Just in case you haven't heard...

Doctor Who: Twice Upon A Time ( review with spoilers )

"Time to leave the battlefield..."

This year's Doctor Who Christmas special, the final Peter Capaldi story, was a strange beast. It didn't have much of a plot, didn't really have a villain, and it starred a companion who wasn't really there. And yet I loved it. I must be a strange beast too...

The concept of this story, of course, is the unlikely meeting of the First and Twelth Doctors, both at the point of regeneration, both refusing to change. After mysteriously appearing at the South Pole while still dying from the mortal wound sustained in his last battle with the Cybermen, Capaldi's Doctor meets his former self ( David Bradley channelling William Hartnell ) and also a World War One captain ( Mark Gatiss ), also plucked from his own time-stream and dumped in the snowy landscape. As the two Doctors inevitably bicker the Tardis is captured by a strange glass-like humanoid, one of a race known as Testimony, who want the Doctors to tell them a story. A fairy tale if you will...

As I said, it's quite a slim plot to hang a story on but, in true Steven Moffatt style, it's really an excuse for the Doctor to examine his own mortality and his own fears... and for each iteration of the Doc to crack a few jokes at his counterpart's expense. ( The "Mary Berry" line had me in stitches. ) The First Doctor is refusing to change because he fears the unknown, while the Twelth is tired of saving the universe after all these millennia and just wants to slip away. The consequence of them both dying at the same time in the wrong timeline would be catastrophic for reality, but luckily Bill Potts is on hand to help out...

Apparently, Bill wasn't originally intended to be in this story but Moffatt found, during the writing of the script, that there was a need for the character to appear and luckily Pearl Mackie agreed. This isn't quite the Bill we saw in Series 10, but "the sum of her memories" to paraphrase the Fifth Doctor  -  the essence of the long-gone Bill's personality, encased in a crystal simulacrum of life by Testimony. This "slight return" for Bill Potts is a delight. As bubbly and funny as ever, and still asking the questions no-one else would, this echo of the character is still recognisably herself while at the same time also something alien and melancholic. It puts me in mind of the last, heart-breaking scene in John Crowley's SF novel, Engine Summer, and is just as moving.
The scenes set during the iconic Christmas armistice at Ypres in 1914 hit home in a similar way, even though they are obviously sanitised for a Christmas Day tea-time TV audience. This brief respite from the insanity of the Great War is a lovely evocation of the Doctor's philosophy of seeing things from both sides and, when it comes down to it, just being kind to each other. This idea of kindness is now the defining theme of the initially cold and prickly Twelth Doctor, a man who has been made better and indeed kinder by the time spent with his human friends.

Of course, he also spends some time with his former self too, as portrayed by the wonderful David Bradley. The veteran actor has a ball as the First Doctor, ridiculing Twelve's sonic screwdriver and sunglasses ( "Indoors"? ) and generally being very un-PC. ( This does overstate the conservative attitudes of the early '60s but is funny. ) Bradley's Doctor shares some charming moments with Bill as they talk about the real reason he left Gallifrey long ago, and there is a genius moment at the top of the show when B&W footage of William Hartnell from The Tenth Planet morphs into colour HD footage of Bradley. If there is one small criticism I have of Bradley's performance it's that he doesn't quite catch Hartnell's impishness  -  his Doctor wasn't just a crusty old man, there was a real twinkle in his eye at times too. Otherwise it's a fine performance without the extra baggage of him playing Hartnell playing the Doctor, as in An Adventure In Space And Time.

As for Capaldi  -  what can I say? It's another barn-storming turn from this great actor, bringing us a Doctor who's at the end of his tether, wanting to give it all up, but finding renewed hope in the future. The scene where Testimony restores the Doctor's memories of Clara is just sublime, Capaldi purging all the hurt from the Doctor's eyes and giving us a heart-melting glimpse of his softer side. And it was so good to see Jenna Coleman again, if ever so briefly.
I'm really going to miss Peter Capaldi. His Doctor may have started out a little shakily by being just a tad too unemotional and distant but he's grown into the role until he IS the Doctor  -  a crazy old rock 'n' roller who rattles around the universe in his old blue box, helping out, trying to be nice but not always succeeding, saving people ( most of the time ) and trying to find the good in his enemies. We've had 40 episodes of the Twelfth Doctor and he's been amazing. But now, a brand new era is just around the corner...
Well, if you can call next Autumn "just around the corner"  -  it can't come soon enough!

Four And A Half Out Of Five Sonic Scredwrivers :-)

"Oh, brilliant!"

And the 13th Doctor is here...

Merry Christmas from The Glass Walking-Stick

Let it snow

The second week in December saw the first "proper" snow fall we've had here in the Shire for about five years. There was only a light dusting of the white stuff down here in the valley at Glass Walking-Stick HQ so Sarah and I headed for the hills for the real deal...

Here are a few pics of the Winter Wonderland we found on the edge of the Cotswolds...

We started off at Coaley Peak viewpoint ( not that we could actually view all that much as we were in the middle of low cloud ) and then took the slightly treacherous, mile-long walk down to the amazing Woodchester Mansion...

The mansion is one of the jewels in Gloucestershire's crown, an unfinished Gothic building which was abandoned by its owners in 1873, leaving behind a unique glimpse into the architecture and building practices of the Gothic revival. Entering the mansion you can look upwards and literally see three stories above where the floors were never put in, and fireplaces and windows that will never be used looking back down at you. It's a stunning building and we've visited it many, many times over the years and explored its partly-finished floors, the chapel, the bakery, cellars, ball-room, kitchens etc. But I've never seen it in the snow before...

Although I did feel sorry for those snow-covered gargoyles...

It was an absolutely amazing afternoon in one of our favourite places and, even though it was quite a trek back up to the car and Sarah nearly got clobbered by a falling branch (!) brought down by the snow, it was well worth the journey.

The Moonlandingz at Bristol Trinity

Sometimes, seeing a band with no prior knowledge or preconceptions can be a disappointment and a waste of money... but sometimes, happily, it can be one of the best gigs in years, which was the case with The Moonlandingz last week in Bristol.
My mate Glenn had a spare ticket for this gig and recommended the band so I jumped in the car with Glenn, Gail and, er, Barry ( possibly ) and his dog ( it's some indication of my age that I can't remember this guy's name a week later... ) and headed down to Bristol. Specifically to the Trinity Centre, an old converted church that I'd strangely never visited before, but which  -  after much frustrating searching for a parking space  -  turned out to be a really cool venue.

Support came from a young band called Sweat who played some very upbeat, pop-inflected indie. Although still at the "talking to your mates in the audience" stage and employing a little too much ill-advised autotune they had a great sound and are certainly a band to watch.
And then The Moonlandingz landed...

Apparently The Moonlandingz were a "fictional" band, created for some kind of art project involving Sean Lennon, who enjoyed being together so much that they went on to become a "real" band and actually put out records, tour and do the other things that real bands do. ( Which probably accounts for the late start of their set... ) Well they certainly seemed ( sur )real on the night...

They played a frenzied mixture of electro pop, psychedelia and rock 'n' roll, blurring genres right left and centre and kicking up a hell of a racket in the process. Front man Lias Saoudi wandered onto the stage carrying a bottle of wine and wearing what looked like his dad's old suit from the 1970s and then proceeded to give one of the most deranged performances I've seen in an age. After the first, relatively low-key, song the band launched into the sky-scraping Black Hanz and the gig took off like an electrobilly rocket bound for the Planet Gonzo. Shaking, twitching, screaming and bouncing around the stage, Lias stripped his rail-thin torso bare ( much to the delight of many in the audience ) and reminded us all how exciting a proper rock star can still be in this age of bland, corporate "acts".

Behind all this lunacy the band were super tight  -  the bassist was the spitting image of a younger Bill Bailey and was cool as frack, the keyboard player contributed some sonorous vocals as well as some cosmic sounds maaan, while the perma-pouting guitarist Mairead O'Connor was a fretboard goddess. And the drummer was a drummer. Actually he was pretty bloody good too.
Amongst the highlights were the Glam stomp of Vessels, the Cramps-gone-Kraftwerk of Glory Hole and the twisted singalong pop of The Rabies Are Back. At one point the bass guitar died and had to be replaced, prompting Lias to lead the band and the audience in an acapella folk song about "shovelling shite"  -  I remarked to Glenn that, alone in this crowd of urban hipsters, I was probably the only person with actual shite-shovelling experience.

For the epic Velvets-referencing, girl-group-gone-bad ballad The Strangle Of Anna, Lias invited half of the female population of Bristol onstage to sing along with him. On record the vocals are handled by the awesome Rebecca Taylor from Slow Club ( it's the Sheffield connection ) and the ladies who filled in for her weren't quite up to her vocal standard but had great fun none the less, as pictures show. The quietly fuming security bloke at the side of the stage wasn't having so much fun...

All too soon we were told "you won't like it but this is our last song" and, after an insane Man In Me Lyfe with Lias virtually bellowing his lungs out onto the stage and the crowd going equally nuts, the short but sweet 50 minute set was over with no encore. Talk about leaving 'em wanting more!
Without a doubt one of the best gigs of the year and that ain't no fiction...