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Mark Gatiss interview - Radio Times, May 2006 |
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Doctor Who is about to make a whole generation see their TVs in a new and scary light! Nick Griffiths talks to writer Mark Gatiss.
"One of the scariest
stories from last year's
Doctor Who was the one
with the old lady, as in the
old Victorian lady who rose from the
dead and advanced on your very
own small screen, eyes iced, with the
gurgling moan of the distinctly
unladylike. (Fortunately Charles
Dickens arrived to help save the day.)
That was one of Mark Gatiss's,
and he appeared on BBC Radio 4's PM
to defend its scariness.
Like Steven Moffat
(who wrote last year's equally
terrifying episode with the gas mask)
before him, he's unrepentant. And
this time? Can Gatiss promise the
kids another big, scary moment?
"I think so, yes."
The Idiot's Lantern is set in
coronation Britain, 1953, a time of
street parties, bunting and postwar
austerity; the lantern of the title is
television. Ask anyone of a certain age
for their first memory of television
and it's likely they'll recall gathering
around a neighbour's set, alongside
half the street, watching Queen
Elizabeth II's coronation.
"Part of the mystery in this is that
the Doctor and his crew arrive in a
street and everyone has a TV aerial,"
Gatiss explains. "And Rose knows.
She says, 'My gran said everyone had
to pile into one person's house.' Yet
here, everyone has a set."
Clearly, if you want to shake the
nation's youth, do something sinister
to their TV. "If children become
afraid of their televisions, they might
go outside and play and become less
obese," says Gatiss, only half-joking.
"I was a TV-obsessed child, and I'm so excited about this story because I was able to write about
early TV and Alexandra Palace and
the whole Quatermass ethos. "
For those unfamiliar with the
Quatermass ethos, Nigel Kneale's
iconic Quatermass Experiment went
out the month after the coronation
and petrified audiences with its idea
of a malevolent alien menace.
Alexandra Palace (known as "Ally
Pally") near Muswell Hill in north
London, was the site of Britain's -
and the world's - first high-definition
television service: the BBC.
"They found this wonderful
street in Cardiff to double
for Muswell Hill,"
explains
Gatiss.
"They put up
bunting and
everything,
but there's a
grimness
to it. And the interior of the house is
a wonderful design.
"And we spent a day at Ally Pally
with Maureen Lipman. She plays a
50s continuity announcer and,
because she was doing another show
and could only spend one day with
us, it had to be filmed near her house
- in Muswell Hill. So we ended up
shooting in the actual studio in
Alexandra Palace where she would
have been had she been the real
announcer. It was magic, really."
Lipman has a lovely quote on
her appearance. She said:
"This will earn me my
entire year's worth
of street cred."
How times change.
"You've nailed it," says
Gatiss. "Once upon a
time, it would have been her
anti-street cred. Doctor Who
is cool again. That's great
news."
**
Read our 2005 interview with Mark Gatiss - or take a look at our full Doctor Who guide.
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