More from director Barney Platts-Mills again in January from the BFI Flipside range. After the charming rawness of Bronco Bullfrog comes this more commercial but nonetheless equally interesting film, Private Road. Released in 1971, Platts-Mills eschews the grainy black and white of his debut feature for widescreen Eastmancolour and here uses professional actors. It introduces a very different aesthetic into his work but Platts-Mills desire for naturalism is still very much to the fore and he generates some sensitive performances from Susan Penhaligon and Bruce Robinson.

However his themes are very consistent. The anxieties about the generation gap are writ even larger in Private Road and he also uses his main characters of young writer Peter Morrisey (a cherubic Robinson) and his girlfriend Anne Halpern (Susan Penhaligon) to look at the concerns of not only Anne's parents about her relationship with someone her father certainly deems unsuitable but he also shifts his sociological impetus away from poor, working class families to upper-middle class mores and finds greater tensions, greater fractures occurring in the society of the early 1970s.

Well, I've done the books so now it seems fitting I turn my attention to some of the favourite 'choons' I've been listening to on iTunes, Spotify and just plain old fashioned compact disc. No particular order and no particular ranking. They're just the albums that successfully permeated through and lodged in the grey matter.

Murray Gold & the BBC National Orchestra of Wales - Doctor Who Series 5 (Silva Screen/BBC)

Murray Gold continues his association with Doctor Who on this latest album from Silva Screen and here compiles a number of cues used throughout Series 5.  I'm still not convinced by that revised main theme but it's a minor note on what is, overall, a real return to form after what I thought was a disappointing Series 4 soundtrack album.

With this being a 2-disc album we get a much better and consistent representation of the scoring from across the episodes too. The new themes for the Doctor in 'I Am The Doctor' and Amy in 'Little Amy' are lovely and highly memorable pieces. There is much to enjoy in the brashness and screwball comedy attributes of 'Down to Earth' and 'Fish Custard' but my favourites here are the gorgeous 'Can I Come With You?' and 'Little Amy - The Apple' which emulate the Burtonesque (and indeed offer a nod to fellow composer Danny Ellfman) qualities of the series.

'The Sun's Gone Wibbly' is pretty darn good too, with its restatement of the Doctor's theme using brass and a choir section. Familiar motifs in some of the music reflect cues composed for the Tennant era of the show but there is newly minted subtlety to the scoring, offering a more sensitive framing to the emotional content of scenes.

Other highlights of the first disc include the very pretty and often strident nursery rhyme aesthetic of 'Mad Man With a Box' its tinkling glissando and choral motifs reverberating through many of the other cues, including 'Amy in the TARDIS' and 'Amy's Theme' (another stand out cue). Shot through with an undercurrent of impending doom that finds its way into the scoring for finale, it climaxes in a rocky reiteration of 'I am the Doctor' with a jazzy Hammond organ motif bubbling away. The best cues also include the dissonant creepiness and military drive of 'River's Path', the freak-out atmospherics of 'The Time of Angels' and further, equally sinister, lullaby-like melodies on the superb 'The Vampires of Venice'.

The second disc covers cues from Vincent and the Doctor (frankly, not enough music included from this episode but at least we get the gorgeous 'With Love, Vincent' cue) via The Lodger (some wistfully romantic and gently amusing pieces here) through to the finale. The finale dominates the second disc and there are some very good tracks but it's a little overabundant. The Giacchino-sounding 'The Life and Death of Amy Pond' is well worth having, as is its companion piece 'The Patient Centurion' with a great cello reiteration of the Doctor's theme.

Finally, 'A River of Tears' with its mesmeric, cyclic motifs, abrupt cut-offs; the lyrical, unashamedly romantic and epic 'Sad Man With a Box' (bookended with its similarly titled companion on the first disc); and the Nyman-esque 'I Remember You' with its return to the Doctor's theme are all excellent compositions. A very impressive album demonstrating that Gold has raised his game.

Blonde Redhead - Penny Sparkle (4AD)

For their latest album, this American trio went off in a decidedly different direction after the denser sound of 2007's 23. Out go the guitars (although not completely) and instead Amedeo, Pace and Makino push the electronics to the fore to create an album of brittle and intense beauty.

Full of delicate, synth led melodies and whiplash beats, the album at first threatens to crumble way when Makino adds in her breathy, angelic vocals on such insecure foundations. That it doesn't is testament to their faith in their own material and producers Alan Moulder, Van Rivers and the Subliminal Kid.

Sparse, often atonal and experimental, but full of delicate, filigree-like melodies and rhythms, gushing and sighing synths, this collection of songs swoop and swoon through their lyrics about love, death, dreams and desire. Makino's alien sounding vocals, blurring between various languages, keen and crack throughout. Standouts include the intense 'Not Getting There', 'Will There be Stars' and the slowly burning 'Love or Prison' with its jittery synths bubbling away beneath Makino's voice. 'Oslo' sums up this crystalline, icy quality with its crisp percussion and bare instrumentation but it has a dreamy refrain underscored by staccato electronics and swirling atmospherics. There is a constant sense that all this preciousness somehow will completely shatter and its deliberate minimal tentativeness is majestically crafted and produced.

Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest (4AD)

This is turning into a 4AD love-in. But to be honest the three albums here really are worth investigating. Halcyon Digest is Deerhunter's fourth album, following on from the critically acclaimed Microcastle and while it isn't as instantly accessible as that album, this has a far greater longevity because it takes repeated listens to fully appreciate the intricacies of harmony, melody and sound architecture. Once you do 'get it', you're hooked.

The swooshing percussion and jangly guitar line of 'Earthquake' pulls you in and Brendan Cox's treated voice is layered into the song and you feel like you're underwater. It builds into a great wave of sound punctuated by clapping percussion and distorted guitar. The album is an hermetically sealed little world of its own, full of shimmering art-rock numbers, itchy gothic atmospherics and sunny Beach Boys-esque vocal harmonies, particularly on 'Don't Cry' and 'Revival' with the latter quickly becoming a jangly, infectious pop masterpiece.

'Sailing' is much quieter with a languorous, soft croon from Cox over prickly guitar and rumbling atmospheres. 'Memory Boy' is a jaunty pop number, where the Beach Boys meet Jesus And The Mary Chain and its very uplifting despite the strange musical connections it suggests. Lovely choral refrain as the song gallops into luxurious and melancholic melodic riffs and Cox sings “It’s not a house anymore . . . Try to recognize your son, in your eyes he’s gone.” The six minute plus 'Desire Lines' is again a wonderfully rambling but atmospheric number with stunning harmonies and melodies built around cycling guitar riffs. 'Helicopter' is blissed out, soporific loveliness, delicate guitar and keyboard lines drowning in a pulsing wash of string and electronic treatments.

There's a driving Lou Reed vibe on 'Fountain Stairs' and it is again blessed with a fantastic guitar fueled break, full of infectious garagey psychodelic pomp. This astonishing album closes with the grungy, fuzzy 'Coronado' with bits of swoozy, bluesy brass popping in and out adding a sleazy, seedy vibe to the tinking, piano driven music, and the seven minute 'He Would Have Laughed' another listless, emotionally tender ramble filled with picky guitar, washes of synths, rattling percussion and strange vocal delay treatments on Cox's singing. Probably my favourite album of 2010.

James Horner - Star Trek III: The Search for Spock Newly Expanded Edition (Film Score Monthly / Screen Archives Entertainment)

FSM weave their magic yet again and follow up the stunning 2-disc re-release of James Horner's brilliant score for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan with a fully expanded and remastered version of his second score for the franchise, the equally impressive Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. A beautiful soundtrack, full of stirring and melancholic cues and displaying a musical maturity from Horner at such an early stage in his career.

Plenty of cues that were missing from the original 1984 release are now included. Particularly significant is the inclusion of the 'A Fighting Change to Live' track which is the emotionally powerful music that accompanies the destruction of the Enterprise above the Genesis planet. Powerful revisions of his main themes for Spock and the Enterprise (the operatics of 'Stealing the Enterprise' is a wonderful piece) dominate as well as a heavy emphasis on exoticism for the mystical presence of the Vulcans and their world. The Vulcan themes are both sweeping and majestic, sensitive and evocative with 'The Mind Meld' and 'Returning to Vulcan' some of finest scoring you'll ever hear.

On the second disc we're given the original 1984 43 minute LP, newly remastered, and this contains several cues that were used on the soundtrack and not in the film and are slightly different and subtle variations on what we are already familiar with.  A number of curios are also included - the muzak version of those old Johnny Mercer standards that play in the background of McCoy's visit to a cantina style space bar and Group 87’s very odd pop version of 'The Search for Spock'. An essential purchase.

Twin Shadow - Forget (4AD)

Dominican born George Lewis Jr. channels many influences on his debut album for 4AD. You'll recognise generous helpings of Nile Rodgers, Bowie, Can and a myriad of 1980s synth pop influences. Lewis's crooner style vocals, often reminiscent of Morrissey, ooze out over a multi-layered wash of bubbling and whooshing synths, fuzzy guitars and strings.

It's slick, very infectious pop and if you're like me, a thorough devotee of the early 1980s new wave and synth pop era, then you'll bask in the warm, mutant disco gorgeousness of it all. The opening track 'Tyrant Destroyed' immediately sets the mood and it is one of restless longing, sexual frustration and heartbreak set to a funky, synth-pop musical landscape with choppy guitars and sweet melodies. "I'm in the belly of the canyon/ I can't come up with any reason/ Wild ghosts are following me" he croons on 'At My Heels' over a pastiche of Tears For Fears meets Japan.

'Yellow Balloon' opens like one of those funky Visage tracks from The Anvil and provides a lovely chorus featuring arpeggios of synth and clapping percussion. This is not the colder mechanics of say Kraftwerk or John Foxx but a glowing tribute to the well-crafted pop of the 1980s where jittery guitars, slapped bass and pulsing electronics all rubbed (heftily padded) shoulders. Think Hall & Oates meets Echo and The Bunnymen and you're on the right track here. A truly smashing debut that may well be overly nostalgic but it manages to avoid being pretentious and remains fresh.

Michael Giacchino - Star Trek: The Deluxe Edition (Varese Sarabande)

And keeping with the Trek theme, pardon the pun, it would be churlish of me not to mention Varese Sarabande's limited edition of Michael Giacchino's fabulous soundtrack to 2009's Star Trek. You'll find this extremely hard to get now as I believe it has completely sold out. You will likely find it on-line somewhere.

What you get is an additional hour of cues bringing this two-CD edition to a whopping 100 minutes of music and it surpasses the original album release running time of 45 minutes. This edition truly represents Giacchino's brilliant scoring on the film and flows more organically. Again, there are many cues that are different from both the film and original CD versions plus plenty of atmospheric Spock and Vulcan themes that were not included on the original disc.

This deluxe edition does have its faults as apparently some of the choral overlays are missing on key themes but it does include a vast amount of music from the middle portion of the film. Personally, I loved Giacchino's score, felt short changed by the brevity of the original CD and was delighted to acquire this and discover that there is much, much more of this composer's very dynamic take on Trek to be enjoyed. It is also very nicely packaged in a hardback book format with a full colour booklet inside between the two CD trays and if you can still find copies to purchase then treat yourself. My original review of the Star Trek score goes further into why I enjoyed Giacchino's approach.

Mike Vickers - Dracula AD 1972 Original Soundtrack (BuySoundTrax and GDI Records)

I've got a bit of a soft spot for this one and was grateful that GDI saw fit to release it. Lots of stabbing and groovy brass, strings and military style percussion dominate the tracks as well as heavy use of the guitar solo, Hammond organ and woodwind.

It's brash, brazen, a little bit Bond circa Live and Let Die (I suspect the Wings and Paul McCartney 'blaxploitation' tinged soundtrack was an influence here as well as many a John Barry cue) and when you get to the 'Main Title' it plunges into driving 1970s funk with a great series of very gutsy crescendos punctuating the overall sound.

The other reason for getting this is that a White Noise (that's Delia Derbyshire, Brian Hodgson and David Vorhaus to you and me) track 'Black Mass: an Electric Storm in Hell' was heavily sampled for the film's Black Mass segment on 'Devil's Circle Music' and was suitably bonkers and disturbing enough for Orbital to use it, complete with dialogue from the film for their own Satan Live. It's a great slab of late 1960s electronica effectively married to Mike Vickers soundtrack.

Composed by ex Manfred Mann member Vickers, the album ranges across the funky 1970s vibe, includes some very freestyle jazzy atmospherics on 'Baptism in Blood' and some Faces influenced songs from San Francisco band Stoneground who, rumour has it, actually replaced Rod Stewart and the Faces after they'd read the script and decided, perhaps sensibly, they wanted no part in it.

It's rather uneven but certainly has some outstanding moments unlike the film which is one of those late Hammer attempts to modernise their Gothic stock in trade and is best watched pissed and when you've nothing better to do. Nice accompanying liner notes with plenty of Caroline Munro images to keep the lads happy.

Honourable Mentions

Broken Bells - Broken Bells (Columbia)
The first studio album from maverick talents James Mercer, of The Shins, and Brian "Danger Mouse" Burton, who has collaborated on a number of projects. Lovely harmonies and melodies, a swathe of psychedelia, some really nice keyboards and brass.

Mercer seems to be tracing the fall-out of a doomed relationship here so there is also a melancholic tinge to the proceedings. 'Your Head Is On Fire' is rather splendid in a Beach Boys-Pet Sounds style and underlines much of the dreamy, blissed out nature of the music and use of instrumentation. Alternative pop full of great melodies.

Super Sounds Unlimited - From the Amphonic Music Archives (1971-81) (Dutton Vocalion)
2010 would not be complete without mentioning the stupendous work that Dutton Vocalion continue to do in releasing gems from the major library music labels. This compilation is from Amphonic and features sessions from Syd Dale, Ronnie Hazelhurst, Keith Mansfield, Dick Doerschuk, Steve Gray and many others.

Big band sounds nestle with atmospheric orchestrations and jazz-funk work-outs. Dick Doerschuk's 'Nevada Sunset' is wonderfully atmospheric, packed with gorgeous soaring string sections and funky vibes. Mansfield provides the equally impressive 'Bow Street Runner' with its funk and brass sections and warm strings. Steve Gray's 'Long Time Gone' is sublime. The best of easy listening and full of joie de vivre.

Moffat's pastiche of the Star Trek universe - old and new - opens the episode in atypical fashion. The ultra-modern cruise ship on which Amy and Rory are spending their honeymoon is captained by a Janeway clone ("Christmas is cancelled" she decides, after a spot of turbulence) and features a blind navigator who really can't see where he's going despite the whopping great bionic, infra-red whatsit over his right eye ("I'm flying blind" certainly raised a chuckle). Director Toby Haynes also cheekily emulates all those gratuitous J. J. Abrams lens flares into the camera that bedeviled the Star Trek summer blockbuster of 2009.

It deliberately wrongfoots the viewer. For a moment this looks like a tale set most determinedly in the future with Trek-like sleek, anti-septic spaceships crewed by folk running around in crisp white uniforms (very Nerva Beacon for us Ark in Space fans). But mark it as yet another change in attitude from the grungy futurism that Russell T. Davies preferred in his own depiction of science fiction vehicles, bases and technologies. It may well be a parody but perhaps Moffat is now happy to show that a BBC budget can provide more of a Galaxy Quest rather than an Alien when it comes to production design and cash on the screen.

As the year draws to a close I feel it incumbent upon me to highlight some of the books I've had the pleasure to read in the last year. Alas, one of the reasons for doing this is because these didn't quite make it to full review status in 2010 as I was... er, somewhat occupied. So, to make amends here's a quick catch up with some of my favourite reads of the year...

So quoth the Second Doctor on a visit to UNIT headquarters. Well, I've had the decorators in this week and given the site a spruce up. After all, Cathode Ray Tube has been diligently working away now for over three years and it was time for a change.

It has been a little quiet on here of late and that's simply because I've been busy with the book I've just had published and which has been received very warmly by some of you. Catch the reviews of Doctor Who: The Pandorica Opens over at Horrorview.com and Gareth Bundy's blog. Signed copies of that book are still available at The Who Shop in London and at Blackwell's University bookshop in Manchester. You can also buy direct from the publisher www.classictvpress.co.uk

Now that things are back on a more or less even footing, you can look forward to reviews of the Doctor Who Christmas Special and more BFI Flipside DVD releases in January. Plus I'm threatening to do a 'best of 2010' thing to include all the books, DVDs and music I just didn't get a chance to do full reviews of in the last six months. I hope you'll stick around.

As the dramatic tram crash storyline plays out this week on ITV, celebrating the half-century that this highly regarded soap has been on our screens and culminating in tonight's hour-long live episode, I was delighted to see that ITV hadn't forgotten the serial's roots.

Sandwiched between the two opening episodes of ITV's week-long 'disaster-thon' on Monday was a rare treat. The very first episode of Coronation Street, originally transmitted on the 9th December 1960, is likely the only full episode to make it out of the archives onto our screens but it was at least spruced up for its outing on Monday night and the version screened had been rather beautifully restored.

COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED. Congratulations to our winner Thomas Mills!

To celebrate the publication today of my new book Doctor Who: The Pandorica Opens - Exploring the Worlds of the Eleventh Doctor, I'm offering not only a copy of the book but also a copy of Silva Screen's Doctor Who Series 5 soundtrack album, featuring Murray Gold's fantastic music, in the latest competition on the blog.

My book, published by Classic TV Press:

"reviews the relevant episodes of Series 5 of Doctor Who and looks at the series's character development, major themes, the use of design and music, references to previous episodes and the original series. The spine of each chapter is about themes and characters and that's where a lot of the research is included. So, I bring in cultural, literary, political, sociological and psychoanalytical material to inform my views of the episodes. Anyone who is interested in what the episodes mean on many different levels will I hope find the book fascinating"

Image ©Scott Frankton

Those wonderful fellas at Manchester's Lass O'Gowrie pub are treating us to a bit of a knees up in celebration of the half-century anniversary of Britain's longest running 'continuing drama' (or soap to you and me), Coronation Street.

Intended as the showpiece of a week-long celebration of this northern institution, CorrieFest culminates in a one day Corrie ‘not for profit’ convention, with proceeds going to charity, on December 12th, to be held in one of Manchester’s iconic, and award-winning, pubs “The Lass O Gowrie” from 10am-11pm.

The event has already been backed by Corrie Producer Phil Collinson who will be in attendance on the day, together with Casting Director June West and Director Graeme Harper, whilst celebrated rock photographer Karen McBride has agreed to be our official photographer for the day.

They are currently awaiting confirmation from a number of guests and to catch up on the latest announcements you should pop over to CorrieFest’s Facebook page

By the mid-1980s the BBC's Visual Effects Department was often the butt, rather unnecessarily in many cases, of some obvious jokes about the quality of their work (let's get the digs about washing up bottles out the way now). Naturally, this was in the wake of Star Wars and various other science fiction blockbusters of the period, upping the ante with new, sophisticated techniques that included motion controlled cameras for model filming and by the end of the decade the nascent emergence of computer generated imagery. Audiences expectations were coloured by this revolution in effects technology but until then many BBC programmes had already achieved a degree of excellence in visual effects, expertly convincing the viewer that they had seen a real church blown up in Doctor Who or a train rushing across the Russian Steppes in Anna Karenina.
 

I'm delighted to announce that after serious negotiations over a sweet sherry or two those marvellous people at Classic TV Press and I have decided you might enjoy a book signing for the forthcoming publication of Doctor Who: The Pandorica Opens - Exploring the Worlds of the Eleventh Doctor due 6th December.

And not just one signing, dear readers. Two! Yes, you'll have two opportunities to buy the book and have me scribble all over it.  So why not drop by if you're in London or Manchester. You'll all be very welcome. So get your diaries out or set your other time keeping devices for the following dates: 

11th December, 1.00-4.00pm @ The Who Shop, 39-41 Barking Road, Upton Park, London. I'll be in the fabulous company of Bob Baker - Doctor Who writer (The Claws of Axos, The Three Doctors etc) and K9 co-creator.

13th December, 6.30-8.00pm @ Blackwell University Bookshop, Precinct Centre, Oxford Road, Manchester

I look forward to to seeing you there. In the meantime you can catch up with me on a recent edition of The Thumbcast, nattering about the book and Doctor Who in general.

To mark the 47th birthday of a television classic, Cathode Ray Tube goes right back to the beginning.  

An Unearthly Child
November 1963

A woman producer and a gay Asian director made this in 1963. Delia Derbyshire and her tape edits. Peter Brachacki and his console room. Bernard Lodge and his titles. A police box that's bigger on the inside... in 1963. It was so extraordinarily experimental. So outrageously imaginative that it still grips you and never lets you go. Even 47 years later there is something so magical about the opening episode of Doctor Who.

There's a school of thought that says an An Unearthly Child consists of an exceptional first episode followed by three rubbish ones about cavemen. I'm afraid I'm going to have to dispute that. For me, the story is complete in and of itself. The theme is clearly presented in both the settings of 1963 and 100,000 BC and explores how the technologically advanced appear to be god-like to those less developed, more primitive. It is central in the way this programme straddles the status quo of pre-Sixties culture whilst also recognising the revolutionary forces propelling Britain into the 1970s.


The first episode highlights this with Barbara and Ian's stumble into the TARDIS - contemporary humans facing a civilsation far in advance of their own - whilst the remaining three episodes switch this around and posit their own contemporariness in bold contrast to the tribe of cavemen who squabble over the power inherent in the knowledge of fire making. In that first encounter, the Doctor not only tests Ian and Barbara's understanding of the TARDIS's dimensionality by using television as an example to explain their arrival in an alien environment (which director Waris Hussein then visually illustrates by zooming in on the TARDIS scanner to depict the city of London shrinking into blackness to be replaced by a swirling vortex as the ship dematerialises) but he also likens them to the very primitives they all eventually meet in 100,000 BC.

Looking at it now, it’s clear that, beyond the central mystery, the story is about ‘strangers in a strange land’ where two viewpoints dovetail neatly together. Ian and Barbara stumble into the world of the Doctor and Susan – 20th century primitives tangling with the surreal alien and god like environment of the TARDIS - and then the coin is flipped and through antagonistic sparring with this strange old man both teachers are flung back into time where they are those same gods to Kal and Za in a bleak, harsh landscape at the dawn of time. The gift of fire to the cavemen is the knowledge of the future, the journey in the TARDIS is the same knowledge but handed out to our erstwhile teachers. As this theme flip-flops through the story, Ian and Barbara remain the audience identification figures, our representatives.


Knowledge is power whether you are aliens on the run, two teachers in 1963 or a bunch of cavemen. And a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. What strikes you is how unfeeling and friendless this first Doctor is. He positively detests the presence of the two teachers, argues the toss with Susan and blames everyone else for the situation they end up in. And piled up on top of this conflict and power struggle is the strange, surreal mystery of the Doctor and his TARDIS, of the extraordinary machine hidden away within the dull, fog enshrouded junkyard. The TARDIS in the junkyard is such an iconic concept that the series will return to the scene of the crime, as it were, either in intriguing ways (Remembrance Of The Daleks) or in utterly crass ways (Attack Of The Cybermen).

The original scene remains iconic, the copies do not. It's Baudrillard's simulation theme, making Doctor Who a truly postmodern series. And iconic images start to stack up - the TARDIS in the desolate plain after its journey from London and the shadow of a caveman falling across it, the chiaroscuro leaping of shadows as the flames lick round the skulls in the cave, the flight through the forest to the 'home' of the TARDIS.


Waris Hussein makes camera moves that shouldn’t be possible with that old tank like camera equipment. He dares to move around the set, dares to use dissolves and tracking shots. It’s an amazing piece of television. He gets some very assured performances from his cast too. William Russell and Jacqueline Hill are very good indeed and even though we ridicule Hartnell now for his fluffs, here he’s electric, almost sublime, and invests the central mystery figure with a sense of desperation, anger and detachment. He puts his stamp on the role straight away. Carole Ann Ford was a true find, giving us an elfin like alien girl who does strange dances to 60s pop music and assumes we’ve gone decimal. She plays devil’s advocate between the Doctor and the teachers and tries to find common ground for them all.

Later, all the TARDIS crew view themselves as superior to the cavemen and are eventually forced to rely on their own primitive instincts for survival where logic and reason fail. Essentially, the Doctor is saying that the problems thrown up by the situation they all find themselves in are down to the interference of lower species or in fact through class conflict. He's disturbed by the presence of working class people attempting to understand the future and their place in it


It's interesting to note how An Unearthly Child has a great deal to say about technology and the future, about class and power. Within the context of the story these themes show how dominance is achieved by primitive man through fire-making and equally by how the Doctor and Susan represent the achievements of the 'white heat of technology' to Ian and Barbara. It is not only a story point but also a theme that is bound up with the actual production of the story. For much of An Unearthly Child and the very concept of Doctor Who is born out of the rapid changes taking place in post war Britain. One of the overwhelming factors in the success of the series at that point would be its approach to design.

The Festival Of Britain in 1951, concerning itself with the construction and reconstruction of national identity as expressed through cultural events, artefacts and buildings, is another huge influence on the early design of Doctor Who as well as some of the subtexts with which the programme surrounded itself. The Festival put forward an optimistic view of the future of Britain and Britishness and how a traditional nationhood could embrace the modernist world. Peter Brachacki, the designer who created the iconic TARDIS interior, is a key figure in the history of Doctor Who and like the mysterious émigré figure of the Doctor it is ironic to note he reflected the Festival's own showcase, where “a considerable amount of work... was by designers and artists who had escaped fascism and settled in England”. Highly intelligent people on the run. Sound familiar?


The influence of William Cameron Menzies designs for Alexander Korda’s film of H.G. Wells’ Things To Come, itself paying homage to the works of Fernand Léger, architect Le Corbusier and Bauhaus legend László Moholy-Nagy, can be seen in Brachacki's concepts for the TARDIS. The roundeled walls, hive-like in nature, were clearly inspired by the ‘form follows function’ Bauhaus school of thought with their clean, crisp, geometric patterns that make simple but effective use of shape and mutual integrity. The console itself is of great importance, especially the central column. This clear column rises and falls whilst the TARDIS is in flight, the interior mechanism is a collection of geometric shapes, mobiles, lighting that turns, flashes and rises and falls at the same time. In visual terms it is clearly influenced by Moholy Nagy’s kinetic light sculptures, his set designs for Things To Come and his moody photographs of contemporary glassware.

Finally, the banks of machinery in the background that we see more clearly in the transmitted version of An Unearthly Child and the console’s array of switches and dials are most definitely inspired by the brutal, modernist designs of the Magnox reactor UKAEA station at Calder Hall, later Windscale, opened by the Queen in 1956. There is no doubt that newsreels of such an event would have provided some inspiration for the design as there was nothing more futuristic and powerful in the general public’s mind than Britain’s first atomic power station going on stream. Britain’s atomic future was here a symbol of strength, imagination and the nation moving forward into the 1960s.


So, Brachacki’s original design was powerful, modern and, ironically, timeless, seizing on those virtues that the modernist designers held above all else – a European based, almost avant-garde, higher order of form, function and composition that would transcend obsolete ornamentation. The sense of traditionalism being superseded by modernism in Britain in 1963 was no better expressed by having Barbara and Ian cross that threshold between the mundane, everyday exterior of the battered police box and Brachacki’s avant-garde, interior space of tomorrow.

The fog bound, ordinary streets of London give way to futuristic control rooms and later to the barren landscapes of 100,000 BC. And with that journey Ian and Barbara take on the upward mobility of their lower-middle class origins and represent our own fearful and hopeful view of the future. It is a future rooted as much in the past as it is about the delivery of fresh and innovative ideas and the debut of Doctor Who in 1963 is very much part of the so called 'Long Sixties' (that period of 1958 to 1974) described by Arthur Marwick where new subcultures and movements, generally critical of, or in opposition to, one or more aspects of established society, doing your own thing, the rise of youth subculture, advances in technology and upheavals in race, class and family relationships all mark out the long journey from 1958 to 1974.

Doctor Who represents both something of the culture that existed in Britain prior to the Long Sixties that was by no means destroyed in the events which took place post 1963, and yet it also celebrates human liberalist principles of the so called counter culture revolution to come. And that makes An Unearthly Child and the programme that developed from it for the next 47 years a unique piece of television.

An Unearthly Child (BBCDVD1882(a) - Region 2 DVD - Cert U - Released 30th January 2006)

As Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt outlines his policies and puts forward proposals to develop a new generation of regional broadcasting in an attempt to reverse a broadcasting industry that is "deeply, desperately centralised" many of us, who have seen the decline of regional and local programme making in favour of the outputs of wholly owned commercial juggernauts, will be happy to turn to the Conservative minister and say "we told you so."

In 1990, when the Thatcher government deregulated the commercial broadcasting industry, marked by the auctioning off of the regional ITV franchises, it sounded the first death knell for quality programming developed specifically by different regional broadcasters in the UK. Add to this the relaxation of franchise ownership rules that also saw mergers between many of the larger franchise operators. Yorkshire and Tyne Tees merged and were then swallowed up by Granada and eventually Granada and Carlton, who originally outbid Thames for their licence, became the monolith that we now know as ITV. Gradually, since the 1990s, local and regional programming has been squeezed off the air.

Scottish Television, known as STV, remains as ITV's second oldest franchisee after Granada and concentrates on local news programming, documentaries, sports coverage and had a decent track record in children's programmes until recently. Only this month its bid to to become an 'indie' production company, able to compete for commissions from the likes of Channel 4 and the BBC, was rejected by the DCMS. Its drama output, perhaps unfairly epitomised by the now defunct long running soap Take The High Road (1980-2003) has included adaptations of the Ian Rankin Rebus (2000-7) books and Taggart (1983-), another instantly recognisable drama from the franchise, continues to this day.

Like many of the current ITV franchises, STV's archive of drama, entertainment and documentary hasn't seen the light of day for decades and certainly the complex rights issues surrounding the ownership of archives and the programmes housed in them as part of ITV plc has made clearances for public release on home entertainment formats extremely onerous.


Charles Endell, Esquire is one of those forgotten STV drama nuggets. Best forgotten, you may ask yourself? It has a pedigree that is certainly not to be sniffed at. Glaswegian Charlie Endell, a Soho spiv and porn merchant created by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall for the highly successful LWT drama Budgie (1971-72), was a character you certainly couldn't forget, particularly when the wit of Waterhouse and Hall's scripts was channeled through a larger than life performance from the superb Iain Cuthbertson.

His double act with Adam Faith, as ex con Budgie, was central to many of the series' most memorable episodes with Endell using him to run errands and act as the fall guy when various schemes ran foul of the law or Budgie's ineptitude. Robert Banks Stewart, a seasoned television writer, resurrected the Charles Endell character seven years later in 1979 for Scottish Television, returning him to his old stomping ground of Glasgow. Now an ex con himself, he emerges back into the world, from confinement at Her Majesty's pleasure, and finds that the times have certainly changed.

STV, embracing multi-platform broadcasting, have now unearthed the episodes of Charles Endell, Esquire from the archives and have posted the first episode 'Glasgow Belongs to Me' (and eventually it is hoped all six episodes of Charles Endell, Esquire will be available from Sunday November 14 onwards) for a new generation of TV fans to enjoy on YouTube. There are also interviews with director David Andrews, trailers and a wonderful montage of the 'wit and wisdom' of Charlie Endell.

Jonathan Melville also interviews writer Robert Banks Stewart HERE and offers his own fascinating profile of the series HERE. My own thanks to Jonathan Melville for providing me with the opportunity to reacquaint myself with one of my own treasured television memories and to review all six episodes. The review below does contain spoilers for the six episodes of this short lived series.


Appropriately the series, produced by Rex Firkin (the original executive producer of Budgie seven years previously), emerged during a turbulent period for politics and industrial relations in the UK.  Margaret Thatcher came to power in May 1979, certainly a huge turning point in British politics of the time, after the desperate winter of 1978-79 had led to widespread strikes across the UK and a vote of no confidence in the Labour government. Ironically Labour's fall stemmed from the SNP's withdrawal of support for the Scotland Act of 1978 (proposing a Scottish Assembly with very limited powers) when a referendum failed to meet the 40% of electorate votes in favour of it and Labour dropped its proposed devolution.


The six episodes of Charles Endell, Esquire, as was the majority of ITV's output at the time, were also the victim of an eleven week long technician's strike that kept ITV off the air between August and October of 1979. Only two episodes were shown in July 1979, in the Anglia and ATV regions, and it wasn't until April 1980 that the whole series was networked. Its fragmented transmission history probably accounts for its forgotten status. The TV Times of 24th November 1979 certainly showed that G. May of Keswick, Cumbria was missing the show and described it as 'one of the most promising series I have seen on ITV for a long time'.

The series opens with 'Glasgow Belongs To Me', establishing Charles Buchanan Endell's return to civilisation, or in this case Glasgow at the fag-end of the 1970s, and sets ups a number of plot strands that develop over the following episodes. The then faded grandeur of Glasgow, epitomising the similar deprivation of the inner cities in the late 1970s and early 1980s such as the Liverpool seen in Bleasdale's Boys from The Blackstuff (1980-82), forms the backdrop to the series along with some location shooting in the wintry looking Scottish countryside and, although the series isn't aiming for gritty realism as such, it provides stark contrast to Endell's ebullient attempts at get rich quick schemes.

Cuthbertson is on magnificent form throughout the series, a gruff voiced dandy with his sharp suits, camel hair coat draped over his shoulders and a twinkle in his eye little changed from the spiv introduced to us in Budgie. He finds that his attempts to relocate his empire (Soho has become 'a Mickey Mouse land for cheatin' the tourists' and has 'gone beyond the bounds of decent indecency') are hampered by a distinct lack of money and the unwelcome attentions of two 'gangsters' Kenny Croall and Alastair Vint who would rather not have Endell muscling in on their patch.

The series therefore concerns Endell's constant failure to ingratiate himself with 'King' Kenny and Vint, to involve them in his entrepreneurial efforts to raise money, and his pursuit of £180,000 in assets that mysteriously disappear along with his solicitor Archibald Telfer, whose death Endell tries to prove is simply one faked for convenience. While he tries to negotiate his new territory, he also has to contend with a glamorous probation officer, Kate Moncrieff (he meets her upon discovering that the Royal Caledonian Hotel is 'reduced to a flamin' doss house'), suffer the indignities of taking a room above a dance school run by an old friend, Dixie, and deal with the local police in the form of Dixie's suspicious brother, CID Detective Sergeant Dickson (the wonderfully hang-dog Phil McCall).

'There comes a moment in a man's life when he has to return to his roots, a moment for...er...reappraisal, to rediscover the source of his energy,' he claims to Dickson who meets him off the train in Glasgow. Charlie certainly epitomises the Thatcherite ambition of the times and embraces the idea of the business enterprise of the era being unshackled from numbing Labour policies, the individualist genie let out of the bottle. Over the course of the series, with the help of Tony Osoba playing Hamish MacIntyre ('Hamish MacIntyre I hope?' 'Aye, I'm Hamish MacIntyre' 'Aye, and I'm Sherpa Tensing!'), his bodyguard cum chauffeur (affectionately christened Worldwide after the name of his ailing cab company) he dips his elegant fingers into many pies.

He tries everything from the home entertainment industry (very prescient of writer Bill Craig to spot the home video boom just before it happened), art forgery, bootlegging whisky (Glen Endell!), music promotion (chart rigging the ditties of new wave band Blunt Instrument), sauna and massage parlours, to managing footballers (his handling of footballer Sandy Murdoch a nod to Trevor Francis, the first £1M player in the UK who had just been bought by Notts. Forest in February 1979) and nobbling race horses.

As he clearly informs Telfer in the first episode, 'Not te worry, there'll be no capital investment without a sound, searching review of profitability and growth potential' but even with the best intentions most of his schemes bear little fruit and only serve to antagonise Croall and Vint. With a partly dour sensibility, a dash of Ealing comedy and hard nosed British thrillers from the 1950s and 60s, all laced with superb wit and pithy one liners, Charles Endell Esquire was a series with enormous potential that lost its audience through no fault of its own.


After it is clear Telfer has absconded with Charlie's money (and tried to kill him by crushing him in a car and blowing up his hotel room), hard times force him to room above the dance school and a tender if somewhat abrasive relationship begins between him and former stripper Dixie who now runs the dance school ('I don't believe it. Not you. Hearts and flowers to a bunch of Lena Zavaronis?') and she warns him not to get involved with the likes of 'King' Kenny ('to him robbery without violence would be like fish without chips') and Vint ('cold as a chisel and vicious with it'). Between her and Kate, they attempt to set Charlie on the straight path and both Annie Ross and Rohan McCullough provide the perfect foils to Endell's crime lord pretensions.

The series also boasts a number of wonderful cameos from the cream of Scotland's drama and entertainment industry, with the legendary Rikki Fulton, probably best known for that Hogmanay sketch show fixture Scotch and Wry (1978-92), playing the viper-like Vint with utter relish and suave insouciance (complete with eye patch after the events of episode two 'As One Door Closes Another Slams in Your Face') and Jimmy Logan turning up in episode five 'Stuff Me A Flamingo' as Croall's henchman Sammy McPhee.

McPhee certainly emphasises the series' obvious homage to the film noir and gangster genres with Endell referring to him as the 'George Raft of Partick Cross'. Bill Denniston is also rather splendid as regular character Kenny Croall who, whilst taking a shine to Charlie, spares no mercy when he believes Charlie has involved his daughter Fiona, a pupil at the dance school, in kiddie pornography. It's left to Dixie and Worldwide to rescue Charlie, stripped of his clothes and upended in a cement mixer, at the end of 'As One Door Closes Another Slams in Your Face.' There is also a terrific cameo from Bernard Gallagher as Major Forbes-Forbes, a character as crooked and slippery as Charlie and who involves him in an art theft and fixing horse races in episodes two and six.

'Slaughter on Piano Street' in which Charlie supports a young punk band, Blunt Instrument, is also rather delightful in the way that it pokes fun at the music industry and its attendant marketing. There is also a subplot that reveals the drummer of the band is in fact Charlie's son from a previous moment of indiscretion. If the series had continued, it would have been interesting to see that relationship rekindled and developed further. The best moment in the episode is when Charlie turns up at Scottish Television's headquarters and in a nice bit of meta-textual play asks to see a Mr Izzard to see if he can plug Blunt Instrument on the telly. Mr Izzard is, of course, referring to Bryan Izzard, the executive producer of the series itself.


Certainly the highlight of the series is, for me, a script from Terence Feely, 'The Moon Shines Bright on Charlie Endell.' It plays like a demented version of MacKendrick's Whisky Galore (1947) where Charlie sets up a whisky distillery in the wilds of the country, claiming it to be a hydroponic farm to hoodwink the local busybody Mrs McTeague.

The episode opens with a dream sequence, worthy of Dennis Potter, where Charlie imagines himself to be the king pin of the Glasgow underworld sashaying into a plush restaurant with Kate on his arm to dine with the likes of Croall and Vint (sporting a glittery eye patch for this sequence) who are now reduced to toadying has-beens. 'Who the hell's that one-eyed freak?' enquires Charlie as the smoked salmon and champagne are served to a bouncy ragtime jazz standard. However, his wish fulfillment is rudely disrupted by his alarm clock and his hand ending up in a slop bucket under his bed. Dixie insists he tries and get a job on a building site but he declaims, 'I'm an artist, woman! I had a sensitivity and touch that made me the Yehudi Menuhin of the world of pornography!'


When he meets Hooch O'Hagan (a gorgeous little performance from Patrick Lewsley) in the bar of the Argyle Lodge and gets a taste of something that Hooch has 'been saving for a special occasion like this' that 'first saw the dark of night on a mist enshrouded peak in the rolling hills of Connemara, midst the pooling waters of the Shannon,' he cottons on to a money-spinning scheme to produce his own blend of whisky and promptly ropes Worldwide and his girlfriend Janet ('to cast off the bonds of tyranny, to shove the excise man's dipstick up his nostril') into smuggling all the equipment and ingredients in Worldwide's old ice cream van to a deserted barn in the middle of nowhere.

The cat and mouse games with Mrs McTeague ('I promise you we'll run so many rings round Mrs. McTeague she'll think she's the planet Saturn') and the attempts of Vint and Croall to track Charlie down on behalf of Telfer all make for some fine screwball comedy, including a rather odd digression between Kate Moncrieff and Jack Leakey (guest star Russell Hunter's only scene but definitely a memorable one) where he warns her that Charlie will end up 'in bits all over Glasgow' with the result that Mrs McTeague and Dickson witness the barn going up in flames after Vint and Croall blow it to pieces with a bomb. It's use of period ragtime tunes as incidental music clearly put me in mind of Alan Plater's The Beiderbeck Trilogy.


Later episodes don't quite match this sophistication but have their moments. When Charlie is charged with looking after Croall's string of massage parlours in episode five, Alistair Bell's 'Stuff Me A Flamingo', he is also bequeathed the greyhound Linda and falls into the clutches of a dipsomaniac vet Tully, running a dodgy kennel, who cons him out of hundreds of pounds and gets the greyhound pregnant by a poodle. David Swift puts in a memorable turn as Tully and he is aided and abetted by Gerard Kelly (who sadly passed away just after I'd written the first draft of this review) playing the kennel boy (clip HERE), whom you will recognise from City Lights (1984-91) , Rab C. Nesbitt (1988-), Scotch and Wry, Brookside (1982-2003) and Extras (2005-7).

The final episode, 'If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em', which sees Charlie set up Worldwide Sports Enterprises in order to sell player Sandy Murdoch to the Americans but then running foul of Vint's interests also brings the storyline about 'dead' solicitor Telfer back into focus, featuring The Avengers Patrick Newell as his front man Cannadine. He also fails to fix the horse race for Major Forbes-Forbes and ends up owing him and Vint £10,000 each but the dance school and its pupils come in very handy when avoiding the eventual showdown.


Charles Endell Esquire has sadly been forgotten, perhaps because of the strike but also because Minder (1979-2009), which has a not too dissimilar premise and lead character in Arthur Daley, rather eclipsed it when that series started straight after the ITV strike in October 1979. Charles Endell Esquire didn't get back onto the screen until mid 1980 after two episodes were shown in July 1979 by which time Minder had eleven episodes under its belt and the promise of a further thirteen later that year.

It has a very quirky style, as expressed in its outrageous and raucous title song ('a-titty-bum-bum, a-titty-bumberoni') and the retro feel of the graphics reflect the late 1970s penchant for Art Nouveau with the ad break interstitials of gold watch, smoking cigar and a glass of sparkling champagne completed by Charlie growling in voice over, 'See me, I'm back!' or 'Oh, I'm def-in-itely back. Def-in-itely.' Certainly my memories of the show are as much formed by these as they are by the enthusiastic central performance from Cuthbertson which quite simply holds the whole thing together even when the scripts are somewhat uneven. A nostalgic treat.


Cuthbertson wrote a short piece of fiction 'The Coming Out of Charles Endell Esquire' for TV Times, for the issue dated July 28th-August 3rd 1979, that reintroduced the character to viewers since his last appearance in Budgie in 1972 and detailed his activities in London prior to returning to Glasgow. You can find that here with the cover of the TV Times, the listing for that week's episode, a profile of Rohan McCullough (Kate Moncrieff) and an interview with Tony Osoba (Worldwide) that appeared in the following week's issue.

He's def-in-itely back. 

As we await the arrival of Doctor Who - The Pandorica Opens: Exploring the Worlds of the Eleventh Doctor from the printer and the day you finally all get a copy of it in your hot little hands, I was very kindly asked to contribute to Iain Hepburn's monthly pod cast The Thumbcast this week. Iain's been a champion of my reviews and it was a delight to speak with him.


That pod cast is now up on his wonderful website and you can hear yours truly waffle on about the book and the last series of Doctor Who. Have a listen below as we discuss Scottish agendas, story construction, Amy Pond, rubber monsters and running up and down corridors. Please then rush off to Classic TV Press and order your copy now. I have a Blu-Ray and DVD habit to support and your purchases will at least delay me from trying to sell my body on the streets.

If you love your vampires then I've got a little treat for you. You can win a copy each of two recent publications from ECW Press and distributed by those kind folks at Turnaround.

First up is Becca Wilcott's Truly, Madly, Deadly -  The Unofficial True Blood Companion. This is an introductory guide to the first two seasons of HBO's True Blood, currently completing its run on Channel 4 and also shown in the UK on FX.

Truly, Madly, Deadly offers in-depth biographies of each major and supporting cast member, along with pictures and fan quotes; guides to each episode along with a host of facts and behind-the-scenes anecdotes; sidebars providing additional cast and character info; full chapters which tackle some of the greater underlying themes of True Blood: the paranormal and politics of race, sexuality and gender; an overview of literary and cinematic vampires; and an introduction to Charlaine Harris, the author of the bestselling Sookie Stackhouse novels on which the series is based.

There are also exclusive interviews with stars Kristin Bauer and Patricia Bethune, a chapter dedicated to social media and its impact on fandom plus fan-submitted cast pics, fan art and vampire-inspired merchandise.


Love You To Death - The Unofficial Companion to The Vampire Diaries, by Crissy Calhoun, is the ultimate fan bible to the hit US show currently airing on ITV2. With writer producer Kevin Williamson at the helm (Dawson's Creek, Scream) The Vampire Diaries mixes horror, romance, drama and self-aware humour and has won itself a growing and devoted fan base.

This is the only book that takes you deep into the heart of Mystic Falls with an episode-by-episode guide to the first season. Featuring bios of the cast, the story behind the creation of the show, the bestselling book series by L.J. Smith that first introduced Elena and the Salavtore Brothers, as well as background details on the rich history and mythology, Love You To Death is an essential read for fans of The Vampire Diaries.

Cathode Ray Tube has a copy of each book to give away to one lucky winner. Yes, both books as one prize!

• This competition is open to residents of the UK only, but not to employees of ECW Books and Turnaround Publisher Services or their agents.
• Entries must be received by midnight GMT on Monday 15th November 2010
• This offer cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer and no cash alternative is available.
• No responsibility will be accepted for delayed, mislaid, lost or damaged entries whether due to system error or otherwise.
• Only one entry per visitor per day. No multiple entries allowed.
• The winner will be the first entry drawn at random.
• The winner will be contacted by email. The books will be posted within 5 days of the competition closing (unless delayed by postal strikes).
• The judges' decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
• Entrants are deemed to accept and be bound by these rules and entries that are not in accordance with the rules will be disqualified.
• By entering the free prize draw, entrants agree to be bound by any other requirements set out on this website. Entry is only available online or via email to frank_c_collins@hotmail.com. No responsibility can be accepted for entries not received, only partially received or delayed for whatever reason. Paper entries are not valid

Combination Question: Which actor plays Damon Salvatore in The Vampire Diaries and what is the name of the fictional Louisiana town featured in True Blood?  You must answer both questions correctly to be entered into the prize draw.   

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