Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day 614: Snakedance, Episode Three

Dear diary,

There’s a point in The Writer’s Tale where Russell T Davies talks about the way that you need to keep ‘turning’ characters to make them feel real. You’ll have to forgive me for quoting two passages from the book in today’s entry, but they’re vital to the point I’m making:

”I suppose I do know already what [a character] would do in given circumstances… with the proviso that anyone can do anything in any circumstance. You should never mark out a character so formally that their reactions are fully defined, because none of us is like that; we’re slightly different every day, with different people, with each different mood. You have to keep turning characters in the light.”

A little while later, during rewrites on The Fires of Pompeii, Davies discusses the way in which he takes an original introduction to the character Quintus as being ‘sullen’, and uses that as a springboard for ‘turning’ the character:

”A lot of my rewrite consisted of turning him, like a barbecue, making sure that he’s cooked all the way through. In my rewrite, he’s sullen and hung over when he first appears, but then he deepens as he defends his sister before his parents, then greedy when the Doctor offers him money to take him to where Lucius lives, then as scared as a little kid when they break in to Lucius’ quarters, then brave when he throws the burning torch at the soldiers to escape Lucius, then magnificent back at the Caecilius’ villa, when he kills the Pyrovile with a bucket of water. And then he’s transformed at the end: the sullen youth has become a Doctor himself, the image of his hero. That’s what I mean by turning. No one is fixed. They’re all capable of change - not just once in some plot-reveal, but all the time. They become more distinct by allowing them a fuller life.”

I think this is the best example of what makes Christopher Bailey’s work on the series all the more wonderful - he manages to ‘turn’ characters more than many writers in the classic era manage to do. Take Lon in this story, for example. He get’s to be more rounded than some companions have been over several stories. When he first appears in this tale, he’s the epitome of the spoiled, arrogant youth. He’s waiting for his father to die so that he can be the one with all the power. He has no interest in the history of the world he will one day rule, as has little time for there people, unless he can effectively make them dance for him to keep himself amused.

It’s a good introduction for a character - it’s a role that we know well enough from all kinds of fiction, and I dare say most of us know of real-life people who share a similar attitude to Lon here. The character then begins his process of turning in the second episode, when the owner of the hall of mirrors comes to fetch him. Lon’s reaction to being ‘summoned’ is initially to find it somewhat amusing, before becoming curious as to exactly what’s going on. By the time he enters the hall of mirrors, to find Tegan staring deep into once, he’s actually become scared. There’s something very telling about the way he cautiously enters the darkened tent, and tries to make contact with her, completely devoid of the pomposity and self-belief which has defined him until now.

Once he’s been taken under the possession of the Mara, he’s back to largely being the boy he was to begin with, using his status to make other people run around and fetch what he needs, but it’s his sudden interest in history which has started to make people question him. I think it’s this kind of character work which makes both this story and Kinda feel a little bit more special than several of the other ones around them. Bailey really understands how to make his characters and his world’s believable, and you can’t help but enjoy that.

Such a well-written character gives Martin Clunes something to really get his teeth into, as well. I think I’m right in saying that Snakedance was one of his earliest TV appearances, and as such it’s often popped up as something with which to embarrass the man during interviews in more recent years. The bold style that he’s given to wear here probably doesn’t help matters! But it’s actually a very good performance, and it gives a good idea of why the man has become so ubiquitous on British TV over the years. I can’t say that I particularly follow his career (I’m not sure if I could name anything I’ve watched recently with him in…), but he’s popped up in no end of stuff, and if he always turns in a good performance, then it’s easy enough to see why…