The Trees

Another blast from the archives, this time from 2006, a review of the Douglas Adams/Graham Chapman sketch show 'Out Of The Trees'. The only surviving off-air copy was shown at a Missing Believed Wiped event at the NFT; I'm surprised and disappointed it hasn't been commercially released since then.

Out Of The Trees

Douglas Adams once described his ill-fated collaboration on a sketch show with Graham Chapman and Bernard McKenna as 'only semi-brilliant'. This sounds like modesty until you bear in mind that he only wrote about half of it, and the brilliant half to which he was referring to was his half.

Adams' main contribution seems to have been the Genghis Khan scenes, and the peony sequence at the end, and certainly the Khan scenes are the highlights. To begin with there is a worry it is going to dissolve into look-we've-hired-an-actress-with-big-tits sniggering of the type found in Spike Milligan's Q shows, but instead we get some extremely well-constructed, economical sketches - the first of which even has a decent punchline.

The second Khan sketch is, as has been mentioned elsewhere, Graham Chapman taking the piss out of John Cleese never having time to do 'Python' because of his business interests and wanting to get more reading in. Clearly the character is written as a Cleese character, but Chapman does a good job, and there are some great sequences later on with Khan massacring and becoming a businessman.

However, saying that Khan is written as a Cleese character kind of points up one of the problems with the show. There's another character, a Scout Leader, who has obviously been written as Michael Palin (or has been written as a Michael Palin-type character) - who just doesn't work when played by Tim Preece, even though he is quite close to Palin in terms of voice. Similarly the two bickering women would have been much better played by Chapman and another 'Python' in drag, but played by actresses, they don't quite work.

This leads me on to a couple of other criticisms. The sketches with which Adams doesn't seem have been involved - one about firemen politicians, another about businessmen - feel like very generic 'Python', and in particular, series 3 and 4 'Python' when the formula was beginning to look a little tired. There are good lines but a feeling that it's all been done before. Also, the linking device of the show feels like pastiche 'Python' - three or four half-finished sketches being played out in the same location, plus some self-referential 'deconstruction of the form' which felt rather-sixth form-revue without being particularly amusing. And these three or four half-finished sketches were all very familiar - the boring cycling enthusiast, the 'Four Yorkshiremen'-esque game of one-upmanship between two housewives, the waiter who gets the wrong end of the stick (a la the two guards in 'Holy Grail').

On the other hand there is the line 'Well, not as such, I more, sort of, don't' - which doesn't quite work written down but is very funny spoken.

The other odd thing about the show is how little Graham Chapman has to do in it. Apart from his turn as Genghis Khan, he is present in most sketches but only as a bit-part player. It's not quite because it's an ensemble piece, it's more a general lack of focus. In some scenes he looks, well, bored. In others, plain drunk. He doesn't quite know what to do when he hasn't given himself any lines, so he throws in unnecessary 'reacting along' acting. And yet when the focus is on him, when he takes centre stage, he is utterly self-assured.

But you can see why it didn't go beyond a pilot (and my suspicion is that the decision was made even before this one episode was broadcast, as the script mentions it being a 'series' and yet they haven't even bothered giving it a title sequence). The BBC would have been expecting a Graham Chapman vehicle, just as Rutland Weekend Television was Eric's and Ripping Yarns was Michael's and Fawlty Towers was John's. Instead they got a show with some not-very-good-at-comedy actors not making the most of some half-hearted material. I mean, Simon Jones is fantastic, and Mark Wing-Davey does the best with what he's given, but they are also barely in it. Instead there's far too much Roger Brierley, a sort of bank manager of an actor, and nowhere near enough Graham Chapman.

And yet it is, as Douglas said, semi-brilliant. A lot of money seems to have been spent on it - particularly the film sequences with Khan and the end bit with the peony - and to be fair it's on about the same level as the last series of 'Python' or something like End Of Part One - not terrible, but with too much self-indulgent funny-when-written-down weirdness instead of jokes. For Graham Chapman, it feels like he's going through the motions, and for Douglas Adams, it feels like he's doing a John Cleese impersonation - he hasn't really found his authorial 'voice' yet.

But it was lovely to see it at last and, if you ever get the chance to see it, do.

Countdown

More Blake's 7 episode reviews, from back in 2002:

'Countdown' yesterday. Great stuff; a simple, straightforward and relatively cheap plot by Terry Nation that not only works, but also manages to fill up its 45 minutes with no padding. Sadly Jenna and Cally get even less to do than usual; Jenna's performance is so knowing I'm surprised she doesn't wink at the camera. Cally's getting a bit tetchy. Vila's comedy banter falls a bit flat, as usual, but he's a likeable enough sod. Avon unusually heroic, and Blake unusually gullible. I really enjoyed it. I would give it a good '8 out of 10' if I awarded things marks out of 10, but I don't.

Voice From The Past

Oh my goodness. There's some real vying going on in the competition for 'most sheepish episode of Blake's 7 ever'. But it will be difficult to out-sheep this.

To begin with, this appears to be the episode that has had no money spent on it whatsoever. Four sets - three of which are the Liberator control room, a room in the Liberator and Servalan's office. Three non-regular speaking cast members. And five minute's location filming, at the Barbican if I'm not mistaken, unless that's a corridor in TV Centre.

The plot is essentially, 'Blake gets a headache and goes a bit mad'. He has to be restrained to a chair. Cue lots of nasal hair shots. There is some endless to-ing and fro-ing - will they go to the asteroid or the bouncy planet with the Fera particles? For the longest time this viewer was convinced they wouldn't even get off the bloody Liberator. Cue model shot of Liberator turning left. Cue model shot of Liberator turning right. Cue model shot of Liberator turning left again.

In all its years of rubbishness, Doctor Who never managed a special effect as colon-evacuatingly awful as the space-suited Blake wandering across the surface of the asteroid. I mean, I think it's lovely that they let the producer's four-year-old daughter paint the backdrop, I really do, but what is that big white line supposed to be? Is that big round thing a moon or something? Is that a giant Gin and Tonic?

It gets worse. Blake is here to meet Shevan, a rebel leader. Who is covered entirely, from head to foot, in bandages. And who talks like Papa Lazarou after he's had a stroke. 'Elllo Blaaaake. You wanna buy some pegs? Maaaaa wife was right, there was a problem with the Federation, but I fixed it. Of cooourse you can join us! etc. etc.'

It transpires, in a trouser-changingly absurd plot twist, that Shevan is none other than Travis in what must be the feeblest disguise since John Simpson tried to smuggle himself into Afghanistan dressed in only an Hawaiian grass skirt and a coconut bra. A disguise which somehow fools not only Orac, but which has passed every medical examination test known to man. Even Scooby Doo could've spotted this one.

The actors are past caring. The dialogue is ridiculously out of character - whoever wrote this episode seems to think the Blake gang are a bunch of petulant 17-year olds out on a jolly picnic. So whenever a line comes along which doesn't fit with the character, it is delivered flatly, with just a hint of 'get me out of this series NOW' desperation. Cally and Jenna seem embarrased by the juvenile bitching they have to perform, never mind discussing how pretty asteroids are. Vila makes no pretence to be taken in by Blake's loopy plan. Only the Darrow bothers to put in a performance, but even his gritting seems somehow half-hearted. He's only semi-clenched.

You know the woman in Timelash, the one with the cheek blusher and wide-eyed facial expression? Vena, played by Jeanette or Jean something. You probably thought she gave the most wooden performance by anyone in a sci-fi series ever. But, no, the woman who plays the rebelling planet president leader thing in 'Voice From The Past' is even worse. No emotional inflection what-so-ever. She takes inanimation to extraordinary lengths.

And how is this dire situation resolved? It suddenly occurs to Avon that it might be a good idea to smash the box which is controlling Blake's brain. He does so. Blake then wakes up - and lucky old Blake has no memory whatsoever of the events of 'Voice From The Past'. I wish I were Blake. Apart from the puffy sleeves and space wellies, of course. But that's it, that's the ending. Fnnurk.

The - rather unexpected - couple of scenes shot at Barbican look quite nice, though. You get to see the federation guards in spotlights, looking quite sinister. But that's hardly enough to redeem the most sheepish Blake's 7 Episode ever. So far.

And those exercises looked extremely painful.

Dead Bodies

Yesterday I finished reading the second, and middle, book of the Mervyn Stone trilogy, DVD Extras Include: Murder by Nev Fountain. I’d already finished reading the first book, Geek Tragedy, several weeks ago, and I read the third one Cursed Among Sequels last year in a giving-encouraging-notes capacity.

A quick bit of background. Nev started writing the first book four or five years ago, possibly longer, and sent it to me when he’d written about the first third. I thought it was very terrific and told him to complete the novel as I was desperate to find out what happened next. I think it gives you some idea of how much weight my opinion carries that a mere four or five years later, Nev followed my advice and completed the novel, and then kept on going and completed two more.

The books are ‘whodunits’ with the detective role being filled by Mervyn Stone, a former TV script editor on a science fiction show called Vixens From The Void. Since Vixens was put on an indefinite hiatus in the 1990’s - alright, alright, it was axed - his career hasn’t been going particularly well, so to make ends meet he appears at Vixens From The Void conventions, records commentaries for Vixen From The Void DVDs, and – in the third novel – acts as a consultant on the Vixens From The Void revival. Bu then people start being murdered, and it’s down to Mervyn Stone, with his script editor’s eye for detail and things that don’t make sense, to find the culprit.

As you may guess from that, the books contain a great deal of humour based around science fiction TV and its fans. But while from a lesser writer you might expect a lot of sneering at anoraks, Nev writes Vixens From The Void fandom with insight and sympathy, and brings to live the full, wild, eccentric diversity of fandom in all its shapes and forms. It’s very affectionate, almost celebratory. If you want to get inside the head of a science fiction fan, I would strongly suggest you reconsider, but failing that, these books are a good place to start.

And as odd as the fans are, they’re nowhere near as strange as the various actors, actresses, writers, directors and producers of Vixens Of The Void that we meet over the course of these novels, with their tangled web of feuds, nervous breakdowns, and sexual liaisons.

As you might expect, from a writer for Private Eye and DeadRingers they are also full of satire about the state of TV, though with a lot more bite than Nev’s other work. But all this would be for nothing if it weren’t for the fact that each book is also an incredibly well-plotted and ingenious whodunit; in the second book, for instance, someone is murdered during the recording of a DVD commentary, by means which seem almost miraculous.

But most of all these books are beautifully written and very, very funny. The argument between Graham Goldingay and The Gorg in the third book, Cursed Among Sequels, is one of the funniest things I have ever read, I had to put the book down to regain my composure.

I recommend you buy them now so that Nev will be forced to write some more.