Prom 13 - Sunday 27th July 2008 - Royal Albert Hall

6,000 people, boiling hot day, two hours of unbelievably good music. If Catherine Tate had a hangover...well, I sympathised with her. Not one to stint on the sauce, I spent the previous night at Duckie over at the Vauxhall Tavern. Met some lovely fans and spotted Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman in the throngs outside. That's 'throngs'....

A stunning day followed and whilst in the queue also spotted the lovely Phil Collinson. Apparently there were 500 £5 tickets available on the day, a waiting list of 3000 and tickets going for £250 on eBay!




(Great picture from Mark Allan/Daily Mail)

It truly felt like a day of celebration and thanks to the fantastic BBC Philharmonic, Murray Gold, Ben Foster, Stephen Bell and the truly spectacular London Philharmonic Choir...it was. Plus add in Freema, Camille, Noel...and a big surprise with the appearance of Catherine Tate...and you couldn't wish for a more perfect concert. Tate's reception was incredible and I think she was genuinely flabbergasted by the waves of love from the audience.





Judoon, Sontarans, Daleks, Cybermen and that nasty ol' Davros also popped in. I felt for those Judoon and Cybermen trying to clamber down the aisles of the Albert Hall. I was expecting someone to come a cropper! The raising up of Davros in the middle of the standing area was a real bonus and for a moment Davros and the Daleks were in control of Ben Foster and demanding only Dalek music be heard.

More lovely pics from Mark Allan and Daily Mail:




Another highlight was the Proms Cutaway Music Of The Spheres which was a specially filmed segment for the Proms. A very amusing little vignette with David Tennant on fine form and a philosophical theme about everyone's inner music. “Music isn’t all Proms and rock guitars and orchestras,” the Doctor said, holding 6000 people in raptures. “You’ve got music in your head, too. Next time you get a moment, sit still and listen to it. Everyone can write a song.”



With the added presence of the Choir, much of the music presented was given a tremendous scale and power and for me the highlights were This Is Gallifrey, Doomsday, Donna / Girl In The Fireplace / Astrid (introduced by Cath Tate) and for sheer choir power The Daleks And Davros and The Doctor's Theme/Song Of Freedom. Wonderful stuff. Here's the running order for those who want it.

# Murray Gold Concert Prologue* (3 mins)
# Copland Fanfare for the Common Man (3 mins)
# Murray Gold All The Strange Strange Creatures* (4 mins)
# Mark-Anthony Turnage The Torino Scale (UK premiere) (4 mins)
# Holst The Planets - Jupiter (8 mins)
# Murray Gold The Doctor Forever* (4.30 mins)
# Murray Gold Rose* (1.30 mins)
# Murray Gold Martha v The Master* (4.30 mins)
# Murray Gold Music of the Spheres (including theme original)* (7.30 mins)
# Wagner Die Walküre - The Ride of the Valkyries (5 mins)
# Murray Gold The Daleks & Davros* (8 mins)
# Murray Gold Donna, Girl in Fireplace, Astrid* (4 mins)
# Prokofiev 'Montagues and Capulets' from Romeo and Juliet (5 mins)
# Murray Gold This is Gallifrey* (3.30 mins)
# Murray Gold Doctor's Theme / Song for Freedom * (5.30 mins)
# Murray Gold Doomsday* (5 mins)
# Murray Gold Song for Ten* (4 mins)
# Murray Gold Doctor Who Theme* (1.30 mins)





Here are some extracts from the BBC Radio 3 transmission. You can listen to the whole of the show via BBCiplayer

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Here's the BBC News on the event and an interview with Russell T Davies. It sums up the day for me. Thanks to DieHard Dom and the tube of You.




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*Spoilers Ahead*
OK, let's push aside the huge box office, the relentless hype, the recent arrest of Christian Bale and, with deepest respect, the death of Heath Ledger...just for a minute or two. Because they aren't that relevant. Sure they add a mystique and a glamour to the film but what you're really interested in is whether it's actually any good or not. I've respected director Christopher Nolan for some time, ever since the wonderfully clever Memento and the dour thriller Insomnia. I liked Batman Begins simply because it tore down the embarrassments that were Batman Forever and Batman And Robin and positioned the Bruce Wayne/Batman dualism within the framework of the here and now. Gotham was recognisably Chicago and not the teased and hyper-realised Gothic trappings of even the Tim Burton films.

...takes Batman/Bruce Wayne from a charismatic crime buster to, at the conclusion, a more shadowy, morally off centre character, almost the villain that the Joker attempts to fashion him into.

The faux psychology in both Burton films was flung aside and a proper attempt was realistically pushed to the fore in Batman Begins and is here the singular dynamic that drives The Dark Knight. Granted it gets a little overheated in some sections of the film, with the twin knights metaphors for Wayne and Dent and the stress on the acceptable face of vigilantism, the warped sociopathy of the Joker often screechingly overwrought like someone running their nails down a blackboard every half an hour just to remind us what it sounds like again. But at least Nolan is attempting to make two dimensional symbols properly three dimension characters. It works to a degree in asking the right questions about the moral code of vigilantes and what it would take for them to break that code and takes Batman/Bruce Wayne from a charismatic crime buster to, at the conclusion, a more shadowy, morally off centre character, almost the villain that the Joker attempts to fashion him into. The catalyst for this is of course the aforementioned Joker, a force of such animal chaos that it takes the entire two and a half hours of the film to finally subdue him and not before dragging Gotham's other "white" knight, district attorney Harvey Dent, into hell with him. The wavering needles of the moral compass between Joker, Batman, Dent and the corrupt police force and criminal fraternity essentially fulfills the film's central prophecy of "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become a villain."

The film begins with a wonderfully choreographed bank heist, very reminiscent of Michael Mann's Heat, and if you're watching it in IMAX the visuals of robbers sliding across buildings is enough to induce vertigo. Even here, it's Ledger's physicality in the role of The Joker that immediately alerts you to his presence even though you haven't seen his face. This is one action set piece amongst many that keep propelling the film forward. From the fight with the multiple Batman impersonators, complete with a cameo from Cillian Murphy's Scarecrow, to the outrageous abduction of Chinese mobster accountant Lau by hoisting him out of his office via a low flying aircraft, Nolan finds ever more energetic ways of pushing the action along.



As this frenetic action escalates with each set piece, the Joker's creative double crossing and killing sprees tear apart the moral fabric at the centre of the plot. Dent announces he's Batman to draw the Joker out and ultimately pays the price for his chivalry with the death of Rachel Dawes, the love interest that Wayne and Dent tussle over throughout. Dent, hideously scarred, is driven to madness by her death and in a disturbingly hilarious sequence the Joker, dressed as a nurse, tips him over the edge into a spree of wiping out the corrupt cops and mobsters, Commissioner Gordon and Batman. Whether the sub-plot of Dent's downfall actually works is moot here. It's certainly tragic and sympathetically played by Aaron Eckhart but it could be seen as a case of too much ground for the film to cover. Over ambition is perhaps one of the criticisms you could level at it and that certainly affects the length of the film and Nolan's attempt to fill every available minute open to him.

The pursuit of the Joker, whilst he's trying to capture Dent, is full on with Batman totalling the Batmobile but able to continue the chase on the Batcycle, ingeniously tripping an articulated lorry over with some neat lassoing. The stunts are incredible and for the most part filmed and edited brilliantly. It does tend to fall apart in the last half hour where the Joker places explosives on two ferries—one carrying convicts, the other a random assortment of people—telling the passengers on each that the only way to save themselves is to trigger the explosives on the other ferry; otherwise, at midnight he will destroy them both remotely. Whilst this is happening Batman uses a form of mass sonar gizmo to locate the Joker and the resulting action, complete with SWAT teams and hostages is very confusing as Nolan edits and shoots this very close to the bone and his attempt to use visual abstracts rather than tightly choreographed shots here leads to an incoherence in the film when it needs crystal clarity.

Ledger is a force of nature in the film, totally immersed in the part and betraying Jack Nicholson's pantomime for what it was in the original Batman film.

But these are minor niggles. Ledger is a force of nature in the film, totally immersed in the part and betraying Jack Nicholson's pantomime for what it was in the original Batman film. He's raw, elemental, brutal, sadistic and totally charismatic and personifies the dark, chaotic void at the very centre of Batman himself. Bale is suave and sophisticated as uber-capitalist Wayne and whilst physically brilliant as Batman, I do wish he'd drop the rasping voice he puts on. he sounds in dire need of a Strepsil. But he's convincing where he needs to be, particularly when he choses to take the blame for Dent's misdemeanours and assume the mantle of the hunted one in a crusade that seemingly has no real end. Eckhart has a robust, square jawed Robert Redford quality that's perfect for the whiter than white Dent and Gary Oldman quietly puts in a rather splendid performance as the world weary, but thoroughly honourable, Gordon. I wasn't totally convinced by Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel and felt she was the most under developed of all the characters which is a shame as her fate is a major twist in the plot. But she didn't make me really care enough about Rachel's relationship with Dent and Wayne and I found that problematic.

It's beautifully shot by Wally Pfister and the swirling, circling aerial shots of Chicago and Hong Kong and the explosive action sequences look incredible in the IMAX format. The score, which taunts, teases and gnaws away at you in its twitching, stabbing strings, cold electronics and brass fanfares, is constantly underscoring the film and whilst it doesn't produce a memorable theme Hans Zimmer and Thomas Newton Howard concoct a feverish atmosphere to match the back-flipping plot. Nolan's direction is rock solid save for those odd sequences where he confuses the audience with his editorial choices and he gets the most out of the Chicago locations, the actors and the stunts and visual effects.

Immensely satisfying on many levels, and not without its flaws it has to be said, this is probably one of the best comic-book adaptations for the screen since Richard Donner's Superman and enthusiastically grabs hold of the mythology to renew it, make it relevant and specific for this our own age of uncertainty and moral chaos.

THE DARK KNIGHT (Cert 12A. Released July 24th 2008. Directed by Christopher Nolan)

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James Lear, you rogue. Stop underselling yourself. Pardon me, but his recent comments in The Independent On Sunday (March 2008) got me a little hot under the collar, my dears. “One disgruntled customer on Amazon described a James Lear novel as "smut with pretensions", and I think this is actually quite a good summary of the Lear method. It is unashamedly smut; let's face it, most readers like good sex scenes, whether they're dressed up in literary drag or not. The "pretensions" are the added extras: I try to provide a ripping yarn, some decent character development and a lot of good jokes. Humour is as essential to pornographic literature as yeast is to bread: without it, nothing is going to rise. Ideally, I would like to provide every reader with a packet of tissues, but as that's not possible I offer them high literary production values instead.”

...well written sex scenes. With jokes. Plus, in the case of Lear, fabulous cossies from Berman and Nathans and production values straight out of Gone With The Wind or one of those Merchant Ivory things.

I say hot under the collar simply because decent literary porn is so very hard (pardon the pun) to a) write b) get published and c) find on the shelf in your local Waterstones. And James does all three rather bloody well. And, he’s right. I think the key to good porn, gay, straight…whatever flavour, is providing well written sex scenes. With jokes. Plus, in the case of Lear, fabulous cossies from Berman and Nathans and production values straight out of Gone With The Wind or one of those Merchant Ivory things. The other trick is not to undersell your abilities to get the ingredients right. It is smut, James, but it’s good smut.

The Palace Of Varieties, now reissued by Cleis Press, was originally published by Zipper in 2003. It’s a delightful coming of age romp that follows the 18 year old Paul Lemoyne, initially an innocent about town, who has left home and made a bee-line for the heaving ‘metrolopis’. After a rather saucy encounter with two city gents in the loos at Waterloo Station, he’s given a lead to contact the owner of a down at heel theatre in the city. Once there, he ascends (or descends, if you’re that way inclined) the ladder to a life of prostitution and thievery.

Something the great Mr. Howerd would describe as capable of ‘hurling coconuts 25 feet!’.

Lear’s prose is economic but crafted enough to create precise pictures in the mind of both the debauchery and the setting in which it takes place. There’s a sequence where he first goes out on the game which is really rather wonderfully written. With his first catch, he’s taken by carriage to plush rooms and is seduced by Mr. Newsome, that ultimate fantasy of the ‘great dark man’ – a man sporting what would be tantamount to a sizeable blunt instrument. Something the great Mr. Howerd would describe as capable of ‘hurling coconuts 25 feet!’. It’s a florrid, tremulously overheated seduction where the drapes are pure silk and the shag pile is up to your armpits. Cut to the second night and Paul finds himself in a rough pub toilet, in cahoots with a prissy, constricted little man called Trevor who has a penchant for water sports. What’s great about this is the way that Lear manages to use his prose to enhance the sense of actually wallowing in pools of degradation whilst also making the action darkly erotic. It truly epitomises the notion of ‘filth’ with the sketched out images of that seedy pub pissoir, all wet floors and damp tiled walls.

He then meets up with the arch manipulator of the plot, Albert Abbott and things rapidly go off the rails for Paul from the moment he 'auditions' for the horrid man. He meets a painter who has a nice line in male pornography on the side...oh, 'but I'm telling you the plot, Michael!' Paul very much falls into the category of having only himself to blame for his journey into criminality. There’s something terribly attractive, and a bit naughty, about the convergence of gay sexuality and criminality and it may well be very non-PC to equate the two but give me Victim over Beautiful Thing most days of the week.

...and the sense of all of the events happening under the surface of the day to day world adds that extra piquancy

The other appeal here is that he’s also given us a gritty, atmospheric setting too. Paul works at a crumbling theatre that specialises in novelty acts, befriends the wonderful Vera (in the film in my mind this is Bette Bourne) who eggs him on to go exploring with the customers. I don’t believe that the central character is meant to be that attractive or appealing so I'm baffled at some comments that Paul is hard to like when, actually, I don't think you're supposed to like him. It’s one man’s journey into amoral depravity and how he manages to survive and partially be redeemed. A gay anti-hero isn’t necessarily something new but I’ve often found their remorseless inhumanity quite erotic in itself as they manipulate others sexually and then dispose of them rather too casually. However, it’s only satisfying if, in the end, the central character is redeemed in some way and recognises the error of his ways or gets his comeuppance (pardon the expression). I’ll leave you to find out what happens to Paul. And there are enough details on the periphery of the sexual action to just about give you a sense of the 1930s milieu that this takes place in, and the sense of all of the events happening under the surface of the day to day world adds that extra piquancy.

But just remember, as James himself has said (and I quote from the Independent again so I hope to God he did say this): ‘Erotic fiction has a purpose, and it's not a very highbrow one. James Lear's novels are designed specifically as aids to masturbation: two good orgasms per chapter for younger readers, one for the over forties. Each encounter gives the reader a variation on the theme, keeping the interest fresh. The plot exists to carry the reader from one orgasm to the next.’ If you approach the sexy and preposterous The Palace Of The Varieties with that in mind, I think you’ll be satisfied.

The Palace Of Varieties - James Lear (Cleis Press, 28th April 2008, ISBN: 157344314x)

Review of The Back Passage:HERE

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Whoniversal Appeal - An Interdisciplinary
Postgraduate Conference on Doctor Who And Its Spin-Offs
14th - 16th November 2008


This academic conference which is open to the public and scholars is being hosted by Melissa Beattie of Cardiff University's School of History and Archaeology this November.

What the conference is about
The conference is aiming to present about twenty papers on the programme and its spin-offs with the general mission of celebrating the contribution Doctor Who and its spin-offs make to modern society. It intends to promote general British culture, Welsh culture and Arts & Humanities education as well as increase the communication between academics and the general public on common ground.



Timed to anticipate the 45th anniversary of the first ever Doctor Who episode and located in Cardiff, the main filming location of all three current series, the conference intends to have two or more full days of academic programming devoted to various aspects of the complex and multi-layered 'Whoniverse.' The specifics of the programme will be based upon the papers received, but it is anticipated papers will cover:

*The history of the series and the presentation of historical events shown within it. Social trends and changes reflected in the series as well as the mythical and religious elements and the differing moralities in the series.

*The impact of the the series on British and global society and provide a general analysis in the context of film and literature.

In addition to the papers and discussion panels, it is hoped to arrange a walking tour of some of the filming locations in Cardiff city centre and Cardiff Bay, as well as an opening night reception for all delegates.

Please note the call for papers is now closed. They are currently sorting out the arrangements for the conference and hope to begin booking in delegates sometime in August.


Fundraising
They have in the meantime been fundraising to support the conference with a series of concerts and lectures. They will happily receive suggestions of help or ideas for fundraising. See the contact details below.

Key speakers and guests
They have recently announced that a key note speaker will be Matt Hills, Matt has written many many works on fandom, especially Doctor Who, and his bio can be seen HERE

Other guests include, subject to commitments:

Paul Cornell:
Hugo-nominated writer Paul Cornell is probably best-known for his work on the revival of Doctor Who, having written the series 1 episode 'Fathers Day' and the series 3 two-parter 'Human Nature'/'Family of Blood.' The latter entry into the Whoniverse was itself based upon a novel Paul had written-- one of his many books, both fiction and non-fiction, dealing with the classic series. In addition to these, Paul has written a number of audios for Big Finish, and is the creator of spin-off Companion Bernice Summerfield. Not content to confine his skills to one universe, however, Paul has written for several television series, including Primeval, Holby City, and Robin Hood, as well as writing for several comic series.

Una McCormack:
Writer and scholar Una McCormack is well-known in Doctor Who, Blake's 7, and Deep Space Nine fandoms. In addition to her teaching duties at Cambridge, Una has written tie-in novels for Deep Space Nine and, most recently, her short story 'The Slave War,' has been published as part of the Big Finish Short Trips anthology The Quality of Leadership.

Rob Shearman:
Hugo-nominated writer Rob Shearman, winner of a Bronze Sony for his BBC7 series 'Chain Gang,' is best known to Whoniverse fandom as the writer of the brilliant episode 'Dalek.' Rob has also written several Big Finish audios, including 'Holy Terror,' described by one Russell T Davies in Big Finish: The Inside Story as 'some of the finest drama ever written for any genre, in any medium, anywhere,' and 'Jubliee,' which is the origin of Jubilee pizza seen in Torchwood.

Contact
For more details and if you have an idea for fundraising please go to: Whoniversal
Link to: Conference Livejournal

And here's a recent piece of press coverage:Scotland On Sunday

Thanks to The Ninth Doctor Screencap Resource for the lovely screengrabs of Cardiff as featured in the Series 1 episode Boom Town.

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With Delia's legacy secured at the University Of Manchester, I thought it was high time I shuffled back through the CD collection to review the Trunk Records release of the library album ESL 104. Now, those of you who've been popping in here will be familiar with the reviews of Electrosonic and White Noise. That review covers the work of Delia and Brian Hodgson in collaboration with Don Harper, on Electrosonic, and with David Vorhaus on White Noise.

All clearly understood how sounds worked subliminally in conjunction with vision and were empathetic to certain sounds that created specific psychological effects in the viewer. Theirs is sound and music that has a function and a purpose not only as incidental music but it is also about feeding into mental states such as anxiety and suspense. Sustained notes and rhythms created through unorthodox methods of production ensure that the earliest use of music and sound on Doctor Who earmark it as one of the most unusual sounding television programmes ever made in the 1960s and 1970s.

They were highly experimental composers, with no access to synthesisers, using a very creative Heath Robinson approach to composition and scoring with physical manipulation of tape loops, cut up recordings and oscillators as well as traditional instrumentation. Their organic methodology was so successful that the differences between their sound effects and their incidental music become blurred and indistinct. On many occasions, and in Doctor Who particularly, it is hard to tell where the music begins and the sound effects end and they are often interchangeable. The, by now, familiar creation of the TARDIS' dematerialisation sound using a key and piano string is, of course, part and parcel of the origins of the programme but, musically, it was also conventionally scored even if its final treatment and manipulation is far from the orthodox way in which music is put together.

...the work of Delia and Brian, could be said to be a precursor to today's ubiquitous use of samplers

In 1963, these applications were so technically advanced for their time that Delia was able to construct the legendary Doctor Who theme through filtered oscillation, cutting, speeding up, and assemblage note- by-note, in a two week period. Again, no synthesisers were used. The heightened, unearthly sound of Doctor Who was born. Delia was able to take the forms of musique concrète, originally developed by by Pierre Schaeffer, with the use of microphones and magnetic tape recorders, and organically bring the truly experimental and the popular together and present it in the context of family viewing at Saturday tea times. Schaeffer certainly began the playful exploration of mixing traditional instruments with found sounds and his work and, later the work of Delia and Brian, could be said to be a precursor to today's ubiquitous use of samplers.

With Trunk Records release of The Tomorrow People we now have all of the Standard Music Library album ESL 104 on CD bar nine tracks, all variations of 'Oranges And Lemons'. Standard Music Library was established in 1969 as suppliers of specialist production music for film, television, radio and commercials. The styles range from orchestral, jazz, dance and a variety of world music, to avant-garde composers such as Brian Eno. ESL 104 was one of their first releases, and the original record was used to provide incidental music to several 1970s Doctor Who stories, episodes of ATV's Timeslip and Thames' The Tomorrow People. Delia and Brian recorded the majority of the tracks on ESL 104 under their Nikki St George and Li De La Russe composing hats, with David Vorhaus, an avant garde American composer who formed Camden Town's Kaleidophon studio with Derbyshire and Hodgson, composing the remaining tracks.

...it is a perfect mesh of strong performances, story and direction but above all else it is the sound of Doctor Who in its most elevated state.

The Tomorrow People / ESL 104 probably contains some of the most influential and fondly remembered compositions from Delia and Brian. Recorded in the late 1960s, many of the compositions on this album are the quintessential sound of one particular Doctor Who story: Inferno. It is one of the most intense Doctor Who stories produced for the series and remains highly regarded by fans. For me, it is a perfect mesh of strong performances, story and direction but above all else it is the sound of Doctor Who in its most elevated state. Director Douglas Camfield eschewed the normal route of asking Dudley Simpson to compose the incidental music and instead selected a number of stock library tracks. The majority of the tracks originate from ESL 104 and two other tracks, the legendary 'Delian Mode' and 'Blue Veils And Golden Sands' originated from the BBC Radiophonic Music album that had been released in 1968. 'Blue Veils' was originally composed for a World About Us documentary about the Tuareg tribes of the Sahara. This Delia composition was composed and constructed using filtered electronic oscillators to give the "shimmering heat haze" atmosphere to accompany the footage. It also uses manipulations of Delia's voice and the ringing of a now infamous green lamp shade. It seems quite fitting that Camfield should use such an atmospheric piece to underscore the fiery destruction of the world in Inferno and her 'Blue Veils and Golden Sands' emphasises Stahlman's complete obsession and madness. Her 'Lure Of the Space Goddess', a kind of swirling electronic woodwind effect, also surfaces from ESL 104 to provide further mood and an uneasy underscore to the environs of Project inferno.

Brian Hodgson also makes significant contributions, beyond his brilliant mixing and montaging, with 'Souls In Space', all ethereal wind noises, originally composed for The Wheel in Space, but dropped in tone and highlighting the freakish nature of the Primords. Other Hodgson library tracks used on Inferno include 'Attack of the Alien Minds', a shrill, vibrating, tropical bird like whistling, 'Homeric Theme', a pulsing, deep, throbbing vibration. But Hodgson's major contribution to Inferno has to be 'Battle Theme' which gradually intensifies over the course of the story with its constant looping of crashing metallic noise signifying an unseen riot of industrial chaos and disaster just beyond the doors of Project Inferno. Combined with the histrionic performances of the actors in the story, it really does provide a palpably disturbing atmosphere. David Vorhaus contributes 'Build Up To' which is a low key, warbling and dithering sound that again provides an appropriate unearthliness to the Doctor slipping sideways into time. Much of these tracks would later end up also underscoring episodes of Timeslip and The Tomorrow People. Hence the reason for Trunk Records to reissue ESL 104 as The Tomorrow People album.

The other composer featured on The Tomorrow People is the legendary Dudley Simpson. His theme for The Tomorrow People is all present and correct on this album along with the tracks from ESL 104 by Delia, Brian and David.Dudley's work is so under-represented on CD that this is a lovely bonus. What's disappointing is that we don't get a complete suite of his music specifically composed for the series. There are a number of tracks featured in the series that aren't here. I do recall a much slower version of the theme being used abundantly. The theme for the series, set against those iconic opening titles, is yet another slice of Simpson magic that puts him at least on a par with Delia and Brian, and certainly as a stablemate of Ron Grainer and the ubiquitous Ronnie Hazelhurst. Simpson was equally prolific and wrote major series themes, such as Blake's 7, Target and music for many of the BBC Shakespeare productions, and the incidental music to 310 episodes of Doctor Who. Some of the music for Who stories such as City Of Death, Pyramids Of Mars, Brain Of Morbius, Ambassadors Of Death deserve a fuller release and wider appraisal.

The CD sleeve notes, whilst providing biographies of all four composers, doesn't pin down the exact use of tracks on specific episodes in The Tomorrow People which is a shame. But kudos to Trunk for getting this out there in a reasonable state. All Trunk need to do now is get the Dudley catalogue out. This may be difficult as apparently very little remains of the original tapes. To get a true representation of his ouvre it's probably going to need a orchestra contracted to recreate the compositions afresh from the original sheet music. Expensive.

It's a limited edition CD so it may take a little time to track it down now but it is well worth it. Highly recommended.
The Tomorrow People - Original Television Music: Delia Derbyshire, Dudley Simpson and Others. (Trunk Records CD JBH017CD Released 17th April 2006)

Opening/closing titles The Tomorrow People:



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A collection of 267 tapes, originally kept in Delia Derbyshire's loft, have now been passed onto University Of Manchester's Dr. David Butler by Mark Ayres, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop archivist. Much of this archive has never been heard before and has languished for 30 years until it was passed to the University’s School of Art, Histories and Culture to catalogue and preserve. The material, in poor condition, had to be played on a tape machine lent by the BBC’s Manchester studios before it could be digitised.

BBC Radio 4's PM programme carried a feature on this archival work on Thursday 17th July. Click on the link at the foot of this post to hear this played back.

They discuss, among other things, the Doctor Who theme, a prototype dance track made long before the advent of hard core dance music, the making of her celebrated ‘Blue Veils and Golden Sands’ track and the Radiophonic special sounds she created for Nicol Williamson's performance of Hamlet at The Roundhouse.



Dr David Butler said: “Delia Derbyshire never really received the recognition she deserved as one of our most influential composers of the past 30 or so years.

“Though brilliant, the Doctor Who theme is just one small example of her genius which was held in high esteem by figures across music, television, theatre and film, including Paul McCartney and John Peel, the disc jockey”.



Louis Niebur, a visiting professor of musicology from Nevada University, has overseen the digital transfer of the tapes from between 1962 and 1973. Dr Butler said: “Many of the tapes have no labels so it is a case of using detective work to find out what they are. We cannot even be certain Delia composed all the music.

“But it has proved to be an Aladdin’s cave and we have just started to scratch the surface. The collection includes her freelance work and really does give us a better sense of her range as a composer.

“It is fitting that we are doing this almost exactly 50 years after the BBC Radiophonic Workshop was launched in 1958”.

Here's hoping that those of us outside of academia that appreciate Delia's pioneering work will eventually get to hear it and I'm gratified that the University has so rightly recognised her status and is preserving her work.

Quotes are courtesy of The Times Online and images are courtesy of the BBC's radio 4 PM Blog.

You can hear BBC reporter Nigel Wrench talking to David Butler here: boomp3.com

NOVARS - University Of Manchester

University Of Manchester Press Release

Electrosonic and White Noise album reviews

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Picture snow peaked mountains, log cabins, forests of redwood, camp fires...listen can you hear that communal singing? That'll be Fleet Foxes.

The Seattle band have perhaps bagged themselves a place in the albums of the year list with this eponymous album. Their music is close harmony vocals, tons of reverb, meandering guitars, lots of organ and flute and stunning lead vocals from Robin Pecknold to produce a sort of retro-Appalachian, back to nature folk wired with Fleetwood Mac, Beach Boys, Crosby, Stills And Nash and country suffused with a futuristic paganism. Personally, it is also reminiscent of Popol Vuh, the German Krautrock band who used all kinds of instruments: wind and strings, electric and acoustic alike, combined to convey a mystical aura that made their music spiritual and introspective. Fleet Foxes album is lyrical, passionate, fussy and totally endearing.

It's perfectly fitting that the album sleeve is Bruegel's 'Netherlandish Proverbs' as he made a virtue of landscapes populated by peasants. His work is earthy, unsentimental and depicts the rituals of village life - festivals, games, hunts, agriculture were all icons to him. His work is a window on vanished folk culture and Fleet Foxes do spend much of their time looking back in the same manner but also attempt to make their songs have a contemporary nostalgia.

After the scene setting of Sun It Rises, White Winter Hymnal is just delicious. Like the Beach Boys singing over an Ennio Morricone instrumental track. I've no idea what they are singing about but it's a strange little tale: "I was following the pack/ All swallowed in their coats/ With scarves of red tied 'round their throats/ To keep their little heads from falling in the snow/ And I turned 'round and there you go." Fairytale harmonies with a sense of place.

The epic Ragged Wood is about as 'rock' as this gets. Nice fuzzy and acoustic guitars, splendid vocals, rattling drums and Pecknold's great vocals alternating with the close harmony backing vocals. It breaks down slowly into a nice guitar passage looping with organ riffs and Pecknold beckoning some lost lover. Its insistent melodies are hard to shake.

Pecknold really shines on the lament of Tiger Mountain Peasant Blues, his vocal, often reaching falsetto scales, weaving in and out of an intricate acoustic soundscape. A quite lovely contemplation about death and mortality. Kudos to Skye Skjelset's guitar playing here too. Quiet Houses is a persistent beat with that lovely lyrical guitar threading as it will whilst the super harmonies echo around. There's a weird little break where an organ, drum and guitar part swirls around, very Beach Boys like, followed by soft vocals. It stridently marches on to its conclusion in a very Brian Wilson way. He Doesn't Know Why is waves of harmonising vocals with another heartfelt lead vocal, great lilting melodies and finished off with a brief piano coda.

The instrumental of Heard Them Stirring again showcases that close harmony vocal style despite having no lyrics. Lovely twangy banjo bits punctuate the mysterious mood and meld with thundering drums and a great guitar lick. A flute dances on the forceful and intense Your Protector, another tale of death and the Devil with that central motif of waiting, forever waiting for fateful destiny to unfold. Meadowlarks and Blue Ridge Mountains are pregnant with pagan and natural symbolism and the latter is played out in contrast with the souless lives of urban societies.

The concluding Oliver James, an acappella vocal triumph from Pecknold, talks of creativity linked to the forces of nature as well as a further meditation on mortality. The washing of a dead body is recounted simply through his vocals and guitar. It may quietly finish with two refrains of 'Oliver James/Washed in the rain/No longer' but the impact of the album itself will remain with you long after, I can guarantee.

Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes (Bella Union BELLACD167 Released 16th June 2008)

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Two wonderful and essential Keith Mansfield re-releases on CD for you. They span the length of his career with releases from 1969 and 1979. Keith is one of the best composer-arranger-conductors in the business. As well as being among the UK’s leading composer-arrangers, Keith is one of the legendary names within the world of library music and rightly has a place alongside the much revered Alan Hawkshaw and Brian Bennett. Keith composed and recorded masses of music for KPM, Amphonic, Bruton, Conroy and Themes International during his early career. Much of this music features his trademark funky rhythms and stunning, dextrous arrangements. He writes brilliantly for brass, strings and reed instruments with lovely, rich use of progressive chords.


ALL YOU NEED IS...KEITH MANSFIELD
Recorded in 1969 this album is far more direct than the later Night Bird. It's punchier, brassier and on the tracks featuring Maynard Ferguson and Alan Haven...jazz free form rules! Check out The Serpent and Spinning Wheel which are I believe reworkings of some of Keith's KPM library tracks but featuring the superb brass playing from Ferguson. This re-release courtesy of RPM features the original album but also chucks in a number of Love Affair singles; the killer arrangements for Everlasting Love and Rainbow Valley; the previously mentioned Ferguson and Haven collaborations; with a jazz freak out version of Love For Sale a particular highlight and some of Mansfield's arrangments for Salena Jones complimenting her stunning vocals on Am I The Same Girl.

Where it goes slightly astray is in the rather cheesy versions of All You Need Is Love and A Whiter Shade Of Pale which do tend to be the safer of the covers featured here, pleasant though they are. However, they are the only less than successful pieces here on an album of sheer joy. You'll thrill especially to the enlisting of services from the cream of UK session musicians including king of the keyboard Alan Hawkshaw, whose piano and hammond organ work on All You Need... is particularly stunning. Listening to this will make you check out the work Keith did with Haven and Ferguson too which is altogether no bad thing.

Released May 26, 2008 - RPM CD - RETRO835


NIGHT BIRD
Night Bird was recorded in 1979 – the height of the disco era – for Amphonic Music, and here receives its first ever commercial release (library music is normally available only to professionals in the broadcast industries). Recorded at the famous, and now sadly defunct, Lansdowne Studios in London ’s Holland Park , Night Bird demonstrates why Keith is so highly regarded. It is a beautiful album of Mansfield's own compositions, very sensitively and sophisticatedly arranged. It echoes some of the jazz-funk fusion disco that was being produced in America at the time and features his trademark work for brass, with plenty of sax solos, flaring horns and great use of woodwind. And then there's the fantastic keyboard work of Alan Hawkshaw vibrantly permeating the proceedings. Exquisite stuff.

Night Bird, the opening track, would not be out of place at Studio 54 with its combo of descending string sections and pumping brass lines but the jazz piano gives you a true indication of where this album's heart lies. Gladiator sounds like Fanfare For The Common Man set to a very funky, disco beat and is the stand out track here that combines jazzy noodlings, big bold brass arrangements and a killer rhythm section. Asleep In Your Shadow is smoky, atmospheric jazz funk that really has little to do with disco per se. Stumbleweed has a snaking jazz piano, strident brass stabs and a lovely flute melody with a swirling string backing arrangements. Thunderfoot resembles a more sophisticated version of the Starsky and Hutch theme but punctuated by some great honky tonk piano and synth melodies. Superb brass features again, pulsating bass and a chugging percussion section.

It is fascinating to compare the albums and Night Bird comes across as a much more sophisticated and subtle work compared to the bolder, gutsier All You Need...

Released May 19, 2008 - Vocalion CD - CDSML8438

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BBC2 has announced its highlights for the autumn season. Among them is Einstein And Eddington...featuring a certain David Tennant. Andy Serkis, good ol' Gollum from the Lord Of The Rings trilogy plays Einstein whilst Tennant plays British scientist Arthur Eddington

This human story chronicles two men who, during the First World War, refused to accept narrow nationalistic boundaries and, against the odds, continued to strive for a greater truth. Between them, they changed the world and proved one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century.

Opening in 1913, the then obscure German theorist Albert Einstein (Serkis) had spent years working on his General Theory of Relativity, a theory that threatened two centuries of Newtonian certainty and the foundations of British science. British scientist Arthur Eddington (Tennant) was one of the most prominent astrophysicists and was Director of the Cambridge Observatory, a seat originally held by the father of British science, Sir Isaac Newton.

Eddington's wholehearted belief that "truth knows no boundaries" led him to start a correspondence with Einstein and to solely champion Einstein's theories at a time when the rest of the British scientific community and the public at large were rejecting anything German, due to their role in the war. Eddington's expedition to Africa to photograph light bending round the sun during an eclipse lead to his proof that Einstein's theory is right, turning Einstein into a worldwide superstar in 1919. A star is born.

Einstein And Eddington is written by Peter Moffat (Hawking, Cambridge Spies), the producer is Mark Pybus and the director is Philip Martin (Hawking, Prime Suspect).

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Just as a little heads-up, Frank will be moving the Cathode Ray Tube furniture around a bit over the weekend. You'll notice all sorts of odd things going on whilst he runs a damp cloth and duster over the place...

In the meantime, here's an excruciatingly non-PC PG Tips advert from 1971 to keep you either horrified or entertained or, perhaps, a bit of both.

Image Of The Fendahl

October-November 1977

‘You must have been sent by providence’
‘No, I was sent by the council to cut the verges’

An ancient skull, having downloaded the Fendahl core, is reactivated in an English country garden. Soul eating slugs get a dose of salt from old Ma Tyler and her new friends the Doctor and Leela.

The Hinchcliffe/Holmes exploitation of high gothic finally comes to a close here and appropriately references the king of ‘extraordinary events in ordinary situations’ – Nigel Kneale. I think the story is best summed up with the image of the TARDIS arriving in a field full of cows – reality and the fantastic in context. Fendahl is a similar rewriting of human origins as posited by Kneale’s 'Quatermass and the Pit' or a neat riff on his science/supernatural play 'The Stone Tape'. If you like 'Fendahl' I suggest you give these two a watch

This is just as serious not only in its scientific reasoning for what happened millennia ago but also in its judgement of ‘the old ways’ as exemplified by Ma Tyler. She’s not reduced to a figure of fun and nor are her ideas ridiculed (see Miss Hawthorne in 'The Daemons') and again she typifies the themes of the story in that lovely scene where the Doctor wakes her from a trance state by discussing a recipe for fruit cake. The ordinary overlapping the extraordinary throughout and where the Doctor seemingly stumbles in on an already on-going situation where the characters are already established, have lives before and beyond the narrative that we see played out in four episodes.



For me, it is also trying but not quite articulating something about the power of the feminine. It’s something that the programme rarely tries and here we have several female figures – the evil goddess, the wise mother and the innocent virgin – with some of these attributes overlapping in several of the female characters. Is Chris Boucher also equating the deathly soul eater with the feminine as well as legitimising the old wives folk wisdom and savage innocence. Are they all the faces of the same goddess in fact? Is the whole of masculine patriarchal society based on the dual feminine nature of the Fendahl/woman?

I like 'Image Of The Fendahl' because it has a sense of reassurance about it in that Williams hasn’t completely thrown both baby and bathwater out at this stage. It purposefully recycles all the Quatermass/Stone Tape/ancient astronaut tropes via a contemporary setting swirling with fog and soul-eating monsters. It’s perhaps the last of a dying breed in the programme before it sets off down the literary satirical SF route in later seasons. There is a genuine attempt at creating mood with discreet use of lighting, vision mixing and that vital element – conviction from those involved. The threat is palpable and believable and realised fairly well with the Fendahleen creatures. It does veer off into camp science fantasy with Wanda Ventham’s goddess manifestation – all silver make up, ringlets and billowing robes – and the plot does a little too much side-tracking, especially the blind-alley journey to the Fifth planet. It’s quite a complex tale and requires a bit of thought to understand what exactly is going on, especially towards the end as many plot elements begin to collide and information is coming at you thick and fast.

George Spenton-Foster directs all of this with a sure hand and uses music sparingly and very well to suggest the darker undercurrents throughout. The surrealism in the images is well executed, particularly the Fendahl creatures slithering down the wood panelled corridors of a country house and the really sublime vision mixing of Ventham's face and the glowing skull. Visual effects are OK but the creatures look somewhat dated now but at the time were probably just about acceptable. Foster manages to get enough of a build up behind them to make them work even though they are ultimately fairly disappointing creations. The destruction of the house is also a very unconvincing effect at the end of episode four.



In terms of the characters, Max, Thea and Adam are a symbolic triumvirate – the misguided, the victim and the reluctant hero – and the performances all work to a degree. Wanda Ventham is going great guns until she ends up as the goddess and then doesn’t get any more lines but her couture improves I suppose, Scott Fredericks just about convinces us he can rally together a Satanist coven and be a scientist at the same time but Edward Arthur does tend to chew the scenery as the sneering anti-hero Adam and for me is the weakest of the actors in the production. Daphne Heard completely steals the show as Ma Tyler despite the reliance on the ‘mummerset’ accent. Denis Lill is good as Fendelman but the German accent instantly puts a barrier up between the performance and the audience for me because it just has ‘I’m doing my German accent’ in big red neon flashing every time he appears.

As for our regulars, Tom and Louise are on good form as usual and getting their fare share of the witty lines. Alas, K9 is made redundant as the script editor and writer don’t quite know what to do with him yet. It'll be an ongoing problem for sometime.

Along with 'Horror Of Fang Rock', this is pretty much a stand out story in the season and it’s sandwiched between what would eventually be Williams penchant for the series – ambitious, satirical, futuristic tales made on a shoestring. Ah, well. I enjoyed it while it lasted.

IMAGE OF THE FENDAHL (BBCV4941 VHS PAL deleted Cert PG)

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BBC1 - 5th July 2008 - 6.40pm

I bet Gillane Seaborne was livid. She's sat at home, downing another glass of Chardonnay, and then next minute she's plonked in the BBC News studio trying her best to explain to the newsreaders and anyone now bothering to watch what exactly that last 65 minutes on BBC1 was about and why, for fuck's sake, Tennant was still Doctor Who when they'd all convinced themselves he was going. All she wanted to do was get back to her glass of wine rather than try and defend the whole cop-out regeneration and three Doctors bollocks (not a physical aberration, more a creative one). I had visions of a baying mob outside the newsroom screaming for Russell's blood. But no, the baying mob is on the internet and they're mad as hell and aren't gonna take it anymore.

The problem with Journey's End is that, far from just being a desk clearing, valedictory conclusion to four years of the Russell T Davies masterplan, it ends up leaving a bitter taste in the mouth. With the symbolic death of Donna Noble it has a stark, melancholic message to declare. After bigging up how marvellous ordinary people are, is Davies now seriously saying, actually, they're never going to reach their potential because they'll never have the opportunity to do so? Is he telling us we should just know and accept our place in the world because we're nothing special? Cheeky sod. Donna's fate is quite honestly one of very few reasons why you should even bother to watch this episode. The 'everlasting death' of the character is heartbreaking and almost redeems Journey's End from being just the tartrazine fueled ravings of a writer channeling, nay mind-raping, his inner seven year old. I know, I know...we all saw it coming and knew Davies would do anything to avoid the grand scenario we'd actually constructed in our own heads for the finale. We're our own worst enemies. Still, I have to sneakily admire the use of the regeneration as a cliffhanger because the media fell for it hook, line and sinker and for a minute I thought I hadn't actually been told what would happen months ago by those in the know. For a minute there he had me going.

If indeed Journey's End is about the nature of reality then it's a very cruel and dark vision we're left with. Donna, perhaps the best of the companions featured in the new series thus far, has all the life building experiences and adventures wrenched away from her and she's reduced to facile bantering on her mobile phone in her mother's kitchen. Granted, the Doctor has a go at Sylvia for all the years that she's undermined her own daughter but isn't the Doctor guilty of offering false hopes too? It's an upsetting, moving and ultimately cruel conclusion and you could argue that Donna now has an opportunity to start again. But it just seems so crushingly sad. Here, Donna's become the postmodern symbol of all postmodern symbols where the Donna that bloomed in front of us will now be just a dead meaning and frozen form cycling and mutating into new combinations and permutations of the same - all the way through Series 4 when we choose to re-watch it. Wilf's speech at the end of the episode does provide some salve to this wound as it does offer an ability to acknowledge her achievements rather than the closure that Sylvia suggests. Catherine Tate and Bernard Cribbins were quite brilliant in those final scenes. Tate superbly conveyed the horror of Donna's return to reality and indeed what was her 'fate worse than death'. Cribbins quite rightly ensures that there isn't a dry eye in the house with that touching final speech. He has been a real asset to this series.



The other reason to wade through this overindulgent mess is for that fantastic scene with Davros. It's a thoughtful examination of the Doctor's motivations and his use of the 'children of time' as weapons. Davros draws parallels between himself and the Doctor and exposes the 'soul' of the Doctor. In the end, Davros argues, the Doctor is simply a general leading his troops into battle. What was quite amusing here was that this argument was played out after both Martha and Sarah's 'final solutions' had been neutralised by the all seeing Caan. Julian Bleach certainly made Davros his own and was rather good in that confrontation, especially the goose-bump raising moment of recognition between him and Sarah. Caan's prophecies, the Daleks, Davros were an all conquering force at this point in the episode. And then it got a bit shit. Davros' plan to destroy all the realities of the multiverses just didn't have any reasoning behind it. Was he doing it out of spite? And in doing so wouldn't the Daleks then be masters of absolutely nothing? Or is that the idea? Masters of nothing. The Daleks trashing the Earth in The Stolen Earth was reduced to pointlessness as there wasn't any explanation for rounding up human hostages on such a huge scale when all they wanted was a few guinea pigs to test out the reality bomb. Now if the bomb just destroyed all the crap reality television in all the multiverses then I'd say that was a plan. But then Davros turns out to be a 'pet' of the Daleks in a vain attempt to make the Daleks look more important than their creator, which has always been something that the series has wrestled with, and the Crucible blows up and you wonder what was the point of him being there at all. Him and the Supreme Dalek.



And then we get the resolution from that cop out regeneration. Three Doctors. And a load of gobbledegook about the Time Lord energy going into the hand and Donna touching the hand and becoming part Doctor. We knew Tennant wasn't leaving so the misdirection of the regeneration simply turns into an excuse to create a sex doll version of Tennant's Doctor that Rose could then keep and a version living inside Donna's head. One goes all genocidal and one is forced to forget who she really is. This does two things. First, it pisses all over the conclusion to Doomsday and the ongoing angst about Rose and, second, it turns Catherine Tate back into the comedy-variety abomination that many had long feared would be her contribution to the show. Fobbing Rose off with another version of the Doctor was the most bizarre and perverse notion because it simply didn't work as an emotional closure to the relationship. Instead it's rather cruel of the Doctor to hand him over with the reasoning behind him being the war damaged version she met in Series 1 and made better not really ringing true. The clone Doctor doesn't need to be made better because surely he has all the real Doctor's memories of being with Rose, Martha and Donna anyway. I'm afraid that the cop-out meter just went off the scale again at that point.

Making Donna the Doctor/Donna was really stretching the concept to breaking point. Perhaps Russell himself needs a companion to tell him when to 'stop'...stop writing such utter nonsense. Sex doll Doctor aside, Donna then becomes Reginald Dixon at the mighty Wurlitzer organ and simply forces the Daleks into a spot of Come Dancing. This is such end-of-the pier stuff and utterly undermines any threat that had been building in The Stolen Earth and to the half way mark here. And the cherry on the top of this particularly calorific pudding is Caan. Caan is RTD. Driven mad over four series he brings the Daleks back as a vast, all conquering empire only to want to see them destroyed...again...and again. This time by a shrill temp doing a David Tennant impression and 100wpm on a conveniently placed cinema organ. No wonder the Doctor mind-wiped her, he obviously couldn't stand himself. This yet again is an example of Russell's inability to provide proper resolution to big action plots. He's great at character but can be really lousy at plot construction and denouments. You get the sense of him constantly and frantically pulling rabbits out of hats to divert the audience through the last hour of that episode.

And the rabbits and hats charade of ignoring Caan's prophecy, grinning companions in the TARDIS (I think they had more fun than the audience), the TARDIS towing the Earth in the series' pinnacle of bad science, bloody K9, the connection between Gwen and Gwyneth, an impromptu firework celebration...is just overkill. It's just bluster to cover Russell's continual use of the Escape key on his keyboard. A frenetic, pacy, glossy spectacle, catching that sense of closure I spoke of last time with good, solid direction from Graeme Harper and splendid visual effects from the Mill, Journey's End sums up his era, an era full of moments of sheer brilliance colliding with toe curling pulp excess. Often he makes it work wonderfully but here it is very much an own goal. And it's too early to think it's all over...as bang, bang, bang...here comes the Christmas special and four more salvos of narrative contortions in 2009. And when Tennant does eventually regenerate no one will really give a shit, will they?

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Previous reviews:
The Stolen Earth
Turn Left
Midnight
Forest Of The Dead
Silence In The Library
The Unicorn And The Wasp
The Doctor's Daughter
The Poison Sky
The Sontaran Stratagem
The Planet Of The Ood
The Fires Of Pompeii
Partners In Crime