’re barely a threat. Just a couple of issues it seems, this great alliance has fallen apart and the two cyberborgish races are attacking each other rendering nullifying what was hyped to be the main point of the story, which is followed by, in the dying moments of the issue bizarre scenes in which Picard considers an alliance with the Cybermen against the Borg and the Doctor with the Borg (or some open dialogue) none of which rings true, followed by a tease of next issue’s cover with Picard in the TARDIS.

Well hum. If these reviews about been about anything, they’ve been about the hope that the series gains momentum and heads off into left field. It’s certainly done that, but only because I’d not expected anything this dull. Huge moments like the Doctor using the transporter for the first time are there for the milking (previous t-mat travel accepted) but it's over in three frames beginning with Rory if the ship’s going to land on the planet which is the kind of Jokoid which might have turned up in Swap Shop’s Trek parody in the 1970s, presumably delivered by Cheggars pretending to be Chekov.

At no point does this feel like the Eleventh Doctor. The art says Matt Smith (just about) but he’s generic Doctor all the way, without any of the wit he’s infused with by writers Johnny Morris or Scott Gray in the Doctor Who Magazine strip and a shadow of what was even achieved in the first issue. He’s says Ponds a bit, but much of the time he’s the kind of Pertwee/Baker amalgam with Mark Gatiss says he and some of the other writers fell into producing dialogue for in their first drafts when the show returned in 2005. Not that he even has that much to do since the writers have finally decided they’re writing a Star Trek story which happens to have a Time Lord and some civilians in it. You could replace him with Data and tell much the same story.

Amy and Rory have more to do this month. Nothing to do with the actual story, they’re still being dragged about like a contractual obligation, but they’re at the forefront of the frames and have dialogue with other characters. None of that dialogue rings true of course. There’s a bizarre scene with Troi, half of which is just them introducing themselves to one another, the other half their relationship with the Doctor in which Amy sounds like Rose, them needing to look after him. But the writers clearly don’t know what to do with them (a different approach, like having each of them kidnapped by a different cyborg faction, could have made them critical from the start) and if anything they’re a distraction.

Speaking of which, the artwork’s also becoming ropier as the series continues. Perhaps faced with deadlines, the artist’s work is increasingly muddy and impressionistic. The characters all generally look about right, but there are a few frames which border on a naive art approach (hello, page sixteen) and the geography’s all over the place planet side as there's no sense of how time's passing. We’re not quite in the territory of some of IDW’s early Angel comics, it doesn’t actively work against the script to render it incomprehensible, but there are moments, big, potentially epic moments, which disappear into a few brush strokes and strange angles.

Also, as the comments under TrekMovie's bizarrely generous review (in no way is this artwork "outstanding") remind me, it's still looking increasingly likely the writers either haven't realised that Trek is a television series in the Whoniverse or are simply ignoring the fact.  Again, that's a shame and certainly makes a nonsense of the whole storyline about the Doctor having knowledge of this strange, new, or a least different world.  He must know what a Klingon looks like, because he's seen it on television which should have made this whole trip seem like a sideways step into the land of fiction rather than a whole new reality.

I’m not sure anything can save what’s increasingly looking like a bunch of flirty covers in search of a story. What could have been a massive battle between the aligned forces of good and evil across realities is already beginning to destabilise into endless pages of exposition punctuated by character moments which are the stuff of poorly realised fan fiction (bottom of page 10 probably, those guys simply don’t talk like that and it’s not even proper English). But we’ll still be buying it through to the bitter end because you never know. There could indeed be an incredible metafictional reason why all of this is happening.

Shakespeare For A New World in Manhattan.

Hello, Stuart!

My name is Sarah Eismann and I am the Artistic Director of Manhattan Shakespeare Project - Manhattan’s All-Female Shakespeare Company.

We are currently trying to raise funding and awareness for our latest project: Shakespeare For A New World: The Palestinian Voice. We are sending two teaching artists and a documentary film director to Palestine to work with students and artists in Ramallah on how to use Shakespeare to create lines of communication between culturally diverse communities. Here is the link to our IndieGoGo campaign: http://www.indiegogo.com/shakespeare-for-a-new-world

We were hoping you could mention our project on your site and possibly link to it.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me, or visit our website for more details: manhattanshakes.org

Thank you so much for your time and consideration!

Sarah Eismann
Artistic Director - Manhattan Shakespeare Project

"the invites are inspired by Roald Dahl's Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory"

Plug! It's your letters ...

"Hi Stuart,

I was wondering whether you could post something about an upcoming independently funded exhibition that I am taking part in.

Information about the exhibition follows below:

An upcoming exhibition curated by Michael Jenkins and Alan Dunn, set in Liverpool's Radio City Tower as the city's most public and private landmark. With a tight guest list of 35- due to the limited space of the venue- the invites are inspired by Roald Dahl's Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. These invites entail a silver ticket wrapped with white chocolate and minimal print design, taking an alternative approach to the story whilst expressing the exclusivity and private nature of the building and event.

One sponsor will be given a place at the event. Other sponsors will receive a specially signed edition 'souvenir' from the event from documentation created by Tim Brunsden and Leila Romaya.

Links below:

www.amyleak.co.uk/private.html

www.sponsume.com/project/private

www.alandunn67.co.uk/private.html

I hope to hear from you soon,

Amy Leak"

Full, clear information here.

Before Midnight

Film Surprising everyone, especially me, there are confirmed reports that the third instalment in the Before ... series completed shooting in the past couple of days.  They decided on Greece (which is an interesting choice considering the political element of these conversations) and is called Before Midnight which just about works in trilogy terms though doesn't leave many places to go if this becomes a franchise. Before Daybreak?  Before Twilight?

Either way the news has caught everyone on the hop in much the same way as Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing and indicates that thanks to digital technology its entirely possible to make hype-worthy films without anyone noticing or at least when everyone still assumes the thing is only in development as was the case only a week ago.  Now we'll finally discover what happened after Celine finished dancing to Nina. and if Jesse went and caught his plane.

playing their lute

Theatre Some Shakespeare related news. Firstly, now posted to The Space, finally, is Meno Fortas's production of Hamlet, as performed as part of the recent Globe to Globe festival at Shakespeare's Globe. There's not much more to say than that. Other than I will review it when I have access to a viable web connection and that I previous wrote about it here.

Also coming up on Friday at 4am in the morning on BBC Two, Shakespeare Unlocked, the twilight education strand will be covering the RSC's Julius Caesar which should act as an excellent companion piece to the BBC/Illumination's recent adaptation if you remember to set your PVR or have a servant keeping you up all night playing their lute.

 If previous episodes, filleted into the clips on the website, are an indication, these will be a valuable insight into the rehearsal process with the actors and director talking about their process.  It'll also be interesting to see if they use footage filmed in the theatre or the aforementioned studio version.

Update: The whole programme in the form of clips is now online.

Shakespeare at the BBC: Shakespeare Unlocked

Coming up on Friday at 4am in the morning on BBC Two, Shakespeare Unlocked, the twilight education strand will be covering the RSC's Julius Caesar which should act as an excellent companion piece to the BBC/Illumination's recent adaptation.

If previous episodes, filleted into the clips on the website, are an indication, these will be a valuable insight into the rehearsal process with the actors and director talking about their process.  It'll also be interesting to see if they use footage filmed in the theatre or the aforementioned studio version.

Update: The whole programme in the form of clips is now online.

Globe to Globe festival's Hamlet now available at The Space

Now posted to The Space, finally, is Meno Fortas's production of Hamlet, as performed as part of the recent Globe to Globe festival at Shakespeare's Globe.

There's not much more to say than that. Other than I will review it when I have access to a viable web connection and that I previous wrote about it here.

"sound of Mutya guffawing"

Music  Also, while I was away, the most important news story of this century trundled on with the publication of PopJustice's full interview with Mutya Keisha Siobhan (still feels like there should be an & in there somewhere). Its already been strip-mined elsewhere for the talk about working or not working with "Sugababes" and Girls Aloud but the really interesting section is in regards to the songs they'll be singing live:

Have you talked about what songs you’re going to do when you perform live.
Mutya: No, actually. We’d like to do some classics from the first album and some songs from when Siobhan wasn’t in the band…
Siobhan: I’m happy to sing those.

How about ‘Get Sexy’?
Keisha: (Ignoring question, over sound of Mutya guffawing) Siobhan really likes ‘Stronger’, she likes ‘Freak Like Me’… To be fair I think it’s important to reference all the big songs we’ve done.
Siobhan: ‘Stronger’ is a Sugababes classic. I’m not precious about that at all.
Mutya: There’s a lot of songs!
Keisha: Even by the time I left we’d had 28 singles. So we’ll pick our best for our first comeback gig.
Mutya: We don’t want to dwell on the past too much though when we’ve got so much new stuff.

Would you do any of your solo stuff?
Mutya: No.
Keisha: I didn’t have any!
Siobhan: It’s confusing enough as it is, without adding in the solo songs!

So no Revolution In Me or Song4Mutya sadly.  The idea of the proper Sugababes doing what are essentially covers of the later history is excellent news and shows a very collegiate approach to the band's history.  There's an amusing moment elsewhere in the piece when Siobhan makes a joke about them being the current line-up and that's genuinely what this feels like.  If they turn up somewhere and do "Girls" that'd seal the deal.  Even an ironic Get Sexy would be permissible, I suppose.

Elsewhere, Lost In Music blog has posted a brutal and well researched appreciation of Siobhan's Ghosts:

"The themes on Ghosts are fairly common for a dark alterna-pop production; lost love, depression, isolation, survival. Donaghy and Sanger’s lush and unique electro-nuances mixed with occasional acoustic flourishes help create something much more complex than simple emo-pop though. In ‘Coming Up For Air’ she sings ‘back with myself again / all my fears just like a ball and chain / and though I am alone / I’m at home here with my selfish pain’ a truly depressing lyric when read on its own, yet there’s an oddly uplifting and freeing feel to the music and vocal delivery that mostly evokes a feeling of hopefulness."

Perhaps if this project is a success, whoever has the rights to this might have a go at a re-release.  Maybe.

"Bad Shakespeare is torture"

Links  All major intellectual food groups covered ...

Damon Rose, a blind correspondent for the BBC's Ouch blog attends the blind goal ball and finds accessibility issues:

"It turns out no-one is providing the extra commentary blind people are coming to expect at events and as an aid to watching television programmes at home. Oh, the irony that the only members of the crowd who can't enjoy the blind football are those who can't see. Luckily, I have an assistant who is able to give me his, albeit unprofessional, take as we both get to grips with the rules.  The GB men lose 11 goals to one as the far bulkier Lithuanians systematically outclassed them."

The New Yorker's Richard Brody on what makes a great film:
"The movies I’ve seen most often aren’t necessarily the ones I consider the very best (top on the list: “42nd Street,” followed by “A Letter to Three Wives”). The books we keep by the bedside for a cozy read aren’t likely to be the most substantial; the foods we consider comfort foods—or, for that matter, daily fare—aren’t necessarily the summits of culinary art. I’m not sure why it’s such a problem that critics consider the very best of cinema to be something of a stretch, something that they love but to which they also bring a sense of awe and of distance. This very awe, which involves putting surpassingly colossal accomplishments on a sort of mental pedestal, constitutes a formative act of critical consciousness. And it’s important to distinguish between works of art that are close to us because they arouse our deepest personal feelings and those that are close to us because their achievements, splendid though they may be, are more modest, more conceivable—they’re on a plane of accomplishment that doesn’t surpass our conception, doesn’t make us feel small in their shadow."

The latest crop of Buffyverse comics have reignited the spirit of their respective series and in a classy move have exchanged the totems of their respective premises, Buffy dealing with Wolfram and Hart and Angel tackling the loss of magic in the world. Here, the writers compare notes:
"I like writing Faith for a lot of the same reasons I like writing Angel: she is striving for redemption and to make up for past mistakes. She’s a badass but she has feelings. Having hit bottom, she has a special understanding of what it’s like to need help. The usual perks of writing flawed characters. My favorite thing is the way she takes no crap from anyone; she is the first to call BS on people, or demons, or gods. The special challenge is not to gloss over the bad things she did while still keeping her likable."

Why fringe theatre should ignore Shakespeare:
"Bad Shakespeare is torture. And 9 out of 10 times, you will be producing bad Shakespeare. Rehearsals are hurried, actors may be inexperienced and need more time than the director (who also may not be that experienced) can give them. It hurts my ears to hear words mispronounced. It hurts my brain to hear actors rush through the language without clarity of meaning, tone color, objectives, or intent. How will your audience understand the more archaic terms if your actors are shaky on them?"

Trevor Glicks of Every Woody Allen Film has gone further than I could when I did something similar. He's visited Paley Center for Media in New York and seen Men of Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story:
"It’s surprising that the White House’s response was so strong, given how tame the movie feels today. In this day and age, when any major political figure can look forward to being openly compared to Hitler on national TV on a regular basis, it’s hard to imagine people being scared of a movie as gentle as this."

Lost BBC archive of Neil Armstrong's moon landing found:
"The BBC's library footage of Neil Armstrong's moon landing - which was missing, presumed lost forever - has been found by a viewer. [...] Philip Longden, who was 12 at the time, recorded the moon landing from BBC television, with commentary by Sir Patrick Moore and James Burke."

I've not been well this past few weeks

Life  Not that you could really tell, I've not been well this past few weeks, with plenty of time spent in bed.  It was something to do with my prostrate though nothing which could be completely medically diagnosed.  One set of tablets given after a midnight visit to a GP at the drop in clinic at Old Swan didn't work, but happily another, much stronger set scripted by my own doctor have done the trick.  I'm just about well enough now.  Not quite out of paranoia phase yet but I can at least sit back at this computer for longer stretches.  I was pleased to discover my blood and water tests were normal, and my blood pressure, which answers a few other, unrelated, questions.  

Of course some of the bed time was spent in front of the Paralympics which has more than stopped me (mostly) feeling sorry for myself.  After initially finding it difficult to navigate Channel 4's commercial strewn, sometimes stiff, not often live, coverage, the stories and achievements have broken through the fog leaving me in bits, not just when an Paralympic GB athlete wins, but just because some of these athletes are even competing.  If, during the Olympics it seemed as though so called "celebrities" had finally been put into sharp relief, now they look even more facile and pointless.  They can't not when compared to blind long jumpers or archers finding the centre of a target with just their feet.

The Liverpool Shakespeare Festival 2012 begins soon

Plug!  The Liverpool Shakespeare Festival 2012 begins soon with productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream ...

"Hermia loves Lysander loves Helena loves Demetrius loves Hermia.

A night of magic and music in Liverpool clubland as four friends try to escape the wedding plans that their parents have put in place. Fairies and dreams light up the night as love tries to find its way. But the course of true love never does run smooth and there is mischief to be had."

And the Scottish Play:

"Gang warfare rages on the streets of Liverpool. General Macbeth is elevated to Thane of Cawdor, the right hand man of Duncan, the gang’s undisputed Kingpin. A loyal soldier, Macbeth is set to be leader one day if he bides his time. He can be Kingpin sooner if he listens to his Lady, screws his courage to the sticking place and takes matters into his own hands."

Both featuring the same cast with includes Michael Ryan (Across the Universe / Hollyoaks) and Zoe Lister (Hollyoaks / Doctor Who) and both at the Royal Court Theatre between 21st September and 13th October.  Full details available here.

The Liverpool Shakespeare Festival 2012

The Liverpool Shakespeare Festival 2012 begins soon with productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream ...

"Hermia loves Lysander loves Helena loves Demetrius loves Hermia.

A night of magic and music in Liverpool clubland as four friends try to escape the wedding plans that their parents have put in place. Fairies and dreams light up the night as love tries to find its way. But the course of true love never does run smooth and there is mischief to be had."

And the Scottish Play:

"Gang warfare rages on the streets of Liverpool. General Macbeth is elevated to Thane of Cawdor, the right hand man of Duncan, the gang’s undisputed Kingpin. A loyal soldier, Macbeth is set to be leader one day if he bides his time. He can be Kingpin sooner if he listens to his Lady, screws his courage to the sticking place and takes matters into his own hands."

Both featuring the same cast with includes Michael Ryan (Across the Universe / Hollyoaks) and Zoe Lister (Hollyoaks / Doctor Who) and both at the Royal Court Theatre between 21st September and 13th October.  Full details available here.

Matt doing some proper acting opposite a headless monk

TV Can't stop the signal:



As Rob says, you couldn't see this Asylum prequel unless "you had a US subscription to iTunes or Amazon InstantVideo" or as is the case now someone handy with a computer and a YouTube account. It's unfortunate that the BBC are creating treats like this now that aren't available to the wider populace but I suppose you could argue they have the same status as the spin-off media ("He's back and it's about £13.99!") except with Matt doing some proper acting opposite a headless monk (which is why I wasn't sure about embedding it) (um) (updated later: Steven now says its available on UK iTunes in quite a bald tweet) (perhaps words have been had).

 Plus it would have only been intriguing before the episode went out.  It doesn't tell us anything more than is in the first thirty seconds of the teaser. But seeing the Doctor in repose is always fun and goes to underscore that for much of his incarnation the Eleventh Doctor is a lone sonicscrewdriverman, which continues his rationalisation from The God Complex that his companions really are just a variable he has to worry about along with all the other mayhem and chaos which fills his life on a nanosecondy basis.  Asylum is a prime example.  If he hadn't had to keep Amy alive, find Rory and get their marriage back on track, the discovery of Oswin's secret would have been much swifter.

The optimal time to visit is around lunch time.

Life  Today was the seconds of the Liverpool Food and Drink Festival which lacks the shock of the new of the opening day but has the added advantage of knowing already which stalls gave out the best free samples.  The optimal time to visit is around lunch time.  All of the stalls are opened up and cooking and there are few queues.  By three o'clock the field is full and only the smaller cafe places are accessible.  I'm having goats cheese salad from Mello Mello tonight and some pizza for just this reason.  Also because I quite fancied goats cheese salad from Mello Mello tonight and some pizza.

The stand out stall for me was from Central Perk.  That's Central Perk, an independent outpost of which has opened up in Hatton Garden in Liverpool.  That's Liverpool.  They've now received proper licensing from Warner Bros and the attention to detail in the shop is amazing with just the right logo, types of chairs and table, brick finish on the walls, an open-mic night called "Finding Pheobe" and a special coffee blend.  Just to add to the experience, there's also a Tribbiani's Pizza place next door fitted out like a period New York restaurant which does one pizza on top of the other just as Joey likes them, "We do that here too in honour of the great man."

some other ideas about who Jenna-Louise Colman's playing

TV  Further to yesterday's overcompensation some other ideas about who Jenna-Louise Colman's playing:

(1)  What if she's like Scaroth from The City of Death?  Aspects of her are scattered across time and rather than travelling in the TARDIS she turns up anew in each episode ala the one off companions in most of the specials.  Perhaps the Doctor finds out where she is somehow or how to track her and makes it his mission to unify the pieces ala The Key To Time (because she keeps saving his life).  Each time he lands she doesn't know who he is yet.

(2)  Let's not forget that silence will still fall when the question is asked.  Perhaps she's the one who's going to ask it.  Although to be fair the Daleks asked it a lot in this episode.  Perhaps it's to do with the tone of voice.

(3)  It really is just that she was cast for just this episode and will turn up later as a completely unrelated character like Eve Myles on a tiny time-scale.

wow, wow, wow, wow, wow

TV Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Doctor who? Doctor Who? Doctor WHO? Having the memory of a dusty Dalek I can’t quite remember how long some of the gaps between seasons were in the olden days but I imagine the sense of anticipation was just as high as the during the eight months we’ve been waiting for series seven. The only vivid memory I have is of sitting down to watch The Trial of a Timelord after eighteen months, being wowed by the budget busting opening sequence of the TARDIS being grabbed from time and space, the intrigue of the darkened tube station then a sinking feeling as I realised that this was not going to have been worth the wait as Col and Mike grimaced at each other across a 2D courtroom and the woman from the Carry On films shiftily flounced about. I’m far kinder about Joan Sims’s performance now but I still have at the back of my mind the bitter disappointment of falling out of love with a show I’d been following for years.

Surprisingly that memory’s stuck with me and bizarrely despite every bit of evidence the contrary always wonder if the first episode of each season will indeed be worth the wait. Hello, you. Hello, Asylum of the Daleks. Hello, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Hello, Doctor who? Hello, Doctor Who? Hello, Doctor WHO? Hello to putting my carrot juice drinking demons to bed, or more precisely trapping them in a heat-sealed lead lined coffin and dropping them to the bottom of the sea. Like Trial, this also began with a budget busting opening sequence, our first glance at Skaro on screen since the show came back (and as promised long ago the same version from the City of the Daleks) and with the TARDIS and its inhabitants being grabbed from time and space, but unlike Trial this was well worth the wait as the Matt and the Dalek Supreme grimaced at each other across a parliament in three dimensions with the girl from 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (there’s posh) shiftily flounces about.

My goodness. Just where do we begin? The Daleks? In this week’s party newsletter, the Prior Mordrin indicates that he’s been trying to write a “proper” Dalek story for the series since it began. Under the prior Prior Mordrin, he nearly wrote Daleks in Manhattan but was so busy he ended up writing Blink instead (which is a fair trade off I suppose) and after his inauguration farmed out Victory of the Daleks to one of the other knights of God and despite peppering his work with the um, pepperpots this is indeed the first time he’s had them say much more than their catchphrases. Quite rightly he decides to have as many as he can, hundreds upon thousands, which is bit of a group growth spurt from the reconstitution of the new paradigm (a new paradigm which spent much of this episode hiding at the back which suggests that they really have got the hump), enough to look sexy in the clips, the trailers and the posters. Doctor Who and the Daleks. Always has been. Always will be.

Unless Terry Nation estate pulls the rights but given the acknowledgement of his input within Moffat’s script through back references to his scripts, not to mention the merchandising possibilities of the episode (head attachable stalks for Christmas), that doesn’t seem likely. As is the run of things lately, these Daleks don’t have some grand master plan, “simply” the destruction of their technological race history in the form of the machines, which have failed them in the past. There are questions to be asked about just how this asylum exists given that we’ve been told countless times in the past seven years that since the time war the Daleks have been an endangered species when in reality there was a planet full of dodgy examples. Perhaps having had the race reconstituted they bumped into the thing on their travels rather like the rotting plum I found in the middle of my laundry basket the other week. I knew I hadn’t eaten it but convinced myself as much only realising later that it’d fallen off the shelf above.

But it does offer Moffat the chance to bring in every Dalek from the show’s history as promised by the fold out computer generated cover of Doctor Who Magazine a few months back. Except, and welcome to small criticism number one, because of the spooky lighting we can’t really see them. One of the Battle Daleks from Remembrance is clearly visible when Rory first turns up on the planet and one of the I think Resurrection versions is obvious in the later scene when the examples the Doctor's defeated wake up.  Other than that mostly it's the golden model with a few of the paradigms oddly strewn about the place (despite the fact they’d apparently had a Victory) (unless they were in some unseen spin-off story) (one of Justin Richards’s graphic novels?). Somewhere in suburbia, Mat Irvine throws his hands in the air and shouts: “Now you turn the lights down?” Did he build any of the Dalek props? He must have reconditioned one surely? For the purposes of this reference?

Anyway, Moffat decides to write a story as Daleky as he can right through to the creation of some new robo-people. Anamaria Marinca with a Dalek stalk pointing out of her forehead is not something which I've ever expected to see, but that’s presumably because I missed all of her three appearances in Holby City such are the vagaries of an actors career once they’ve been nominated for the likes of the London Film Critics Circle Award for starring in one of the last decade’s greatest world films. During a frankly barmy but brilliant #leveson style enquiry into the JNT era in this month’s DWM (thanks, Graham), the topic of his “celebrity” casting is given rigorous discussion and Moffat says he’d also cast Ken Dodd if the part was right. But clearly his casting ambitions are rather more ambiguous. Who else can we expect by series end? Mathieu Amalric playing a Draconian? Udo Kier? Either way, this is quality casting which lifts a tiny part in a way which makes one wonder what might have happened and JNT had got his way with casting Sir Larry Olivier as the mutant in Revelation.

But such is the detailing in Asylum (as it will be forever abbreviated) an episode which also manages to bring other revelations like the marital status of the Ponds. The final chunk of their spin-off series suggested all was not well between Amy and Rory and here they are given some grown up problems. I’d be interested to know what viewers who were insulted by “fridging” of Amy in the previous series think of her “new” infertility as a result of that. Frankly, I’m not sure myself. Which I suppose you could take as small criticism number two, or at least pencil it in as such until I can decide exactly what that criticism is. Nevertheless it does lead to another gob-smacking piece of acting between Karen and Arthur who having underscored they can do comedy during Pond Life, demonstrate their facility for tragedy and annunciating human irrationality. She kicked him out because she couldn’t have kids and he wanted some to do him a favour? Still pencilling it in.

On top of which: in that annoying way that Radio Times often does, during its preview of Asylum said “and stay alert for a major, top-secret surprise just after the title sequence…” which means I’ve spent the past four days trying to work out what that might be. By Thursday afternoon I’d decided it was the return of the Doctor’s daughter Jenny and despite its hokey similarity to the Mels/Melody “surprise” that she’d later regenerate into Clara or whatever the name of Jenna-Louise Coleman’s character is ultimately going to be by the Christmas special, the twist being that neither she or the Doctor will recognise each other, that being the “surprising” way the character’s introduced. Friday was a very RTDish kind of a day as I oscillated through various nuish Who companions then Sally Sparrow. By halfway through the credits I was convinced Carole Ann Ford had been brought out of retirement for a 50th anniversary preview.

Well, no. Magnificently no. Bless the reviewers. Bless the fans who attended the various preview screenings. Bless even the papers, despite the Mirror’s bizarre headline today about Matt leaving, a weird attempt to top The Scum’s post-Rose front page deduction. None of them spoiled this. You can detect Steven’s raised eyebrows at the fact in his quotes from this official website story about same. Having spent all that time indicating somberly that this would be Karen and Rory’s final five occasions to shine, there’s the new girl beaming at us. It’s not the first time a companion’s appeared on screen as a different character before making their introduction as a regular. It is the first time they’ve been given quite so much up-front up-staging narrative agency ahead of the current regulars in an attempt to charm us before she makes her proper entrance so much so that at one point I wondered if Moffat was going take the Whedonesque route of killing Amy and having Oswin take her place early (all the trailer footage we've seen having been filmed specially).  But only for a few seconds.  Oswin by the way is usually a boy's name.  It's old English for "God's friend".

Oh Jenna-Louise Coleman. Look at you. You’re, to quote an old friend, brilliant, catching the rhythm of Moffat’s writing, instant chemistry with Matt and understanding completely the tone that this show requires, the sideways skips between micro-genres. Feels strange writing about your performance now before you’re actually playing the companion but for all we know you already are playing the companion.  On the one hand its possible you were cast just for this episode and were so incredibly good that Steven spoke to Andy from casting and you were offered a permanent job but given everything we know about the production timescales, you have to have been playing Oswin for a reason and despite these five episodes apparently being vaguely stand alone in structure, your appearance is going to create just the kind of speculation that has been this show’s stock in trade of late (especially since your name was even left off the credits on the programme page for this story) (at time of writing).  This is also an example of the show taking advantage of its own buzz/hype/press releases because if the viewer didn't know that this actress was playing the new companion (which might just be the case in some international sales territories) how they perceive the episode changes.  There's no great surprise after the credits, just curiosity as to who this character is and at the end, no expectation that she would be returning.

Cue speculation. Will JLC be turning up in all of the next four episodes too playing different characters, will that be the “surprising” thing? Or is this another of Moffat’s pre-destination paradoxes and she’ll be travelling with the Doctor until such time that she leaves him only to find herself crash landed on the Asylum planet and assimilated the “surprising” thing being the Doctor doesn’t know her fate because he hasn’t met her. Or will he pop back in his TARDIS to the seconds before the planet explodes and give her a lift, the twist will be his new companion is a human trapped within a Dalek casing, perhaps with a handy perception filter showing the real her to deflect unnecessary questions when they’re charging through Splot on the trail of a marooned Monoid or convincing Edgar Allen Poe that it’s not the gentle rapping, rapping ravens he needs to be worried about. Certainly the conspiratorial glance to camera suggests she’s not one to fear death. Not since the Valeyard’s maniacal laugh in Trial has the fourth wall been broken quite this shamelessly and not since The Face of Evil for reasons to do with the plot. Potentially.

Small criticism number three (or two) might be that the revelation of Oswin’s status is a rerun of Charlotte Abigail Lux’s fate in Forest of the Dead, albeit with a difference sense of reality or geography and guessable as soon as the Doctor entered through the door to that chamber, at least for me. Are we to perhaps assume that Amy’s visions earlier are because the Daleks in that chamber are also transformed humans, their dress a homage to Evil of the Daleks suggesting that they’ve been borrowed from that era? (I've seen it again.  Not so much).  But the ensuing montage sequence of Oswin being transformed ala Revelation is truly shocking (even for this timeslot) and more than made up for any crossover. It’s rather why I’m hoping this won’t be the start of another of Moffat’s predestination paradoxes. It’s the first of his scripts without one and he even seems to utilise our expectation of his tendencies for some misdirection in the scene on the Alaska escape pod as we briefly wonder if time is the reason for the rapid ageing of the bodies.

Finally (because frankly this has gone on long enough) there’s Matt. It’s easy in this role to become complacent, fall back on habits and ticks, not exactly phone it in but work within certain limits. We’ve seen it happen. We’ve made it happen. But Matt’s performance has grown in stature across the years. Never before have we seen him play the character as penetratingly logical as in the teaser or so subtly change the tone of his behaviour in the presence of the Ponds increasing his sense of purpose then again with Oswin as the Doctor detects a soul as quick-witted but whimsical as his own. However proficient some of the readers of the spin-off audiobooks have been across the years or intricate the characterisation of the writers, none can really capture this man when he’s fully engaged in his vocation, both the actor and his character and the character because of the actor.

None of which has left much room for me to talk about Nick Hurran’s direction (prodigious use of wide angle lenses), Murray’s music (does JLC’s character have her own theme yet?) or Barnaby Edwards and Nicholas Pegg given proper actorly credits (was that as a result of their piece in the 450th DWM?) but these two and a half thousand words have been a bit of an incoherent fangasm and perfect demonstration of why I really should decide what point I’m making before I begin writing. Perhaps the point is that we’re still watching a show at the top of its game and if the gaps in seasons and pauses are one of the reasons for that, so be it. I’d much rather that than the sense of churn which leads to something like The Curse of the Black Spot or The Trial of a Timelord for that matter, where creativity’s compromised because of the need to create something called Doctor Who no matter what it’s like. This is a show which has to be worth waiting for.

Liverpool Food and Drink Festival. An Aerial History.

2012

Simon Guerrier’s The Empty House

Audio  Throughout Who’s history there’s been a thread of stories which have been about the Doctor and/or his pluses finding themselves in an odd situation and the story is about them discovering how to unpick the stitch they’re in. Think Inferno, The Chimes of Midnight or The Girl Who Waited.  Such adventures tend to be more interactive than most because the audience’s own deductive skills will be in play with the satisfactory potential that we might just be one step ahead of the Time Lord or as is the case in the best of their kind not see the extra layer of stitching underneath.

I’m smugly in the position of being able to say I was at least ten minutes ahead of the Doctor during Simon Guerrier’s The Empty House even though for various reasons the cover art suggests various ambiguities. The TARDIS crash lands in the wilds of Hampshire in the 1920s, and the Doctor smells the sulphurous malfunctioning engines of the alien ship they collided with. As is standard, Rory becomes separated when he returns to their ship for his wife’s umbrella while Amy and the Doctor investigate the other deserted ship then follow its occupant’s footprints to an eponymous dwelling of the title. Within they hear muffled voices, one of which is Rory’s.

Brain in gear, then. Guerrier structures his piece so that information is slowly parcelled out as the two friends turn over the house and simply pay attention to their environment and although the sound design sometimes works against what he’s trying to achieve (we’re only told the about music a gramophone is making rather than hear it), it’s structured in such a way that even this older mind found itself piecing things together leading to the eureka moment which happened just earlier as I was walking home from the post office. But as with the best of this type of story, the interest is kept alive through awaiting confirmation of a correct presumption.

Another adept reading from Raquel Cassidy who seems to have become AudioGo’s go to actor for their Doctor Who singles. In the parish monthly, the author suggested he’d originally envisaged Mark Gatiss as the voice for this adventure, pondering if he might have written it differently if he’d known who would ultimately reading the piece. But his characterisation of the regulars and narrative technique are proficient enough that it probably doesn’t matter. This is fine, economic storytelling and if it lacks the demented genius of some of his longer prose work (The Pirate Loop, The Time Travellers) it’s a worthy addition to this format.

Doctor Who: The Empty House by Simon Guerrier is out 6 September from AudioGo.