Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast that speaks an infinite deal of
nothing, more than any man in Venice.
Well, maybe not the only one.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Pete.
Conrad.
Well, we've reached that point of the series where we pop back in
time to help a famous historical figure, fight some monsters so
withered and so wild in their attire that look not like the
inhabitants of the earth and yet are on it.
Magic wands at the ready.
It's the Shakespeare code.
First script by Gareth Roberts, who had been writing Doctor Who
Stories since 1993 for the new adventures novels, but not his
first contribution for the new series.
He did write the TARD episodes last year, a book called I Am a
Dalek, Attack of the Grasp, which still isn't on DVD and Blu-ray
for some reason I can't readily understand.
And of course, the novel Only Human was his new series output up
till this point before Russell asked him to write about
Shakespeare.
So how'd he go?
Hey, went okay.
What do you guys think?
Doctor Who in a hurry?
Okay.
Goodbye.
So this is where we can really pay homage to Terence Dudley for
all his amazing work in reformatting, Doctor Who, because he's
invented the celebrity historical sort of.
I mean, okay, we've had them since Marco Polo sort of also, but
this is, I think, that I think is the 1st time we got a an alien
menace in the form of the master, spoilers, up against a
historical famous person.
It really gets ramped up here, doesn't it?
This is a theme park historical full on.
I think they're trying to go sort of one better on Mark Gatis's
The Unquired Dead. you know, where do you go from Dickens, I guess
I guess Shakespeare.
Yeah, and it's someone who is obviously on the national school
curriculum.
There's a real, um, have you guys got the horrible history series
out over there on TV?
It was books first.
Yes indeed.
That's hugely popular over here and it appeals to parents and kids
and it is, you know, exciting romps through the, oh, I said
romps.
Well, the 1st person in this episode say wrong.
Because this ain't the map.
Saint Bartholomew's Eve, is it?
No, Nathan likes this.
And yeah.
Horrible histories.
They really go full out.
It's historical figures as kids entertainment, and it focusses on
that thing of, hey, people in the past were actually kind of
similar to people you'd meet today, which is like an opposite take
that you what you'll sometimes get.
There's that opening sequence where we're seeing, we're shown how
surprisingly similar it is to modern concerns and things like that
which is a, it sets out the store straight away, I think, for the
kind of 42 minute ride that we're in for.
So immediately he's like a rock star, isn't he?
Like it's made very clear to us that this is popular entertainment
for the time.
And so we get an entire kind of giant computer duplicated crown in
the Globe Theatre, all of whom have really terrible teeth.
That's just...
Dolly.
I have to say Dolly's doing all right, though.
She keeps herself nice.
Yeah, no, there's some great sort of Elizabethan era veneers going
there, right?
I think Pete's right.
It's a theme park.
It does feel like theme park, Shakespeare, and sometimes it's as
though it's it often sort of fakes things where it doesn't need to
fake it.
For instance, when they 1st land and they have a lovely sequence
which, as you say, goes through the, oh, this is recycling.
This is a water cooler moment.
And that street is actually a real street in Warwick, which you
think, well, a fantastic location.
But they've dressed it so much.
It sort of looks like a set.
It's kind of odd.
It doesn't look like a location in the way that Talons of Wang
Triang looks like the streets really look like London sort of
cobble streets.
In a way, I mean, I sort of joke that it's docto in a hurry, but
it is going at such incredible speed.
The production itself.
You know, the fact they had to get into the globe overnight, you
know, and had an hour to set up after a production.
This is Dr. getting at really breakneck speed.
And sometimes it's interesting. kind of they do sort of theme park
things where actually there is a real, um, they could rely on the
real setting around them.
I don't know, that's just something they just kept cropping up as
I was watching it.
Yes, it's almost like, um, they want to make sure that whether you
tune in with the continuity announcer or if you tune in 30 minutes
into the episode, no matter what the 1st shot of the episode is
that you say, they want you to know this is around the year 1600
you know, this is 1599.
This is the 16, 17th century.
Yeah, they want you to know as soon as you see it, there can't be
any doubt.
And yeah, I agree with you there.
And especially sort of the whole thing is very sort of gold
tinted.
The lighting and the cinematography, and that's something that's
true of a lot of RTD era, Doctor Who, a lot of stories have a
particular colour and everything is tinted that colour. just
because you had you had 2 directors of photography, I believe, in
this era, who both were really fond of the use of colour as a
shorthand to say, this is where you are right now.
And indeed, one, I believe, Ernie Vince, if the TARDIS is sort of
green on the interior, it's only Vincent.
If it's gold, it's the other director of photography.
And Russell and the rest of the crew were fine with that.
It's like, yeah, well, you know, the TARTAs changed between
stories and panels got moved around in the classic series.
Okay, that's because it wasn't a standing set, but we can still do
this.
How many years did it take us to a group?
Which one was the door handle?
It was about 16 years, wasn't it?
Oh, that sounds about that.
Like, it really doesn't become the big red knob until Davidson, I
think.
Sorry, that's no way to talk about Peter Davidson.
So he wants to give it the experience of Shakespeare, not
necessarily.
The real thing, he wants to give the experience, and arguably, they
could have been there for 45 minutes.
They obviously weren't intending to go into this whole adventure
but feasibly, it would have been a 45 minute whistle stop tour.
Just have a look, just to get a flavour and a taste of it.
And that's sort of what this episode feels like.
It doesn't feel anything like, you know, the reality of witches so
that you get witch finders later.
It feels very much like a tourist whistle stop tour.
And Martha's fascinating character because she's our 1st new whose
1st replacement companion, isn't she?
She's the 1st time that we've got someone in the TARDIS now who
knows less about it than all the viewers do.
Whereas Rose was coming on with the new viewers and in meeting
this world now, when we're seeing a scene in the TARDIS between
the doctor and Rose, searching the doctor and Martha, oh, I'm
doing it now.
She's the, she's the rebound one and it's like, was that a good
idea?
Having Martha as his rebound person at this, because at the time
I'm really, I'm really liking Martha at this and I hadn't warmed
the 10th doctor at all at first.
I found that the thing with him and Rose was like, oh, we're
watching a series about an amazing man and the feelings that an
attractive woman gives him.
I've never seen that on TV.
Why not?
This from the start.
Verity Lambert really missed a trick.
And it didn't it didn't endear me to him.
And I only really started liking Tenet when he was paired up with
Donna.
She was the Tegan he needed all along.
And so going back, I like him more watching this episode now than
I did at the time because he is, if I can steal Conrad's words
show boating, and there's another word after that, that's the 4
letter word.
Sometimes.
You can only come once.
I'm taking you home, but yeah, look how awesome I am and all the
awesome stuff I can do.
Which doesn't endear me to him.
Yeah, I'll warn to him later.
But, yeah, I think Martha's Arc is an interesting one and it's
going to be interesting to see to listen through to you guys doing
this series and how she's dealt with and everything.
Yeah, I wasn't on last week's episode for Smith and Jones.
So I just, I just want to say I loved Martha from the beginning.
I thought she was...
Now, at the time, in 2006, I didn't pick up on the sort of
selfishness of Rose's character, which was deliberately there
deliberately put in by Billy Piper, until I saw Billy Piper say
that letter and went back and watched it, yeah, actually.
And something I love about Martha in contrast is that 1st scene
where she's walking along the street and she keeps stopping the
doctor and saying, but what about changing history?
What if I kill my grandad?
You know, what about I'm black?
Is that going to be a problem?
And, yeah, we come back to that years later with thin ice when
Bill has the same question and realises, actually, no, there's
black people in London, just like there is in the current day.
It's not really said in this episode, but it's the whole thing of
yeah, well, you know, historical films, everyone assumes history
was white.
There were black people in the past, but they didn't have equity
cards, so they can get cast.
They all had to be John Bennett.
Or Burt Quock.
So this episode drove me to go and do some further reading because
I do, um, history is what and Tudor history is one of my, um, one
of my hobbies.
I'm not qualified or anything, but I read a lot.
And I got a great book on my audible subscription called Black
Tudors, The Untold Story, where the academic who's written it has
gone through the evidence that's now available that wasn't really
easy to get hold of until just a few years ago of like parish
records and baptisms and weddings and things.
And I was identified a couple of 100 people, who definitely were
black migrants to Britain, and it's their baptisms, that are the
things that are now quite easier to track them by, because that
was how you pretty much became a citizen.
You couldn't get married or do anything in the 30 until you got
baptised.
There was no, it wasn't not so much of the multicultural, but it
was arriving and being accepted into part of a parish as a member
of it.
And she goes off and she writes, you know, I mean, there's people
doing all sorts of stuff.
And that they were slotted in to every tier of the class system, uh
depending on their background because at that point, modern racism
just hadn't, as we conceptualise it.
It just hadn't hadn't grown yet.
The slave trade is going off within the Spanish Empire, but
England hasn't got an empire yet, so it doesn't even, it doesn't
have the economic motive to really get stuck into that until the
horrors that came in the following century.
But at this point, um, there's probably a couple of 100 black
people in London out of a population of a couple of 100,000.
So yeah, people aren't going to be pointing, stopping and pointing
anyone who's got a different colour. face.
They would glimpse the people like that occasionally.
However, wearing a sleeveless top, probably...
And Shakespeare does comment on her clothes.
Like, you know, so it was so fine and fitted.
Can I just say I'm actually slightly irritated by the way the
doctor dismisses Martha's concerns about racism?
And it is just that he goes, oh, just sort of wander through and
pretend you own the place, and it's always worked for me, and it's
kind of like, oh, you know, and it feels like he's just
encouraging her as a junior doctor to be, this is how you be a
doctor, be just like me, which is that slight arrogance that you
kind of get.
Oh, end of that.
But it makes him, it's a very glib way of addressing the issue of
slavery.
Yeah.
Just do what I do.
Dude, you're white.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. exactly it.
Nobody puts it him and says, what the hell have you got in your
hair?
But, you know, we also had that, obviously, without the concern
for racism, but we also had that in Silver Nemesis when Ace sees
the queen and the doctor says, just act like we own the place.
I love that so much.
That's a brilliant scene.
So that's, of course, Chinese accent got better every episode.
This has been bugging me, baby, one of you can remind me.
This is with silver nemesis.
That is the story which also got an arrow in the TARDIS door and I
was just like, I remember it going in, but did he pull it out when
he got out of the door?
been bugging me.
Can anyone remember?
Well, the 7th doctor does.
Because, yeah, he pulls it out when he lands.
And I think next week in gridlock, they pull it out of the door as
well.
Had to watch that bit just to make sure he pulled it out.
These are little things that keep me awake for that.
You're quite right.
Maybe coronavores feast on them in the time corte.
Vortasors, surely.
Oh, that's the, that's what, yeah, yeah, that's what it meant.
What do we think about Shakespeare himself then?
It's very against type, isn't it?
I guess, you know, sadly, Beryl Reed wasn't available, so they've
gone for someone else.
Who's going to do it a bit different, not quite so down with the
kids as Beryl, but because he was a big deal at the time.
He was in Shameless on Channel 4, which was at that point at the
height of its cool countercultural thing where it came a bit of a
parody of itself later on.
Um, So I, I, I was like, oh, good, he's going to be in Doctor
Who.
But yeah, it's not really very Shakespeare.
I mean, they lampshaded, don't they?
Martha says that he doesn't look anything like his portraits and
then there's a line later about him scratching his head and him
being warned that if he keeps doing it, he'll go bald and then the
doctor gives him the rough so that he ends up eventually, you know
we imagine that he turns into the Shakespeare that we're familiar
from, you know, from our collected works volumes.
But here, it is that desire to make the past exactly the same as
the present and make him a rock star.
So he has to be a big, you know, buffy, attractive guy who steps
onto the stage and says, shut your big fat mouths.
If anything, I'd like him a bit earthier, to be honest.
I think this feels like another one of those instances where I
thought, and so they've chosen Dean Lennox Kelly, who, as you said
played, it was already had that character under his belt, has been
as rough and ready, guy, but I sort of think, I mean, I hadn't
actually seen Shameless.
So to me, I was like, oh, I know him.
He's from Shameless, so he comes with that, but he's not in
himself, an actually particularly rock and roll type of guy.
I'd prefer them to go even further and have someone who's, you
know, an East End sort of EastEnders or a Danny Dyer or someone
who's actually rough and gruff and you can imagine having Barbara
Rawls.
This guy is, it's sort of rough, rough, but he's kind of got
pretty hair and he's, he's a little sweetened over and I would
have actually liked him even rougher, but maybe that's just me.
Actually, I'm now imagining Danny Dyer playing the role and I
think that would have been hilarious.
You know what, wouldn't it?
like someone really kind of shockingly outrageously, you know, Noel
Gallagery, somebody really who's like, what is that person doing
on that stage?
Yeah, the one thing I, now, I am a devotee and follower of Mr. Dyer
over the years, but various, but his, yeah, the thought of him
attempting an even vaguely northern accent horrifies me.
They overshoot with Lennox Kelly and land him in Manchester, but
at least it's an attack.
I was too far north, but it is a good.
I think is this thing, which I just will keep going back to it.
I just think the speed of the production just means they go for
things which would signify something, but they don't necessarily
need to go for the real thing.
Yeah, there's nothing is done subtly here, is it?
No, it's just like, oh, this is what it was like.
Actually, who's a bit rock and roll?
Well hey, let's move on.
It doesn't you know, and that's fine.
That gives us nice closer to the truth because he would have been
a bar brawling.
Theatrical drunkard lout sometimes.
But again, it's just a little, is that, is that middle ground?
It gives you a tourist, sort of Doctor Who, and certainly Gareth
Roberts on his best behaviour, it slightly feels like.
Yeah, and well, you can kind of understand that being the 1st
chance he's got to write for the show proper, as it were.
Definitely.
Because this is, is this in between the Sarah Jane pilot and the
start of the 1st series?
Yeah, yeah.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
So that tone, that's got its own tone of, of, you know, fun
adventures with a hint of menace, but again, but not, um, never
bleak or dark.
And you can see this is coming from that same palette, isn't it?
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
And the other thing with Shakespeare sort of being, you know, young
and vivacious and very clearly he enjoys the company of the ladies
and the gentlemen, 52nd and academics just punch the air.
Well, all the portraits we have of Shakespeare do tend to come
from the last few years of his life.
Like, the Chandos portrait is 1610, and, you know, he's got very
much a receding hairline.
So I think they've they've cleverly chosen this 1599 time setting
to kind of go, a lot of what is known of Shakespeare is known
towards the end of his life.
Therefore, if we said it a bit earlier, we're not contradicting
much.
They've also made an effort not to contradict what we know of
Shakespeare from the classic series where the doctor refers to
having met him a few times.
Presumably that comes after this for Shakespeare.
And saw him on TV in the 1st episode of the Chase.
In the 1st episode of the Chase, yeah.
Time of the Daleks, he spends time with him as a boy, but you
could hand wave that and go, oh, yeah, well, you know, he was 10.
He forgot about that sort of thing.
Plus, that was a sort of weird Dalek time travel thing involving
mirrors.
So, you know, a wizard did it.
Yeah, I really enjoy Dean Lennox Kelly's performance here.
But yeah, now I'm imagining Danny Dyer, and I think I would have
enjoyed that even more.
I'm not saying they should have gone with something rougher, but
it's just interesting to note how this is treading the middle
ground. not going for full realism.
It's not going for the most cheesy version of it.
It's going for somewhere somewhere very broad in the middle and
which is right, I think, for doctor at the time.
And this came out.
This came out of the same month that the Tudors started with
what's his name, Reese Myers, as a very unconventional looking
Henry VIII.
And so that was obviously in the zeitgeist at the time, like that
hey, let's do history.
Like it's sexy and modern.
Casanova.
Of course, yeah, Casanova, whatever happened to him?
That guy who's doing a mockney accent in Casanova.
David Davison or something?
We actually talked about Casanova when we were doing Girl in the
Fireplace because one of our panel was sort of unhappy that the
past was a little bit too rock and roll and a little bit, you know
was not quite gritty enough, and it's clear that this version of
Doctor Who isn't really interested in sort of faithfully
recreating the past at all.
It's very appropriate for Shakespeare, because he used to
frequently pap his, his, uh, plays.
They were big mass crowd entertainment.
And I saw that sign for the elephant pub and I thought, I know
something about it, but he referenced it in 12th night.
He would, even though the 12th night set somewhere, Ilyria
somewhere completely made up.
There's a quote from it.
He says in the south suburbs at the elephant is best to lodge, you
know, shout out to the local pub and everyone would laugh, the
locals would get the joke and laugh.
So I think it's completely consistent with Shakespeare as well as
with Doctor Who, just to put to pull those the sublime and the
ridiculous and jam them together, you know.
Oh yeah, no, I mean, he has clock striking in Julius Caesar and
people wearing doublets and things.
Like, I mean, he really doesn't, you know, he himself doesn't care
about historical accuracy, sort of in any way at all.
No, just everything's happening in Italy because that's terribly
fashionable at the moment.
And we've got the props.
When I was a teacher and I had to teach Shakespeare.
The way I always got the kids in was by pointing out, yep, this is
a knob joke and they're like, what do you mean?
Shakespeare doesn't Shakespeare's posh.
Shakespeare doesn't do knob jokes.
I'm like, Shakespeare does no jokes.
What else do you think this is about?
Screw your courage to the sticking place.
What do you think she's talking about?
She's saying he's not a man?
He hasn't got he hasn't got a knob.
See, if you're on stage in Shakespeare, you know, it's obligatory
to just make sure they really understand that joke with a pelvics
thrust.
I read about Diana Rigg playing Lady Macbeth once.
And when she did the screw your courage.
Line, she stopped at screw your courage, looked down at Macbeth's
dick to the sticking place and then turned back out to the
audience. mock curtain down marvellous.
I'm going to the pub to breathe garlic on George Blaze and be
who's coming?
And finally, here we get we get the doctor in bed with a lady.
It's actually really painful to watch that scene, I think.
And he is really super horrible.
Like, really extraordinarily horrible to her.
And I think probably next week that will pay off a bit and things
will calm down.
But there's that moment where he actually just says to her, Rose
would have known the right thing to say at this point. you know
just openly dismissing her.
And it's it's really, you know, it's pretty unpleasant.
Yeah.
Now, the thing is, I'm I'm quite famously, um, not ignorant.
What the word?
sort of blissfully unaware if anyone finds me attractive, you know
like my partner and I will go out to a bar and will leave and Rod
will say, oh, you know, that guy in the blue shirt was checking
you out.
And I was, oh, was he?
Oh, I thought he was just squinting, you know.
So I watched this, I watched this scene and it's like, even I
could not be this blissfully unaware that that Martha was
attracted to me. you know it's obvious.
It's very hard to read.
What we supposed to be thinking is going on in this man, our
hero's mind?
And I showed this to my partner last night and he said, who is
this scene for?
Who's enjoying this scene?
Where are we supposed to be?
And he sort of said, he just went, oh, teenage girls who've got a
crush on David Tennant?
And I was like, well, perhaps the way the audience went at the
time?
Perhaps it is for people to go through that.
But I, I, it's really difficult to position, anybody in this scene
where is the doctor?
and I've to, I mean, there's, it's kind of, for someone being
blissfully unaware.
I sort of remembered, you know, unrequited love was on the 7th
doctor's list of the 5 things he hated the most.
Yes.
And I was like, have you, obviously the doctor can change hugely
between regenerations, but have you really forgotten the very
thing you hate the most along with bus stations and tyranny?
Where's the doctor in this scene?
And where are we?
It's one of the most disorientating scenes in Doctor Who for me.
And she's known him about 3 hours, um, like, uh, well, because
they had the previous story together and then they split up and
then he just pops up and she jumps in the TARDIS with him.
So it also makes her seem a bit.
I mean, to be that swooney over someone.
I think we spoke about that last week, that there's there is
something, I think, sort of unpleasant and ill judged to have her
kind of react the way she does to the sort of biotransfer kiss
thing in Smith and Jones.
And I guess it's kind of shorthand, and this is Doctor Who, and
there's too many sort of rhinos running about the place to kind of
go into their developing relationship or something.
But I do think that it is all a bit sudden.
And you kind of wonder exactly why Russell chose to go there.
Yeah, I guess it's setting it up in time for getting ahead of
ourselves.
Um, the, uh, the 2 parter with, that I've forgotten the name of
the family of blood.
By that point, he wants her to already be in love with the doctor
which makes her not being able to really help him more tragic.
So that's why at this point we're rushing so quickly into it.
That's my sort of production room explanation as to why they leap
at it like this so quickly.
It feels very unfortunate, but luckily Martha gets to do some cool
stuff later on in the episode and it feels like she's regaining
some of something that she's, I think this attitude, this scene.
It's a very big scene in the film in the episode or other.
And it takes quite a while to regain dignity and independence from
this bizarre moment of being in bed with this not hugely pleasant
person, as a huge, as a big positive sign, and a big positive.
In the 1st draft, he was supposed to strip down to his underwear
and leap into bed, which was supposed to sort of pinpoint his
obliviousness of it.
And it's interesting.
One doctor later, and that would have worked.
If Matt Smith had gone right, Jim Jam's time, you know, and just
taken his clothes and leapt into bed, it would have seemed comical
and light, and he would have seen him oblivious.
I mean, I think David Tennant quite rightly was against that
because this doctor is, if he's aware of nothing else, it's how
attractive he is.
So again, it feels odd that he suddenly can't notice because he's
always winking and saying how sexy he is.
Yeah, and we've been through what he's, we've seen the emotions
that he went through with Rose.
This is not the 1st time he's met a human female.
Yeah, it's weird.
Odd one.
Yeah.
And like you say, I do like that Martha, and I don't think it's
even a reaction to his rejection, but Martha takes a very
proactive role in trying to solve the mystery.
Absolutely Yeah.
Yeah, I like that it's not her trying to get him to notice her.
It's just she's contributing.
Although it does have that effect.
It does have that effect like, oh, Martha Jones, I like you.
Yeah, yeah.
Once they're in the globe and they're sort of theorising about
what's going on, and she starts to do what she had done last week
which is be clever and, you know, work out what the rules are, and
then he starts to notice that.
Yeah, she's enjoying having an adventure as well as crushing on
him so that, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, one of the moments I really like her in, even though
it doesn't end too well for her, is when she does the naming of
the Carrionite thing, and it doesn't work, and she turns around
and says, what did I do wrong?
Was it the finger?
It's a very sort of scientific methodology from this from this
junior doctor because when the doctor says I name the carrier and
I, he's not pointing.
So she does the point because, you know, that's a big dramatic
thing.
And so she kind of goes, okay, what did I do wrong?
Was it the point?
You know, it's just very subtle expressions of her intelligence
not just as an adjunct of the doctor, but having her own thought
processes.
I wonder if she's the 1st human companion who's got a degree.
That's just suddenly struck me.
She's obviously been to, she's obviously already got a degree and
is now studying for a doctorate to become a doctor.
Does that put her...
She had lots of degree.
But Liz isn't a companion.
What?
The doctor is her doctor.
No, Liz is a companion.
I have to say that all get letters.
Okay, I'll reprase that.
But it's uncommon.
Particularly when we, yeah, particularly with a young, young
companion for them to be someone who's actually gone to uni.
Yeah, and a stark contrast for rose.
Yes.
Yeah, and she's middle. mean, she's middle class.
That's the, this is, after the, having a, the 1st proper uh
working class companion for a long time, um, Ace's, Ace's position
in the British class system is a fascinating one to go into.
We like to claim she's upper middle class. upper middle class
rebel.
I mean, going back to, you know, why did Russell go for this
unrequited love angle?
I think that, you know, that might actually be tied up with Martha
being from a more, and I say this, not ironically, upper middle
class background, and, you know, she's a young professional.
She's got a degree, she's training to become a doctor.
Yeah, no, Clive's got a nice car and everything.
Yeah, yeah. quite well off.
They're quite well off.
And I do wonder if it's kind of the Peter Davidson Colin Baker
kind of transition in that Russell sat down and wrote down all the
things Rose wasn't, and that's the character we're going to have.
So instead of having a companion who is in love with the doctor
and the doctor's in love with her, will have the companion in love
with the doctor, but the doctor's not in love with her.
Bam, that'll be a great idea.
And then they seem to realise around the, around the point of
human nature family of blood.
We may have over-gged this slightly.
They do start walking it back, I think.
Because I was pitying at that point for being stuck in that
situation and it's like, this has been done successfully, but was
it a clever thing to do?
Yeah.
I mean, you're still having a companion in relation to her love
she's defined by her love for the doctor, which is, again, I think
a good way to have gone opposite rose is to have someone who, you
know, like Donna, who has no interest at all in love with a doctor
apart from as a mate.
Yeah, yeah.
I think they're still enamoured with the idea that they have
someone sexy like David Tennant in the role for the 1st time and
they just don't want to waste it or something.
Yeah, and they've realised the British population are in love with
David Tennant, so why on earth wouldn't Martha be?
And even, you know, in a few weeks time, Tish is going to be quite
taken with him as well.
You know, she's going to pass a comment on how attractive he is.
So it's almost Austin Powers-ish, you know, these women being
attracted to the doctor.
Like, you know, he walks into a room, being a giant string beam
with ridiculous hair, and a Dick Van Dyke cockney accent, and a
nice suit, and I wondered where that was going.
And all the women just fall over.
And you're right.
I think when Catherine Tate arrives on the scene.
That why it's so refreshing that she's just like, okay, you get a
paper cut.
Oh, no, and they are, I mean, they're definitely kind of walking
it back in partners in crime.
They absolutely have that scene which is just the message to the
audience that we're not doing that schmoopy love stuff anymore.
Yeah.
I really cheer that.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, the thing is, I suppose my defining attitude towards
Martha is I adore her in spite of the romance, not because of it.
Yeah, and her moments of brilliance are absolutely brilliant.
I think that when she says, oh, there's 14 lines in a sonnet, that
really pings out as one of the cleverest cues in the whole thing
to the point where I almost wish that was the big discovery.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I just swapped the unrequited love bed scene for Marfa
hitting the books and then going, 49's in a sonnet. bang, you know
that would have been, that's my money's worth right there.
I also really adore the way that she reacts to Shakespeare as well
you know, and it starts with that sort of weird thing where it
could go either way because he's being kind of, you know, a bit
racist or whatever.
But the way that she reacts to it with just the kind of rye
amusement.
And she's sort of, you know, she's sort of flattered and stuff
like that.
But here's someone that she isn't bowled over by.
Yeah, it's taking it in a stride, isn't it?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, respectful of, but not awed by.
She's amused by it in a way, I think.
And her acting his kiss at the end saying, by the way, mate, no
fancy breasting.
Yeah, I mean, that's what...
It's lovely to see a story where she doesn't, in the same story
where she goes, actually, no, not my type, but that's great.
Yeah.
And, you know, in an early draft, she does kiss him and the doctor
interrupts, but again is totally oblivious to, you know, what is
this?
And yeah, I'm so glad, as you say, comrade, that they didn't go
for her kissing Shakespeare, you know, because she she, there is
someone that she's going to kiss later on in this season that
feels a lot more appropriate for that, for that moment.
But yeah, here it just wouldn't, it wouldn't quite have felt right
because we do establish, and I believe there is some historical
evidence for that Shakespeare liked the ladies, you know?
Well, it's back 57 academics, isn't it?
You know, I don't like that 57 academics comment.
That really, I keep thinking about that, and that, who is he
saying it to?
What 57 academics?
Is that actually in there with Merry Christmas to all of you at
home?
Because he is, it can only be the people at home.
Yeah, yeah.
It's not just an aside.
He's specifically referring to the way the audience must be
reacting to having seen that line of dialogue.
There's no other.
Yeah.
And the theory that Shakespeare may have been what we would call
these days bisexual, um, comes down to there's a series of sonnets
that scholars argue whether they are dedicated to a woman or
whether they're dedicated to a young man.
Mr. WH all happiness.
That's the that's at the front of the sonnets, and shall I compare
thee to a summer's day is written to a young man?
Oh, but oh, well, I thought, shall I compare these to a Summer's
Day was part of the Dark Lady series. which is why the doctor
reacts the way he does. when Shakespeare starts spouting that
off.
The doctor's like, 0 my god, these poems are about Martha.
I have to say that I think that the treatment of actual kind of
Shakespeare's kind of talent and writing is super annoying.
All right.
Yeah.
And it's partly that sort of, you know, like I kind of I'm on
board with the idea that he's sort of superhumanly kind of
sensitive to the way other people are feeling and that he's sort
of very intelligent and stuff.
But just this sort of, he's a great towering genius, the like of
which has never been seen.
I think it's just part of that English heritage theme park
approach.
It's key stage 4 curriculum as well.
Just for God's sake, if they've heard of one playwright. try and
make sure they've heard of Shakespeare and they just build him up
and build him up and build him up to try and make sure he gets
remembered.
Yeah, and I'm calling him the one true genius.
I mean, it's just not true in any way, but always had the right
words in the right movie.
He absolutely didn't.
You know, he co-wrote these plays with people.
There's a great book which I will sort of linked to at the end, but
Emma Smith, who is the professor of Shakespeare studies at Oxford
has just released a fantastic book called This is Shakespeare
which just cuts through and breaks down all of this sort of
mystique around him.
And she says the most over, if there's one thing, Shakespeare, when
an overriding quality of Shakespeare, in his work, it's his
gappiness, the inconsistencies, the ambiguity, the incompleteness
that's, she argues that that's what makes him interesting.
That's what makes it accessible.
This stuff isn't finished.
It isn't perfect.
It raises far more questions and it answers and it's deeply
imperfect.
So, but what's interesting is, as I agree with Nathan, I think
this sort of Shakespeare is, wow, he's the best, he's the great.
Again, that's a really speedy tourist guide way through it.
But I also think it's quite interesting because the doctor and
Shakespeare in this are often complimenting each other on who's
the genius.
And I'm never quite sure whether this, whether we're supposed to
leave with the doctors sort of applauding him going, wow, you're
the one.
You're the genius, and then frequently Shakespeare's saying to him
again, wow, doctor, I thought I was clever.
You are the one.
They can't really decide who the one true genius is.
The answer is it's neither of them.
I think, and and just the nicest, just neatest summary I could
give you from this book, Emma Smith wrote, was that she personally
sees somewhere straight as Shakespeare that you could have a drink
and a good conversation with rather than someone you should bow
down before, and I feel the same about Shakespeare and the
doctor.
Certainly, as well.
There's really not, you know, there are nods to the things that
people know about Shakespeare, you know, the famous lines and all
of that.
It's almost like he's been sort of quote mining Shakespeare or
gone to the sort of Shakespeare desk calendar and sort of picked
the things that, you know, that everyone remembers.
And I think when we see some dialogue from Love's Labours won.
It's terrible.
Like it's shockingly bad.
Can I just say about Love's Labour's Lost, though.
The actual play.
It's it's not. terribly highly regarded in Shakespeare's works.
It's actually a favourite of mine.
So I really enjoyed that episode for this reason.
But yeah, even there, some of the dialogue in it is quite clunky.
It's kind of a, it's like Shakespeare wrote a carry-on. is what
loves Labour's Lost is.
In in...
Having lost things in my head by now.
But, you know, in terms of tone, it's quite similar to 12th night
except for the ending.
So, yeah, the ending of 12th night, of course.
Spoiler alert, um, has Malvolio turn up and say, I'm going to get
revenge on all you naughty people for having me locked up in a
mental asylum, whereas Love's Labours one ends with, um, so for
those for those listeners who don't know the plot, you've got the
King of Navarre and his 3 lords, and they decide they're going to
swear off women, so they can study and better themselves.
And just as they do that, the princess of France turns up with her
3 ladies in waiting and the play revolves around all 4 of each
side couple up and try and hide their relationship from the other
three.
And the play then ends with, you know, a big dance, the guys get
the girls, but then there's a message, the king of France is ill
and the princess must go home, and that's where the sequel would
pick up, and we have the actor, Dick, who is meant to be Richard
Burbage, walk onto stage and say, you know, when we last left our
fair lovers in the kingdom of Navarre, et cetera, et cetera, et
cetera.
There is a Love Zipers one, though.
Like it's mentioned in a list of Shakespeare's plays by someone.
If Google hasn't lied to me.
No, that is that is true.
Yeah.
And I think calling the sequel, Love's Labour's one, that was just
asking for trouble.
I presume there was a Love Labours 2, which would be the 3rd one.
Loves Labour's Tokyo Drift.
Everyone just got really annoyed and been there, which I think is
the, is the explanation that certain theatrical types might
believe is, even if Shakespeare even existed.
That loves Labor's one.
Love's Labour's one was the working title for this, which wouldn't
have worked on any level, especially not martyrs.
No, yeah.
Yeah, nobody wins any labours of love in it.
That's good point.
I think Shakespeare code is a good.
Again, that's a really good...
I mean, the Kath and Kim code was massive.
It was great.
Picking up on just a year later.
Yeah, it's unusual.
Unusual.
Australian podcast.
Jeez.
That was great.
You sound more Australian than I do.
Yeah, the other working title for this, when they decided not to
do Love's Labours one as a title.
And it was never serious, but it was just, you know, we need
another title right now.
Theatre of Doom.
I love that.
You know, what else can you expect from the co-writer of the one
doctor and bang, bang, boom.
Magic and witches, uh, carry on ites, uh, which is not...
That would be a fun story.
But, yeah, well, we've talked for quite a long time without
actually mentioning the plot yet.
Does that say something for the importance of the plot to this
particular episode that it's almost, uh, not my afterthoughts
being unkind, but it's so much about here.
We are doing Shakespeare.
Like, oh, and there's some evil witches.
Is the plant, they have a bit of a dance.
It's all as funny and thought provoking as usual.
That's basically it, isn't it?
Pretty much.
Yeah, I have to say, you know, that is the line.
Like, it's, they have a bit of a dance, you know, it's always
thought provoking as usual.
That is the line, getting back to what you guys were saying
earlier, about how Shakespeare is elevated to this sort of deity
of literature when, by modern standards, he was riding EastEnders
and there is nothing wrong with EastEnders, but he wasn't in his
time writing something incredibly highbrow.
He was writing populist fiction.
You know, and that line is what brings home, you know, to
Shakespeare.
These are just words.
He he thinks he's clever and he believes he's clever, but he
doesn't believe that he's right, you know, he's writing the best
thing that ever lived.
Yeah, and I'm kind of glad that they didn't bring him forward to
the present day and take him around a gift shop to show him how
wonderfully he'll be remembered.
I know that there's always a temptation to do that and that's a
bit too knowing for me.
Yeah, it worked in Vincent and the doctor, but yeah, I think here
or even on Quiet Dead.
It just would have been, you know, pointless.
Yeah, and you can have all the feelings about this person and
their legacy by just seeing them in full flow and doing it.
I don't necessarily need to be to have them dragged into the
present day to know that, but that's fun too, of course, but yeah
and it's interesting.
It's good that they picked Shakespeare at a point where he's
absolutely at the height of his powers. and his popularity.
So the doctor and him doing the jokey bit about doing quotes of
each other, works without it being sort of anachronistically
patronising to him.
Whereas, for example, H.G. Wells, was apparently a complete
bumbling idiot until he got to see the wonders of Carful and was
given all those ideas to put in all his books.
Now, talk about Dog 2 titles.
My time does have coughed.
My timelash sequel is called the cover, what you wish for, and
it's coming to big finish.
Okay, I want that.
So be careful what you wish for.
Be careful what you wish for.
There you go, it's a box set.
With Anna Hope's novice haim.
Wow.
Actually, Danny Dyer is the borat.
I'm really...
You know, I have to say my favourite quote is the Sicorax one
which I think is sort of terribly good.
Yeah, yeah.
This reminds me of a sicker act.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that he goes back and uses that in The Tempest.
Yes.
There you go.
I've been trying to think about the Carrionites.
I'm just trying to get my head around what I think of them.
I think when I 1st remember this episode.
I was like, nah, fairly generic witches.
And the monsters, I didn't quite quite get there.
And I've been, I think I've revised it seeing it since because I
actually really enjoyed.
I really enjoyed Christina Cole as Lilith.
I think she did a fantastic job of doing both parts, incredibly
well, and they all did through these huge masks.
I think, you know, the performances of the witches are great.
But as monsters, they didn't quite grab me and I like a monster.
And when they mentioned that cicarette line.
And later on, Lilith said it's all blood and magic.
I thought, oh, this, in another life, this could have been a
Sicorax story.
I would have loved that.
I'd love to see the full part version of this, because I think
here we get episode one and then episode four of a four-parter.
All of the stuff in the middle about, there's a lovely line about
them having been banished by the Eternals.
So it was actually Linda Barron, who...
Steinline.
And I want to see that too, big finish.
I want to see that on stage.
That was on pick.
Yeah.
Um, and um, can you have your hands on your hips and your legs
akimbo at the same time?
Oh, yeah. sure you can.
Obligatory.
What was it going?
Oh, yeah.
So, yeah, all that filling in. you know, so here we are.
We're just some witches And it's taken Doctor Who a hell of a long
time to do some actual chromie witches, hasn't it?
We've had the fantastic Miss Hawthorne, but in a completely
different genre.
But this is the 1st time we've had evil cackling, witches in
Doctor Who, brackets, but actually it's science.
Um, and I don't know, is that because I think, I don't know, maybe
in the past, they were seen as being too much of a baddie from a
kiddies show and let's not go there or just there's no way that
you could dress this up as science.
They don't really dress it up as science, do they?
Not much.
Absolutely not.
No, no, no.
It doesn't...
I mean, when you describe sort of science of affecting the world
through the use of words.
I mean, that's magic, you know..
Yeah, yeah, but that's magic as well.
I mean, you know, those things are magic and Doctor Who has always
done magic and always kind of papered over it with a few badly
chosen words of techno babble, and this continues that great
tradition, I think.
Yeah, it's a bit like in the Damons where the doctor says, no, no
it's not magic.
It's a clever building of psionic energy in order to revive a
thing that looks like the devil.
Miss Hawthorne says, that's magic.
Yeah, no.
Well, she's right.
She's right.
And it is psychic energy, which is a thing, but of course that's
magical and there's some sort of hint towards them being terribly
old.
So perhaps the normal rules don't apply or whatever.
But they are sort of kids TV show Witches.
And that's absolutely not a criticism.
Yeah, again, it comes back to something, you were saying earlier
Pete, about the speed of production means if you're going to have
witches, they have to look like stereotypical witches.
I think their thought is, at the same time, if you're going to
hire Christina Cole, then you're going to have her sometimes
looking like Christina Collins, sometimes looking like the
stereotypical witch.
So... get it on screen Yeah, yeah, we pay.
Yeah, we paid for that face.
Get it on screen.
I mean, yeah, and if it was a longer story, that'd probably be a
reveal or something, you know.
You know, I almost never wanted to be a longer story.
I'm kind of done with it after 42 minutes, I have to say.
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, then we'd all be sitting around saying cut it back to 2
episodes and it would be much snappier.
I mean, that's the thing.
I feel this is one story that, um, and possibly because I watched
this back-to-back with gridlock this week.
This feels very lightweight, and I'm not saying that as a
pejorative, I think it's a matter of it sets out with a very clear
intention of we're going to tell a story with Shakespeare and some
witches and it achieves it.
Yeah, it's gonna be a romp.
It's going to be a romp.
It doesn't, because it goes at such speed.
It doesn't stand up to scrutiny, that 1st locations that I
mentioned being, oddly, they should have just left it where
actually this went, right, we dress things and they sort of turn
it into a set.
And similarly, and this is a tiny, tiny, uh, niggle at why you, it
probably doesn't really bear up to too many rewatchings or too
much scrutiny, but the one thing that really bugs me, the witches
costumes, you would sort of imagine, oh, they wore rags.
But if you actually look at them, they are perfectly cut out.
They're all wearing identical. perfectly cut out feathered things
that have no purpose other than to look like witches right.
They are Halloween costume.
And it's like rags aren't that hard to make.
You know, you can...
But again, I think it's just, I don't want to sound critical, but
I just think because it's going at such speed, I think they just
go, right, witches costumes, bam, and it's this, I think generic
is an interesting the genericness of the witches and the
genericness of the streets and the genericness of a rock and roll
Shakespeare.
They're all very, very, it's just, it's just all done for speed
and I think there's nothing wrong with that.
I think when we 1st see the Tardar scene at the beginning, they're
zooming around.
She's like, how does this work?
He goes, it doesn't matter. lets get out of here.
And they, by the time they leave, they're leaving faster than the
speed of the, you know, of an arrow.
It's incredibly fast.
Sorry, to keep going back to it.
But that little detail really bugged me.
I was like, did you not...
Well, wasn't wasn't this the most expensive episode to date when
it was made, I think, partly because of all the night shooting and
getting down to London's the globe.
But and then Northern Night Shooting in Warwick and then a hell of
a lot of CGI as well.
So for an episode that's not a big, you know, it's not a bookend
episode.
They did certainly push the boat out on it.
I mean, as you say, maybe two, maybe more than they needed to.
Yes, sometimes like, actually, you've got everything here.
You can just use it.
And I think the last one of these points are going to make is it's
the actual globe itself, they do a brilliant job of recreating.
I mean, I think the fact that they get 50 sporting artists and
make them into 1500 is brilliant.
But I was like, I just wish if they'd had a little more time.
The globe is a 360 degree space and I would have loved it if they
could have just got a handheld, gone through the door and given a
360, I feel they could have done that with a bit more time because
it's fully there.
Again, I just feel like I'm niggling.
But if there was more time or if they were going to do this in a
different way, there's just a more settled, grounded, real, realer
version of this story there, for another day, maybe.
Yeah.
What did the Carrionites do to the people that they get?
Are they actually eating them?
Are they what is?
I was listening very, very carefully to the noise, like to the
sound in the opening scene.
We may attack Wiggins, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
And it does sound awfully like sort of popping bones and things.
I think they're, you know, they're probably ripping them apart and
eating them.
I do wonder if it's for their DNA replication modules.
Well, you can just chop some hair.
You know, you don't have to eat a whole person.
And then who are you going to do your voodoo on if you've eaten
them?
And it's not like they have floss.
I just thought perhaps, you know, as with all these ancient
creatures from the ancient dawn of time, perhaps they've all got
the Fenrick lean.
You know, you can lean over somebody and you can really give them
a nasty lean. leaner.
That was all sort out.
A soldier.
What a way to go.
I don't mean.
And I read somewhere that there was a decision fairly early on
they were considering going with the fairies from Midsummer
Night's Dreamers being the baddies, doing magic on you, you know
and doing magical tricks and things on you.
And then they decided that, oh, let's do witches, which is a more
fun, or possibly just more inherently a bit more spooky.
But so that was on the cards at one point.
And it would have been another choice would have been, you know
there are witches in a Shakespeare play.
There is, you know, there's there's an argument to say that the
monsters or the threat could come out of an actual play and
certainly in The Tempest and also Henry V, they conjure up
storms.
You know, a character conjures up a storm during it.
So again, there's just another, there's a 1000000 ways of telling
doctor 2 stories, but in another, in another world, there's one
where they just use what's really there, you could use the real
Shakespeare play.
You could use all around the globe.
You could use a real location, you could use real racks.
There's another authentic way of doing this, but I think like the
witches, they're not trying to do an authentic version.
They're trying to do a lovely tour.
Give Martha and the audience a tourist experience of a whistle
stop tour.
That's what I kept coming back to, I think.
Well, dear listener, that's all we have time for this week.
We'll be back next week for a quick drive over to new New Brooklyn
in gridlock.
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts
and you can keep up with us at flightsthroughentirety.com, flight
through entirety on Facebook and at FTE podcast on Twitter.
You can also find our series 11 flashcast, Jody Interterra, at
Jody Interterra.com, and at Jody Interterra on Twitter, and our
James Bond commentary podcast, bondfinger at bondfinger.com, at
bondfinger on Facebook, and at bondfingercast on Twitter.
Where can people find you, Pete?
I'm on Twitter as well.
My name there is very Pete Lambert, and the handle is Prof
underscore quite a mess.
Brilliant.
And we'll put the link up, obviously, in the show notes, and
Conrad, where can people find you?
Yeah, I'm on Twitter at Hair of the Hound. underscore.
And I also just wanted to recommend this book by Emma Smith called
This is Shakespeare, which is a good digestible, no nonsense guide
to Shakespeare.
Also, I think it's worth saying.
I would also like to link to Julian and Sandy's boner bookshop
which is One of the best treatments of Shakespeare I've ever
heard.
I forgot to do mine.
And I picked it deliberately to make me seem clever, so I'm going
to, it's, but it is a really good, she's written an academic
called Miranda Kaufmann has written a really good book called
Black Tudors, The Untold Story, and it's like short biographies of
10 people who actually has tracked and covering everything.
There's musicians, there's sailors, someone who went off on cap
with Captain Cook's voyage and things like that.
And it's a real eye opener about how the world was divided up on
very different lines in those days.
Brilliant.
Awesome.
We'll put links to those in the show notes.
And thank you very much for joining us, both of you tonight.
Thank you, chaps.
Thank you, and thanks to James and Todd for letting us
understudy.
Yeah, you can let them out of that.
Quiet.
Until next time, what heaven more will that thee may furnish and
my prayers pluck down fall on thy head.
Farewell.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
That was Flight 3 Entirety, starring Nathan Bodley, Brendan Jones
Pete Lambert and Conrad Westmers.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb, Stringth Performance by Jane
Orberg.
This episode, it's neither of them, was recorded on the 4th of
August 2019 and released on the 22nd of September.
If, like Brendan, you would like to see attack of the grass
released on DVD, and of course you would, please keep an eye on
our Twitter feed for details of our upcoming nighttime protest
march on number 13 Bannerman Road, Ealing.
Or is it number 21?
Yeah, I wonder whether we, that's a really strong comment to end
it on.
To hit the Tartar song, yeah.
I think that's probably it then.
Yeah.
Do we need to talk about the end?
It's terribly boring.
Oh, well, no, you know, we've, yeah, they all get sucked into the
thing.
Yeah.
I love the applause at the end from the audience.
It's a bit well, it is very 4th wallbreaker, but at the same time
it's like, that's nice.
It's a really great moment.
The music stops and the music which had kind of interrupted Carrie
Knight's 1st appearance, which kind of bugged me a bit because I
really wanted a big monster reveal and the music just, it doesn't
really bother the music too much.
I love the fact that music stops and you just hear this one clap.
And it's a, it really feels like the glow.
It's great And Conrad's too modest to mention that he has trod
those boards himself, of course.
I have, I did.
I did, I did. year after this was out.
I unbelievably got a gig at Shakespeare's Globe in Romeo and
Juliet.
So I've been on that stage and all check, when I watched the, uh
watched it.
I thought they did a really good job of, of, I mean, that's really
really what it looks like.
If you look down, you see the groundlings, as they're called, the
people standing up, sort of leaning on the stage, if you look up
and as far left and far right, you can just see people.
That's why they, and they often give it the all to worlds a stage
thing.
Your actors are encouraged to use the space as the world.
So when the Carrionites say they're going to take over the world.
That's really nice because the globe was often used as the world
here.
When you refer to the heavens, you look up at the sky and you just
deal with whatever's there.
So it's lovely that elementals faced.
I was reading the, is it the Henry the 5th chorus, which says this
would know and where the chorus comes forward and encourages the
audience to regard this building, this very building as a place
where, you know, 2 empires are fighting, well, not 2 empires, 2
kingdoms are fighting over something.
You know, this is the whole world.
Yeah.
Yeah, it is immersive.
You are in you're in this experience.
Who did you play, Conrad?
I gave my Friar Lawrence.
Wow.
Yeah, that's fantastic.
So it was all your fault.
Yes, it was.
So here's some great advice for you.
Me and the nurse...
I did I was quite curious.
I wanted to see how many doctors actors had been on, been at the
globe or done Shakespeare.
I had a quick whiz through and Hartnell and Trouton obviously had
done tons of Shakespeare, although the actual globe wasn't
reconstructed by then.
Are they that old?
Yeah, exactly.
With the original, with the opening production.
And Tom Baker famously gave his Macbeth, which apparently brought
the house down, as he likes to say.
Sylvester McCoy, actually, probably has the biggest, one of the
biggest, sort of Shakespeare histories as playing a full, playing
lots of fools, but particularly uh, uh, with, with, with Kim
Lear.
Yeah, Ian McCellen.
But in McCall, I saw that.
I saw it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I live just up the road from Stratford and get down there quite
often to see stuff, Shakespeare stuff.
What's there?
And yeah, he played the spoons a lot, which is not part of the
text, but he was good.
He was well cast and they were a good, they were a good pairing.
So, and because the fool is such a tragic character, then, and
disappears mysteriously, and they made it less mysterious via the
staging.
It was Yeah, it was really good in that.
That did come here.
The 2 of them came here and did it.
Yeah, T went to see it.
No, and I think, is this the story?
Like, and Todd Sylvester.
No, no, like...
One story at a time.
Okay, so Todd, so Todd went to the production here and he may have
had to fly to Melbourne to do it or something.
Yes, yes, it was only in Melbourne.
But he was speaking to Sylvester afterwards because Todd used to
organise our conventions here and so he knows everyone.
And he asked, I think Sylvester asked him what he thought of Ian
McCellen, but at some point, Sylvester said, oh, there was
something about McCellen getting naked and Sylvester said he's a
big boy, isn't he?
Yeah, well, what happens is there's, I think it's during the
blowwind crack your foul cheeks scene.
Which hadn't thought of that.
But, sort of, Lear comes to the front of the stage and he's
screaming at the storm and it's meant to be kind of an Adir of his
madness.
And the way they decided to do it was McKellen would flop it out.
Well, basically, as he was standing there, his trousers would
fall.
Oh, okay.
And the king wouldn't pick them up.
The fool would come in and pick them up.
So Silver's like, every night. and face to face.
With mini Gandolf.
I managed to get front row seats to that and also to see Gisette
Simon as Cleopatra, which had a very similar...
Can we touch you?
I, I, I'm almost as closely affiliated to dessert Simon as I am to
my own mother.
As a result of the scene where she's getting out of a bath in
that.
Yeah, yeah, you really do see some sights.
Oh brilliant.
Okay, I think that's our tag.
Yes, yes.
It's all staying in.
So we're going to do our outro.