The Witchfinders

The most alarmingly notable aspect of this week’s witchy affair is massively fruity guest star Alan Cumming who has decided he’s going to chew, eat and regurgitate the scenery all over this episode. It’s a barmy performance, as if he himself has been thrown forward in time from the Graham Williams era so happily does his camp japery sit alongside Graham Crowden or Iain Cuthbertson or even Tom Baker. This is the sort of arch, explosive performance I’ve waxed lyrical over before: the delicious guest act who’s decided to come along and “do a turn” for the boys. Think Roger Lloyd Pack or Joseph Furst. It’s the sort of full-blooded oozing that Kerblam! could have done with and the leery twinkle missing from the series as a whole for some time. Only Chris Noth has come close to capturing the archetypal Who guest spot this year but Cumming goes for it full throttle, hell for leather. He’s even more knowing than Michelle Gomez. What’s more, he’s clearly enjoying himself so much we can’t take our eyes off him.

Unfortunately, this incredible hyperbole sits oddly alongside a story that elsewhere requires menace and slow brooding. It is a yarn rich in atmosphere and dread, and Cumming’s James I fights against it aggressively, making the whole thing feel tonally askew. That said, this is Doctor Who, not Hammer Horror and this is certainly Hammer through a Who lens, tonal skewing be damned. The Who world is a richer place for having Alan Cumming visit. Any other episode and he’d be greeted more like Royalty. Yes, it’s a shame he crashes into the foreboding with a fey insouciance, but the show is all the better for it. Wherever it’s to be found, this type of barnstorming performance is something to cherish, even when it’s ridiculously mis-placed.

Elsewhere, the story itself is fit to burst with witchcraft cliché but this is Doctor Who doing witches and it’s going to be the witchiest witching ever. It starts with a ducking stool and ends with a mob carrying torches. The colour palette is bleak and autumnal. The familiar visuals are there for those after a traditional tale of witchery. Furthermore, the mud monsters are terrifying, from their uncanny look to the distorted voices, they are sure to put the fear of God into the little ‘uns and my step-daughter had to put her hands over her face. The cool, green fire towards the conclusion is the icing on the cake – this is yet another sumptuous production in a string of sumptuous productions. Not one story this year has looked anything other than stirringly magnificent, Kerblam! conveyor belt notwithstanding.

It might be easy to point to the predictability of the story with negativity. I heard the Houdini quip coming long before it was spoken, the Doctor was always going to be accused of witchcraft, and the remarkable Siobhan Finneran is clearly a woman with a witchy tale to tell. But those familiar story beats help elevate The Witchfinders into the position of folklore. It’s defiantly a tale we think we’ve heard before. Punishment for the evil of cutting down a tree so as not to spoil the view feels like the very essence of country myth. The refrain of earth, air, fire and water is a neat summation of what this story wants to explore. The accused are ducked in water; the aliens defeated with fire. Even the monsters come from the earth. Despite Alan Cumming’s valiant attempts to tear this script apart, there’s a togetherness here in terms of what writer Joy Wilkinson is aiming for, a togetherness in the visuals and a unity of theme.

It’s a shame the production couldn’t manage a brief underwater shoot to better sell Jodie Whittaker as a true hero. There’s a missing shot of her Doctor plunging to the aid of the innocent in the story’s opening moments. The camera drifts away as we see a stunt double practising the front crawl. And wouldn’t it have been arresting to see the Doctor struggling in her underwater chains? It has to be noted though, that yet again, Jodie Whittaker comes off better than she has before. Here and in Kerblam! last week she is beginning to come into her own. Perhaps it’s in the writing which is more direct and straightforward, less schizophrenic and with a clarity of purpose, but her scene with James I is particularly well played. She hasn’t quite got the mettle of her predecessors but wins victories quietly and with composure. Gone this week are the goofy gurns and she actually lands a few well-timed gags.

The passages on how difficult it is to be a woman in the seventeenth century, I could have lived without though. The Doctor didn’t need to whinge about her gender in Rosa or Demons of the Punjab and it feels as if she would have the creativity to assert her presence more imaginatively rather than simply accept that “women are treated badly these days.” She’s in the presence of Siobhan Finneran who is doing a mighty fine job of being a woman, thank you very much. Whilst it might be nice to acknowledge the prejudices of the time, it doesn’t feel right to have the Doctor blithely accept them. Last year, he punched a racist. This year, she shrugs her shoulders and accepts that no-one’s going to listen to her. This feels like fundamentally un-Doctory behaviour.

I must put in a mention for composer Segun Akinola here too. The last time I brought up his work, it was to criticise those bloody awful American horns in Rosa. I’d like to remedy that by saying that his work over the last five weeks has been utterly tremendous. His weird, pulsing electronica for The Tsuranga Conundrum was a series highlight for me and here, his warped strings add eerily to the discordant atmosphere, heightening the feeling that nature herself has been twisted. Akinola has – Rosa aside – been one of the best things to happen to the show this year.

A whole, bleak, infernal world is created in The Witchfinders. It’s disturbing: from the things humans would do to fellow humans, to the mud witches themselves, to the writhing, unearthly tendrils, to the threats of drowning and burning. This is rich Doctor Who, frightening and with a marked feeling of dread undercut by the mad, mad decisions of its biggest guest star. The companions might not have a great deal to do and the series is feeling more like an anthology show with four regulars than an ongoing adventure but when Doctor Who is digging deep into all these deliciously pulsing seams, what’s not to love? The Witchfinders has flaws but it’s doing so much right, it’s easy to forgive. If someone were to imagine what a potential Doctor Who story with witches would be like, this would be it. It ticks so many boxes and presses so many buttons, it’s difficult not to come away feeling like the show has found its magic again.

8/10

JH