A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
Written by Dennis Spooner
Doctor Who Series two Serial four
The Slave Traders transmitted BBC1 16 January 1965
All Roads Lead to Rome transmitted BBC1 23 January 1965
Conspiracy transmitted BBC1 30 January 1965
Inferno transmitted BBC1 6 February 1965
* Note: until 1966 Doctor Who serials had no overall title, instead each episode had its own title.
We find the TARDIS crew on holiday in a Roman villa while the owner is absent, apparently for some months. The Doctor, bored, decides to go to Rome, and Vicki accompanies him. On the way, they meet a murdered musician, picking up his lyre the Doctor is mistaken for famous musician Maximus Pettulian and taken to Caesar Nero's court to play for him. Secretly, Maximus is involved in a plot to murder Nero, whist Nero plans the same for him.
Meanwhile, Ian and Barbara are captured in the villa by slave traders. Ian is sold to be a galley slave, Barbara is sold to be hand maiden to Poppaea, Nero's wife. Nero takes a shine to her, infuriating Poppaea who plans Barbara's death, though the Doctor and Vicki are unaware of her presence. The story ends with the Great Fire of Rome 64AD.
Review
This was the first historical serial to heavily feature humour, and be less of an educational history tour. This was mainly due to writer Dennis Spooner, who was also the new story editor. Spooner had started his career as a comedy double-act then moved to writing for such BBC shows as Tony Hancock. This shift to a comedic rather than tragic or educational modes was not popular at the time, the show lost 3 million viewers, and was criticised by the critics for being historically inaccurate (which it is), and by the audience as a silly story, which it is also. I have a high regard for Spooner's later work with ITC, but his tenure on Doctor Who is not a highlight of his career.
Not all four episodes are humorous throughout, though all feature some comedic element. The first episode gets off to a bad start. The TARDIS crew on holiday seems to go on for ever, there's a too relaxed storytelling pace. It only really comes alive at the end, when the slavers break into the villa and capture two of them.
It's the third episode that is almost wholly comedic. Derek Francis plays Nero more as a libidinous buffoon, chasing Barbara throughout the court, the 'comedy' supposedly heightened by the Doctor appearing just as she disappears. I'm not sure that attempted rape (which this is) is fit for a tea-time children's show. Of course, in the 60s this was often the subject of bedroom farces, which this episode resembles, but today it leads a sour taste. I don't think any of the Doctor's companions should be sexually threatened. It's just not that kind of show. When not chasing her, Francis and Spooner sometimes remember Nero as Caesar held power of life and death, and therefore was frightening, especially given his capricious nature. But the best they can do is a a pantomime villain, or Benny Hill as Emperor.
This wouldn't be so bad if the whole series was an all-out Doctor Who comedy, but it isn't quite. There are dark and brutal moments (there are about a half dozen deaths in the show), including slavery, the galleys, gladiators fighting to the death, and victims thrown to the lions in the Arena.
This unevenness of tone is not helped by the clichéd nature of the sub-plots, and the end-of-pier nature of the humour. Even when Barbara and Ian are fighting for their life at the end of episode one we get that old cliché of Barbara accidentally missing her assailant and hitting Ian over the head with an amphora! That'll have them rolling in the aisles. Meanwhile, we have the absurdity of the Doctor involved in a fight against a much younger man and, when he wins, citing that after all he had trained the Mountain Mauler of Montana! And in the otherwise fine fourth episode he spends five minutes issuing bad puns to the Emperor about performing in the Arena (Nero plans to release the lions whilst he's playing, and the Doctor knows this). It's really quite painful, and beneath the Doctor's dignity. One pun or witticism, yes, but Spooner seems to see how many puns about lions and playing that he can think of. He can think of quite a few, almost none of them funny. It's one thing to write comedy, but it's the hardest art form. There's nothing worse than comedy when it fails, and this fails lamentably.
As for the various dangerous adventure sub-plots, they replace history for Hollywood epic storylines. So we have slave-traders, the galley scene from Ben-Hur, Nero playing his harp from Quo Vadis, and even a steal from Spartacus, when the gladiator attempts to kill the Roman audience rather than his opponent. This is History Hollywood style, but whereas Hollywood boasts a cast of thousands, and a budget of millions, Doctor Who can only manage a cast of dozens, and a budget of shillings. The fact that Barbara and Ian can laugh at the end about their misadventures in this serial is in complete contrast to their perils in earlier stories like the French Terror, and only goes to show to the audience that this story didn't really put them in harm's way, which is an insult to those who watched for the past month. No wonder the audience thought this story 'silly'.
And yes, the contemporary accusations of historical inaccuracy are not just the usual knee-jerk reaction. The story is meant to be set in the Gallic Wars, though they'd ended half a century earlier, slave-traders would never break into a citizen's villa and capture obviously wealthy and free Romans, Christians didn't use the cross as a symbol for another 400 years until Rome was converted itself, an of course Nero means crocodiles not alligators, who wouldn't be discovered for a millennia and a half in the swamps of Florida. Also the costuming seems 'everyday' generic Roman, as do the sets.
The production design, and set dressing, is oddly poor for a historical, normally something the BBC excels at. The sets are really cramped and poor looking. The road to Rome is unconvincing, we only see three rows in the galley, the gladiator fight looks like it's staged in a small carny tent, and Nero's palace, which should be wide open plan, is cramped and narrow corridors with some unconvincing trompe-l'œil of receding depths.
The acting is competent rather than inspired, though I still think Francis plays Nero wrongly, only the scenes between Vicki and the Doctor, she all wide-eyed wonder and gently chiding him, really come alive. Otherwise it's all "hssst, meet me in the corner" panto conspiracy. It manages some elements of danger and tension, but this jars against the farceur elements, and it's all cobbled together from old movies rather than original script writing. And yet episode four is quite good.
Given all that, plus the odd technical mis-hap, lens flare from a studio light exposed, a boom-mike visibly in shot, a camera bumping into the furniture, added to the occasional fluffed lines by both Francis and Hartnell, means this serial might be just about watchable when seen an episode a day (as I did on reviewing), but watched in one sitting (as I did originally), it's a bit of a yawn. After this experiment, humour would be allowed in the Doctor as a flavour, but there would be no outright Who comedies until the lamentable McCoy seventh Doctor period. This should be a one-star rating, but that's a bit unfair. However, it's not a story I'll be eagerly revisiting.
TARDIS rating: 2/5
Credits
Dr. Who ..................................................................................... WILLIAM HARTNELL
Ian Chesterton .......................................................................... WILLIAM RUSSELL
Barbara Wright ......................................................................... JACQUELINE HILL
Vicki ......................................................................................... MAUREEN O'BRIEN
Sevcheria .................................................................................. DEREK SYDNEY
Didius ........................................................................................ NICHOLAS EVANS
Ascaris ...................................................................................... BARRY JACKSON
Delos ......................................................................................... PETER DIAMOND
Tavius ....................................................................................... MICHAEL PEAK
Nero .......................................................................................... DEREK FRANCIS
Tigilinus ..................................................................................... BRIAN PROUDFOOT
Poppaea .................................................................................... KAY PATRICK
Title Music ........................... by RON GRAINER with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
Incidental Music Composed and Conducted .......................... by RAYMOND JONES
Fight Arranger ......................................................................... PETER DIAMOND
Story Editor ............................................................................. DENNIS SPOONER
Designer ................................................................................. RAYMOND P. CUSICK
Costumes Supervised .............................................................by DAPHNE DARE
Make-up Supervised ............................................................... by SONIA MARKHAM
Lighting .................................................................................... HOWARD KING
Sound ...................................................................................... RICHARD CHUBB
Associate Producer ............................................................... MERVYN PINFIELD
Producer ................................................................................. VERITY LAMBERT
Directed .................................................................................. by CHRISTOPHER BARRY
Comments
Post a Comment
All comments welcome, you don't need a Google account, but trolls beware, all comments are moderated.