Paradise Lost
Paradise Towers on DVD
Paradise Towers is a significant story for me as it was after the original transmission of Episode One that I gave up watching Doctor Who and hardly gave the programme a thought until a few years later when I noticed a big pile of Tomb of the Cybermen videos in Virgin Megastore. Paradise Towers made the decision to stop watching a whole lot less painful. Back then, I considered the casting of McCoy to be a disaster, and that these kind of stories were killing the programme, but time has moved on, Doctor Who was revived and the McCoy era is now just one amongst many. It’s a comma rather than a full-stop. Looking at Paradise Towers now, I happen to think it’s the best story of Season 24, but that’s a bit like nominating a favourite terminal illness rather than a ringing endorsement.
The striking thing about the story is that it’s long on embarrassment, but short on entertainment. If you’re watching Paradise Towers, and a non-Who fan walks in, it’s what I imagine being caught masturbating must be like: “No, come back, I put it on by mistake, it’s meant to be Cannibal Holocaust” cuts no ice with your partner after they’ve witnessed McCoy and the Red Kangs doing the “how you do” haka or shouting “cowardly cutlet” accompanied by Keff McCulloch’s Casio stylings. The Kangs are among the worst things ever to grace the series. With the possible exception of Bin Liner and Fire Escape, they are so feeble they look like aged refugees from Emu’s World who’ve been on the dole for years before John Nathan-Turner (a well known lover of the Pink Windmill) finally showed compassion and gave them work. The idea behind the different social groups in the towers has some promise, but although the script has some interesting ideas, and is famously based upon JG Ballard’s High Rise, the resulting production is such a disaster that it has more in common with his most notorious novel Crash.
High on the list of problems facing Paradise Towers is the character of Mel and the associated performance of Bonnie Langford. Mel is both hyperactive and lazy; a nightmare in polka-dot who with her cascade of red curls is reminiscent of Rebekah Brooks only not as likeable. Her chirpy eagerness to go for a swim is offset by her inability to get anywhere without taking a break. Most companions would not go to visit a pair of old dears twice in the same story just because they fancied a crumpet; “I feel much more relaxed now” Mel trills, despite the fact she’s got absolutely no further on with her task of finding either the pool or the Doctor. Even when she gets to the pool, she decides to have another sit down “and take the weight off my feet” before taking a dip in the crystal clear water that could not possibly disguise the monster lurking within. We obviously haven’t been shown the sign on the wall that reads: “No running, no splashing, no bombing, no petting, no logic, no drama, no acting” but it’s good to see it being followed to the letter. You almost have to feel sorry for Bonnie Langford; like a rabbit trapped in headlights she maintains the same intonation and reactions throughout regardless of whether she’s faced by peril or afternoon tea. The only thing in her favour is that at least she’s not Richard Briers.
Briers was clearly at a point in his career in 1987 where he’d decided to ration his performances, because in the first three episodes at least he is basically Martin Brice from the contemporaneous sitcom Ever Decreasing Circles. There is virtually no difference between the Chief Caretaker and Brice, to the point where you keep expecting him to draw up the fixture list for the Paradise Towers Cricket Club, or pop out and wash his Dormobile. Sadly, Peter Egan does not make an appearance as the urbane Paradise Towers hairdresser, something that would have improved matters no end. Instead, once the Chief Caretaker is taken over by Kroagnon, Briers subtly alters his performance and plays a Gumby from Monty Python’s Flying Circus. I assume this is a deliberate reference to the Python episode where the Gumbies shout “And now the [great] architect’s sketch”. It’s either that or the producer and director had a catastrophic failure of nerve, and instead of taking Briers aside and telling him to knock it off, they let him capsize an already fatally-holed vessel. It’s a tribute to the performances of both Langford and Briers that, in comparison, Sylvester McCoy seems relatively normal, rolled ‘r’s not withstanding.
It’s not all bad. Clive Merrison as the Deputy Chief Caretaker is as watchable as ever, and both Elizabeth Spriggs and Brenda Bruce are over the top, but mercifully well below Briers, and all the more enjoyable for it. At the time of transmission, some people saw the absence of references to past storylines as a refreshing change for the better. But regardless of these minor positives, there’s still no getting away from the fact that even by Doctor Who standards the story makes little sense, and the realisation of crucial elements like the cleaners is woeful. The ambition of the script lifts it above the other stories in this unhappy first McCoy season, but there’s no denying that the series was in a dark place at this point. Definitely far from “ice hot” and very much out of fabshion.
Extras:
Paradise Towers may well be a bit rubbish, but the extras on the release are interesting and varied. The main feature by Steve Broster, Horror on the High Rise, is presented by Mark Ayres, and largely consists of interviews with script-editor Andrew Cartmel and writer Stephen Wyatt, although others such as Catherine Cusack and Howard Cooke make useful contributions. Wyatt comes across particularly well, and the influence of Ballard and also Gilliam’s Brazil are examined in some detail. Briers discusses his performance, and reveals that Nathan-Turner did try and get him to tone it down, but I still feel that letting a performance like that get through is a dereliction of duty on the part of the production team. They’re hardly alone in Doctor Who history though – I’m looking at you Barry Letts and Jenny Laird. Visually the feature is a bit distracting, with clips being shown on Paradise Towers-eque monitor screens but on the whole it hangs together well. My favourite moment is when Cartmel discusses the controversy that resulted when Tabby threatened Mel with a knife. “As soon as they get out a knife,” he opines, “it’s urban realism”. Andrew – you could put the entire f***ing cast of La Haine in Paradise Towers and it still wouldn’t be urban realism.
Also of interest in the main feature is an interview with the musician David Snell, who has long been famed throughout fandom for managing to compose incidental music for Paradise Towers deemed to be so unsuitable that it was abandoned in favour of a last-minute Keff McCulloch score. As McCulloch’s score brings most people out in a rash this swap has always been hard to fathom, so it’s great that Snell is willing to be interviewed and Ayres does very well with what could have been a touchy area. Even better, the DVD release comes with Snell’s score as an alternative soundtrack, and so for the first time fans can see if the story improves when free of McCulloch’s noodling. Snell’s music certainly makes the programme feel different, and in some cases in works well, but if you’re expecting the fug of badness to lift from the story, then you’ll probably be disappointed.
The other main extra is Girls! Girls! Girls!: The 80s. Unlike the equivalent extra featuring the companions from the 1960s, which had a whistle-stop sequence of clips and talking heads, this features Janet Fielding, Sarah Sutton and Sophie Aldred together in the studio discussing their differing experiences of life as a Doctor Who companion. This starts well, and has a terrific title sequence by the ever-reliable Farmageddon, but the conversation is bitty, rather unfocused and I’m afraid that Janet Fielding nowadays acts as if she has a permanent raincloud above her head. There are some interesting points made about the politics of feminism in the 1980s, and it was illuminating to hear Aldred talking about her background in radical theatre, but the biggest problem in a feature about companions from the 1980s is that Nicola Bryant is not present. I’m sure her omission is down to a scheduling problem, but having a discussion about sexism in Doctor Who without mentioning Peri’s ridiculous outfits or hearing Bryant’s take on things is bound to be lacking.
There are also a load of smaller extras, including the usual Continuities and Deleted Scenes, and also a short but sweet interview with Clive Doig called Casting Sylvester which features the odd still from McCoy’s work on Vision On and Jigsaw. Production Notes are handled by David Brunt, who injects a somewhat sardonic tone on occasion, such as when Pex makes his first appearance and the notes read “This is a balsa wood door” followed rapidly by “This is an actor”. Last but not least, the release features a lively commentary moderated by Mark Ayres; the team consists of Stephen Wyatt, Judy Cornwell and Dick Mills, and they all have a good laugh about Briers’ performance in Episode Four and generally have a fun time. Wyatt throws in his two penn’orth about the abandoned Snell score, and Dick Mills is commendably honest when asked questions: “What sources of sounds were you using for the room hums Dick” – “I’ve no idea”.
Paradise Towers is far from well-regarded, not just by me, and I find it hard to believe that this release will do much to change that. However, the accompanying extras shed light on the making of the story, and the inclusion of the alternative score certainly gives the viewer ample opportunity to reevaluate it. Although having now watched the story three times in succession, I’m still no nearer to deciding whether Red Kangs or Blue Kangs are the best. Can anyone give me the definitive verdict?
Paradise Towers is released on Monday 18th July in the UK.
