There’s a theory that the second
episode of any Doctor’s era epitomises the show at its most base. Any Doctor
and Companion team could happily wonder through the Nerva Beacon, Starship UK,
Platform One or even the plains of Desolation. I have a friend who has a theory
that real Doctor Who, that is to say stories which feel as if the show
runs through their bones, usually starts at the three-quarter mark of a new
series. It’s a difficult theory to disprove: The Empty Child, The
Satan Pit, Human Nature, Silence in the Library, The Hungry
Earth – all feel as it they epitomise the fundamentals of the show:
well-plotted, atmospheric, almost traditionally structured tales. Last year, it
was Kerblam! and The Witchfinders occupying the trad-Doctor Who
slot and fulfilling that unsaid brief admirably. In 2020, we find Can You Hear
Me? and The Haunting of Villa Diodati. Last week’s effort certainly felt
like the Doctor Who of everyone’s childhood in terms of chills. This week does
it better.
Despite the sumptuous nature of
the lavish costumes and stately home, the over-riding colour we take away from The
Haunting is black. Director Emma Sullivan spoke in Doctor Who Magazine
about her fighting for the lights to be very, very low, and negotiating careful
set-ups with her Director of Photography. It’s all for the betterment of an
episode that’s sole interest is atmosphere. Lots doesn’t seem to make sense.
Why does the skeletal hand emerge from a painting? Why does the skull find
itself in the baby’s cot? Answers don’t matter to new-to-Who writer Maxine Alderton
or indeed, this viewer. Like Ghost Light, the thrill of this strange
horror story is in the very vivid threat of whatever is happening in a given moment,
what is happening in the now. As in a nightmare, both the narrative and geography
are off. Something is always amiss, even down to the not-quite-Cyberman of a
harrowing childhood dream. These are the Cybermen as we always remembered them
being but never quite were: coruscatingly frightening. The scene in which it
snaps the neck of the maid and picks up the baby is a stand-out moment of
terror in this scary and unsettling thriller. The follow-up scene, in which it
gives its reasons for leaving the baby unconverted, is stark and brutal.
We see enough of the guest cast
to get a good enough idea of who these Romantic poets and genii were, but given
the runtime, it was always going to be a sketchy affair. Wisely, Alderton isn’t
writing a costume drama; she’s writing a Doctor Who horror story and knows what
Who does best. Jacob Collins-Levy makes for an economic portrayal of Lord Byron,
skilfully managing to make a bastard charming. Maxim Baldry puts in a notable, unusual and sinister performance as Polidori. Lili Miller’s Mary Wollstonecroft
Godwin, later Shelley, who you might expect to be the star of the show, is enchantingly
energetic but is given surprisingly short screen time. Because unpredictably
this isn’t the story of how she came up with the idea of Frankenstein. It’s the
story of a group of friends, all equally important, and how they cope with the
dark events of a stormy night in which frighteningly bizarre things happen.
Just for once in Doctor Who too, the ghosts are allowed to be real; not
holograms or shapeshifters – actual, real ghosts and all the spookier and more
memorable for it.
Perhaps the only criticism I can make
for the violent, breath-taking charm of this dark – I’ll say it – classic is
Jodie Whittaker. She is doing something different here, for sure. The Doctor
puts herself at the top of the metaphorical mountain and dismisses the
much-vaunted flat team structure for the first time and Jodie rises to the
occasion. However, she doesn’t play against the arrogance of the Time Lord, she
plays up to it, making her lose any charm she might have had. I’ve made no
bones about my dislike of Jodie’s performance. She’s an actor of complete
instinct. She sees an arrogant scene and plays it arrogantly. She sees a sad
scene and plays it sadly. She is at her best when the emotional trajectory of a
scene is at its most obvious. But she doesn’t really understand text. Time and
again she stresses the wrong words and fails to make the best sense of a paragraph.
Her disdain for the Cyberman looks real but it doesn’t sound it. Whittaker
is an actor of extraordinary heart (just look at any scene she plays in
Broadchurch – magnificent) but sadly seems to be one of very little brain. She
certainly does not give an intellectual interpretation of the Doctor and to inhabit
the part successfully, you need both heart and brain. She never surprises, she
never wows; she simply says the lines in an appropriate but simplistic reading,
with very little nuance and a resolute lack of eccentricity. And she still can’t
land a gag.
Despite a leading lady with whom
I have very little affection, The Haunting of Villa Diodati is supreme
Doctor Who. Like its Romantic antecedents, it flows with a poetic lilt. It doesn’t
always make sense but strikes for the emotional jugular. Rarely is Doctor Who so
frightening. Rarely are the Cybermen so strikingly visceral. Certainly, the
show these days is rarely this spectacular. Ironically, for a series which is seemingly
desperate to have its own identity (prizing morality tales and topical issue
plays more than ever before) it is at its best when the fashion accessories are
cast aside and it gets on with being Doctor Who. Spyfall proved this
theory to be true, as did Nikola Tesla. Even the return of Captain Jack represented
this season’s punch the air moment. Doctor Who doesn’t necessarily need to
engage with social and political trends (Silver Nemesis is surely excremental
proof of that). It needs to find its own identity, rather than have one forced
upon it. Look at that list of episodes in the top paragraph. We can add another
to that list of highlights. Again, the series’ three-quarter point marks the
return of true Doctor Who, content to do what the show does best – be itself
and frighten. The Haunting of Villa Diodati is the show at its peak, appropriately
stripped back to its bones.
9/10
JH
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