Angel Eyes (Extended Remix)

Today, I proudly present a 'deleted scene' from my Doctor Who novel Touched By An Angel, published earlier this year by BBC Books. Though it's not so much a deleted scene as a heavily-edited scene; when writing, my approach is always to over-write and then cut down to length.

This scene was edited down for three reasons. 1) It was too long 2) It was telling the reader stuff they already knew, or didn't need to know and 3) One of my 'read-through' critics thought the Doctor sounded like David Tennant. The third is a particular problem with spin-off media; while on television, Matt Smith can turn a David Tennant-y line into a Matt Smith-y line, in books and comic strips, the reader is imagining the character's voice based on cues in the text alone, so the writer must not only avoid writing out-of-character dialogue, but keep on re-emphasizing the actor's voice through the dialogue.

Anyway, here it is. Beginning of chapter 6. All the cut material is the stuff not in italics.

12 June 1994

‘So what exactly are these Weeping Angels?’ asked Mark.

The Doctor sliced his sausage and skewered it with his fork. But rather than eating it, he jabbed it in the air for emphasis. ‘The most malevolent creatures in the history of the universe,’ he said. ‘Nothing gives them greater pleasure than to watch a lesser species suffer. And to them, we are all lesser species.’

‘And they feed by sending people back in time?’

‘Usually.’ The Doctor ate the sausage. ‘But these Angels are different.’

‘A different variety,’ explained Amy helpfully.

‘They feed not on potential time, but time paradoxes. The consequences of irresponsible time travel.’ The Doctor raised his eyebrows at Mark reprovingly.

‘So,’ said Rory. ‘If somebody travelled back and killed their own grandfather - ‘

‘Their idea of a snack,’ said the Doctor. ‘Unless, of course, you killed your own grandfather after he’d met your grandmother and conceived one of your parents, in which case it would just be a horrible thing to do. What is it with time travellers and grandfathers?’

‘But any change, any change at all -‘ said Mark.

‘Well, the bigger the better, obviously. The more potential ramifications. Ramifications, love that word. Rory, could you write it down for me?’

‘Still not your secretary,’ Rory reminded him.

‘Vacancy’s still open. The more ramifications, and, of course, the more paradoxical it is, the better.’

‘The more paradoxical?’ said Amy, sipping her orange juice.

‘The more it violates the normal laws of cause and effect. The universe doesn’t like that, you see. Result - release of vast amounts of time energy. Like blowing up a balloon and popping it. And that’s what you are, Mark.’

‘What, a balloon?’

‘Okay, metaphor doesn’t quite make sense.’ The Doctor squirted more brown sauce over his fried egg and swirled it in the mix. He ate breakfast as though it was a laboratory experiment. ‘That’s the trouble with metaphors. I would’ve gone with “pustule” but, you know, eating.’

Amy winced. ‘So where do these Angels come from?’

‘The Angels are an incredibly ancient race, born during the chaos of the primal universe. The stuff of legend. Regarding these particular Angels... many years ago there was a war, a terrible war between beings that had mastered time. A war waged using history itself, each side re-writing the past. Some races got caught in the crossfire. There were stories of abominations, of whole species transformed into the stuff of nightmares... but some races survived. Some thrived. The result of a million years of evolution in a matter of seconds. My guess is that these Weeping Angels are the remnants of one such race. A race forged in the crucible of war, adapted to life within a temporal schism.’

‘So what are they doing on Earth?’

‘Starving to death. Which makes them even more dangerous.’

‘Sorry,’ said Rory. ‘Why are they starving to death again?’

‘Because, Rory, they’ve evolved to feed on time paradoxes. Which have been rather thin on the ground since the war ended.’ The Doctor gazed into the distance, haunted by a memory. For a few moments, they all sat in silence in the hotel restaurant, the only sound an occasional clatter of cutlery from the kitchen.

‘Which is why,’ announced the Doctor. ‘Which is why we have to take you home, Mark Whitaker.’

‘But if the Angels want a paradox,’ said Amy. ‘Why go to all the trouble of bringing Mark here in the hope he changes history? Why not just do it themselves?’

‘Because that would make them part of the paradox. They need someone to do their dirty work for them so they remain external to the chain of events.’

‘What if I don’t want to go back?’ said Mark.

‘Not an option,’ said the Doctor, wiping his hands and rising to his feet. ‘Look. You’ve had some fun, a chance to relive the good old days, but now the trip’s over.’

Rory and Amy both got out of their seats, as a hint to Mark that he should move. He stayed put. ‘What if can’t go back?’

‘What do you mean, “can’t”?’

Seven

Nearly ten years ago, I did what I like to call a 'Blake's 7 Watch'. Well, sort of. I started half-way through the second series, because I'd watched the first series too recently (i.e. within the last ten years), and only wanted to watch episodes I'd not seen since they were originally broadcast.

So that I would never have to watch any of the episodes ever again, I wrote up my thoughts after each episode as a review. These reviews, as reviews tend to do, became more detailed and elaborate as time went on. I shall republish them here, but please bear in mind these are 'Voices From The Past' so some of the topical references may be outdated and my writing style may be even more immature than it is now. And please bear in mind that any opinions I express in these articles do not necessarily reflect opinions I currently hold.

Here are the first two reviews, from Jan 28 2002 and March 3 2002 respectively. First, some general thoughts:

I'm currently watching the Blake's 7 on UK Gold, for the first time since way back in the 70's. I remember it as being excellent, adult entertainment; I'm amazed by how well it holds up now - much better than Doctor Who of the same era. If you ignore the Captain Pugwash animation for the spaceships, that is. I particular enjoy the Dudley Simpson and the Terry Nation aspects.

My main sources of fascination are; 1) Jenna, and in particular, is she shagging Blake? I notice they always beam down together and seem awfully intimate on occasions. Either the characters are supposed to be shagging or REDACTED 2) the way Paul Darrow will run into to a room and do a sort of hop-and-skipping motion as he maneuvers himself around a desk to sit down in a hurry. Paul Darrow is the master when it comes to running into a room, hop-and-skipping round a desk and sitting down in a hurry 3) trying to work out who would play who if the casts of Blake's 7 and S Club 7 were interchanged and 4) the way people keep on staring out of a window and talking at empty, black space as though doing so lends their words greater significance. I suppose that's why it's called Clackavoid.

And now a review:

Hostage

Stone me. Doctor Who never got this bad.

The '7' seems to have taken a turn for the worse since Gan left. First there's a rather dreadful Chris Boucher script about a leotard louse creature that talks in pidgin English whilst the multi-chinned bloke out of Coronation Street who says everything twice tries Travis for treason I said Ashley he t-t-t-tries Travis for treason etc etc.

Then there's a uncharacteristically badly-plotted script by Robert Holmes which features a scene of a gas attack where the Federation troopers [who are wearing gas masks] are collapsing whilst the locals [who are not wearing gas masks] remain perfectly fine. Which doesn't even have a 'Don't look at me! Don't look at me!' scene in it.

And now... Allan Prior's dialogue is even more clackavoid than Nation's or Boucher's has ever got; it alternates between portentious- Pip-n-Jane-speak and statements of the bleedin' obvious, often within the same sentence. The model work is a Greatest Hits of all the previous modelwork sequences, with which we are by now painfully familiar. And we are treated to a veritable b-list of Doctor Who villains - a Fibuli, a Ranquin and a Chen. The plotting is ludicrous - you'd think something so hackneyed and cliched would actually make logical sense by some sort of default, but it doesn't. What the hell is Avon's motivation? Or Servalan's? Or Travis'? Or Blake's? Orac is the only character in it with any motivation, and that's just to say something sarky before Avon pulls out his plug with that wonderful peowweeee sound which I believe was sampled in 'Peter Panic' by Blur.

How many former friends and relations does Blake [or 'Roj', as he suddenly seems to be called] have scattered about the universe? Why is a forty-year old pig farmer in wellies being referred to as 'my boy'? Why is Travis suddenly a fat cockney with gaffer tape over one eye instead of a scheming homicidal maniac in a mask? Why has Gareth Thomas stopped acting? Is Cally actually in it any more? Why do the Mutoids now all look like Theresa Gorman? Why does Servalan look like a female version of Marc Almond?

I notice that Jenna is now doing 'Rachel out of Brookside' acting; in other words, just alternating between doing happy and sad expressions irrespective of the lines she is given. And Paul Darrow is obviously the star of the show now. I've previously mentioned his wonderful ability of running into rooms and pirouetting neatly around desks to land into seats with meticulous, breathless urgency. Well, on top of that he now has this thing of being beamed down somewhere, only to drop to a crouch and point his gun suspicously in every direction, teeth gritted, eyes gritted, nose gritted, arse gritted - everything gritted, in fact. It's like he's acting for 7 because the other 6 can't be arsed any more.

Directed by Vere Lorrimer. Directed? A scene in which the camera is pointed at Blake and Ranquin's wellies throughout? A scene in which Ranquin pushes Travis over a cliff in which we see neither Ranquin nor Travis nor the cliff? And Blake and Ranquin dropping giant polystyrene boulders on a 'Nut-o' [a psychopathic muto, apparently] - or, at least, rolling them playfully along the ground towards him.

Still, it could be worse. There could've been a hands-on-hips 'doh, Vil-a' comedy moment at the end. Eeuruuruek.

To be continued.

Shakey Ground

A few years ago I started to write a 'guide to Shakespeare' book. I never finished it; I think I'd probably bitten off more than I could chew.

Here's what would've been one of the chapters, kind of topical given the release of the film Anonymous.

Did Shakey write Shakey’s plays?

Yes of course he bloody did.

But some people don’t think Shakey wrote his plays. They’re not convinced he even existed. They think the plays were written by someone better-educated, someone from the ruling classes, someone who decided to hide their identity behind a pseudonym. If you ever meet one of these people, give them a slap, because they’re not merely wrong – they’re snobs as well.

Of course it’s unlikely that the son of a glove-maker from Stratford would be the greatest writer of all time. It’s unlikely that an Austrian patents clerk would come up with the theory of relativity but somehow he managed it. Or his wife did. The thing is, no matter how unlikely it may be that Shakey wrote all those plays, it’s still a hell of a lot more likely than any of the alternatives.

Shakey was a real person. There’s as much evidence of his existence as there is of anyone else around at the time – more so, in fact, because we’ve spent so long looking for it. We have everything from the record of his baptism to his marriage certificate to his will to the record of his burial, his signature appears on a court deposition and he’s named in a summons for threatening behaviour, he’s listed on tax records as ‘in arrears’, he’s in the cast of Ben Jonson’s Every Man In His Humour and Sejanus, he turns up on a contemporary list of ‘my top twenty-seven favourite poets, in order’ – at number thirteen - and he’s the victim of character-assassination in Robert Greene’s Groatsworth Of Wit. We have records of him receiving payments as a member of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. He’s a beneficiary in the will of one of his fellow actors, he’s named on the deeds for the Globe, a house in Blackfriars and New Place and we have his application for a coat of arms. We have records of the births and deaths of his parents, siblings, wife and children. He’s the subject of tributes shortly after his death and there are accounts of tourists visiting his monument at Straftord-Upon-Avon from 1630 onwards. If that weren’t enough, there are all the poems and plays bearing his name and, in the case of the Folio, a large picture of him on the front.

There wouldn’t be all this evidence if ‘Shakespeare’ was a pseudonym.

But assuming that an actor called Shakespeare did exist – is that enough to prove he wrote the plays? Well, it seemed enough at the time. If it was a scam, it’s a scam that took in – or required the collusion of – his fellow author Ben Jonson and his fellow actors John Heminges and Henry Condell.

That’s the problem with the conspiracy theories. Why would someone spend so much time and effort writing the plays and poems only to allow a lowly Stratford actor to take all the credit?

None of the theories has a convincing answer to this question. They have, however, come up with various candidates for the shrinking violet in question.

Number one in our list of people who didn’t write Shakey’s plays is Francis Bacon. His name was put forward by the not-entirely-coincidentally-named Delia Bacon. Apparently Francis led a team of top scribes, including Edmund The Faerie Queen Spenser and Sir Walter ‘More than a sailor’ Raleigh on a mission to improve the morale fibre of the nation. The main drawback with this theory is that we have examples of Francis Bacon’s writing - and he was crap.

Candidate number two is Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. In his favour, he was very well-educated. Problem is, he died in 1604, which means he’d have had trouble putting references to the gunpowder plot into Macbeth or hearing about the shipwreck for The Tempest. There’s also the snag that if he did write the plays, he’d have been writing for the Lord Chamberlain’s Men – rivals to his own theatrical troupe. All this notwithstanding, it’s hard to take this theory seriously because it was dreamt up by a guy called John Thomas Looney. Who thought there was nothing remotely amusing about his name.

Third on the list is Christopher ‘Kit’ Marlowe, who would not only have to had to adopt an entirely new literary style in order to have written Shakey’s plays, he would also have to had to survive being stabbed to death in 1593.

Number four... well, to be honest, the list goes on forever. The thing is, no matter how persuasive each case may be, the best candidate for the author of Shakey’s plays always turns out to be the Bard with the beard himself.

Although he was the son of a glove-maker, he had, by our standards, an extremely thorough classical education, an average school day consisting of Latin, more Latin, and extra double Latin. It’s not implausible that a young actor would become a proficient playwright after a decade or so of touring – particularly as he’d have been learning a new play every couple of weeks.

There’s also the sheer number of references in Shakey’s plays to rural life. While you can imagine a young Stratford lad learning all about courts and Kings through play-acting, it’s hard to imagine a member of the upper classes picking up Warwickshire slang for flowers or the jargon of leather tanners.

But what really marks Shakey out as the writer of his plays is the stuff he doesn’t know. A more well-travelled writer – such as Edward de Vere – would’ve known that Venice is famous for its canals, that Bohemia hasn’t got a coastline, that Verona and Milan aren’t seaports and that the quickest way of getting from France to Spain is not by going through Italy.

And that’s the proof that Shakey wrote his plays, and not somebody better-educated from the ruling classes. Because only the son of a glove-maker from Stratford could have had such a poor grasp of basic European geography.