It’s Christmas time, misery and whine, and in the spirit of the season,
I thought I’d talk a little bit about a couple of the television shows that I
traditionally try to sit down at some point and watch over the festive season.
There’s only two, really. I always try to take an hour to watch “Too
Many Christmas Trees”, an episode from the first season of The Avengers that
was shot on film, the fourth series made, albeit in black and white, and the
first series featuring Diana Rigg as Emma Peel.
After that, our annual “must see” is “The Blue Carbuncle” which
concluded the first series of Granada Television’s high profile adaptation of
“The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” when David Burke is still playing a vital,
youthful and intelligent Doctor Watson, very much not in the Nigel Bruce mould.
Don’t knock Nigel Bruce, by the way. I think he’s great alongside Basil
Rathbone in the Universal Film series of the 1940s, and that film series always
gets an airing around this time of year when the world outdoors is dark and
chilly.
I also try to park myself in front of “It’s A Wonderful Life” at some
point, too, but as it makes my Beloved cry, I have to sneak that one into the
machine at some point when she’s otherwise engaged.
Christmas is, of course, traditionally the “most wonderful time of the
year” when it comes to telly, especially in the light entertainment department
anyway, although over the years, the drama departments have also tended to
offer “festive-themed” or “extended special episodes” of some favourite series,
which may feature overseas filming, extended running times, or perhaps
unexpected high profile guest stars.
When I was a kid, of course, Christmas also meant that television also
started far earlier in the day than was usual, and the mornings were filled
with exciting adventure series intended to keep children happy, and
characters like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon were resurrected for
daily runs on BBC television over the Christmas holidays sometimes coupled with
a series being rerun called "Holiday Star Trek" all to keep us
impressionable kiddiewinks amused as parcels were wrapped and mince pies were
baked.
Episode One of the first "Flash Gordon" serial features music
used in "The Bride of Frankenstein" and has a bear painted with
stripes as an alien beast and Flash fighting three massively fanged and hairy
men wearing space nappies.
We were engrossed...!
On the big day itself, we were never allowed to have the TV on during
the day – apart from the Queen’s Speech, of course, but once we’d got home on
Christmas Night, the family would gather round to see some of the greats; “Some
Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em”, Mike Yarwood, Eric and Ernie, and the Generation Game –
editions of which still have record-smashing ratings because almost everyone
else in the country was pretty much doing exactly the same thing and almost
nobody yet had a home video recorder apart from William Shatner in that Columbo
where he wears a big white hat.
But it’s none of those shows that really mean “Christmas” to me nowadays.
Over the years I’ve picked up my other favourites, and they are the ones that have
really come to mean Christmas to me in more recent years.
Getting back to them, it might seem surprising that an adventure series
like “The Avengers” might try to do a Christmas episode, as these sorts of shows
were generally bundled up, packaged and made to be sold off in chunks to the
various networks, and, unless they go national or international, that pesky
little festive slot does tend to only turn up once a year, even if it is at
around the same time, which makes scheduling programmes with a festive theme slightly
awkward.
The Avengers did have form, though, of at least feeling vaguely topical,
and on Christmas Day in 1965, what else are you going to hang your merry tale
around? Happily, with The Avengers, having your story fixated around a Charles
Dickens fanatic at Christmastime doesn’t feel too much different to any of the
other eccentric diabolical masterminds with peculiar obsessions in the series,
and means that the episode doesn’t feel too Christmassy, even in August.
I think that the black and white series of The Avengers featuring Diana
Rigg as Mrs Emma Peel is my favourite overall. Being shot on film just makes it
feel classier somehow, but the monochrome also gives it gravitas and hides a
multitude of design sins. It’s a great series overall, with some fabulously
rewatchable episodes, and “Too Many Christmas Trees”, with a script by Tony Williamson
and directed by Roy Baker, is from about half way through that series, and is very
much in the television tradition of creating unsettling tales for Christmas
night.
It begins with a dream sequence all played out to some eerie harp husic
as a sleeping John Steed is transported to a cut out studio forest of stylized
Christmas trees, stars and baubles whilst still his pyjamas. Via a parcel he
finds himself, a mirror, and quite possibly the scariest masked Santa Claus in
television history, eventually some Christmas stockings lead him to find a dead
body.
Ho! Ho! Ho! (and it’s a pretty terrifying “Ho! Ho! Ho!” too…)
We cut to a bizarre fairy perched upon a Christmas tree as Steed wakes
up in his flat after what seems like a very rowdy night before. At his door is
“Milko” Emma Peel in her finest tweeds and over some jolly banter, we discover
all about his night in with a rear-admiral, and his recent nightmares. During
this exchange, his childlike retort to Emma’s suggestion that there’s no Santa
Claus is delightful, by the way, and remains a rather typical example of their
wonderful on-screen relationship.
Meanwhile, Steed shaves, requires much black coffee, and we learn that
the body he saw in his dream was suspected traitor Freddie, who turns out to be
actually dead.
We cut to an aerial view of the rotating circular table of doom, with
added snowflake pattern, where the late Freddie’s picture is already being
replaced by the next target, a certain Mr John Steed, as pendulums swing,
clocks beat a soporific drumbeat, and that blurry terrifying Santa cackles
away.
And whilst we ponder upon brainstorms, Steed goes through his Christmas
cards and receives one from Mrs Gale which is a rather unusual nod to the
earlier incarnation of The Avengers starring Honor Blackman and cheekily makes
reference to her role in the James Bond film “Goldfinger”.
Perhaps because of all these women sending fondest regards to him, Steed
is invited by Mrs Peel to “come away” for a proper Dickensian Christmas at a
House Party she’s been invited to by her friend Jeremy, and whilst we
contemplate a blank Christmas card that very much resembles the elements of
Steed’s dreams, we find John and Emma travelling in Steed’s old Bentley (of
which he is very fond) along a strangely familiar route to the old dark house
also very familiar from his dreams.
Something is obviously afoot, because they have been invited to spend
Christmas amongst a nest of spies - which includes very familiar faces like
Alex Scott and Edwin Richfield – out in the middle of nowhere.
At the house they are greeted by Robert James of Lesterson in “The Power
of the Daleks” fame playing Jenkins, the butler, and meet Mervyn Johns playing
the Charles Dickens enthusiast Brandon Storey and, amidst dark mutterings about
experiments, they are shown to their Dickensian themed bedrooms, after which
they attend a party where various introductions are made, and Steed soon
regains his Lounge Lizard credentials when he spots an unattached young woman.
Edwin Richfield as Doctor Teasel does his level best to look sinister –
never difficult for him – and much sinister noise is made of psychoanalysis and
a novelty guillotine cigar cutter which leads to John Steed having a Sydney
Carlton themed dream where a much larger guillotine threatens him, and he first
meets the sinister psychic Janice Crane, yet to formally arrive at the house,
and played by Jeanette Sterke, and there is another round of diabolical
laughter from behind that scariest Santa mask ever.
Meanwhile Steed and Mrs Peel start to investigate in their bedrooms, and
Janice Crane actually arrives, leading to more questions about Steed’s sudden
psychic abilities, Emma’s young friend Jeremy Wade – played by Barry Warren - is
starting to get the twitches, which will later lead to his untimely demise, as
such things tend to in The Avengers.
Steed and Mrs Peel’s outfits arrive for the evening’s costume party, and
Steed is, not unsurprisingly, going to be decked out in the same Sydney Carlton
garb that he was wearing in his ominous dream, whilst Mrs Peel gets to wear a
very tight Oliver Twist outfit.
Which is nice.
Well, as Steed says “My, you have filled out!”
Ahem!
Anyway… They go downstairs to attend just the sort of Dickensian
Christmas Party that many of us probably would love to be able to host, and
there is much talk of Steed’s potential breakdown, and a hypnotic psychic
display from Janice, where horrible Santa gets another round of sinister
laughing in, although Emma manages to break the hypnotic spell.
Meanwhile, Jeremy, as Marley’s Ghost fixes a date with destiny in the
rather nicely designed “Hall of Great Expectations” where the statutory mice
nibble at the statutory abandoned wedding cake amidst the many cobwebs. His
body is found in a chair there by Emma carrying a candelabra of real candles,
health and safety fans.
She matter-of-factly goes to fetch Steed, who is acting most bizarrely
and daffy in order to resist the hypnotic mind control or whatever it is, and
this leads her back to Doctor Teasel who helps her to find Jeremy’s body has
now disappeared, has some theories about group telepathy, is with her when she
witnesses the butler drugging Steed’s drink, and finally pulls a gun on her,
proving that he’s the wrong ‘un we always suspected him of being.
But all is not what it seems. Steed pretends to sleep as Teasel is
bested in a fight with Emma Peel – no surprises there – and the table folk get
more confused as Steed is faking having drunk the potion, maintains it is Emma
that has been showing signs of being mind-controlled, that Doctor Teasel is not
a wrong ‘un after all, and then encourages her to join him in a jaunty
rendition of “Green Grow The Rushes, Oh!” to help keep their minds clear.
Their interaction here is quite lovely, bearing in mind that they had
only been together a few weeks in television series terms, and goes a long way
towards showing why this particular Avengers pair are so fondly remembered.
Anyway, it’s now pretty much all over for the diabolical plotters bar the
big “end of episode” fight in the mirror room, and Evil Santa getting shot –
yes, they actually shot Santa on Christmas Day – at least in some ITV regions
anyway. Only this Santa is, of course, that lovely Janitor, sorry, Dickens
admirer, Brandon Storey, unmasked in a very “Scooby Doo” way.
And he would have got away with it if it wasn’t for this most dynamic of
festive duos.
Then, after a bit of nonsense with a tear gas pen, Steed and Emma Peel
depart the episode in this week’s mode of transport, which is a festive pony
and trap, or perhaps it’s a reindeer, seeing as it’s called Prancer…
As a Christmas piece, “Too Many Christmas Trees” does have all of the
trimmings, but it’s not overdone, which, in certain television series, is
probably for the best, and I love it to bits.
“The Blue Carbuncle” however is a genuine Christmassy treat and was
always intended as such. This is a Sherlock Holmes tale from the pen of Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle, and it is beautifully executed in the, still truly
scrumptious, Granada series - in an adaptation by Paul Finney, directed by
David Carson.
Unlike much other Holmesian fayre, it is a relatively light-hearted tale
of a valuable lost jewel, and some Christmas geese, which includes some
sparkling performances from a set of lovely actors, and gives some of the
finest and most memorable moments that this lavish and lovingly made series
produced.
From the opening credits filmed on Granada’s meticulously recreated
Baker Street set – they used to do tours, you know – where I immediately start
to wonder how old the cheeky kids at the shop window now are, to the closing
credits, this is a work of art, and this episode remains a work of Christmassy
art and a must-see annual festive treat.
We open on a close-up of the Carbuncle – a kind of blue ruby – itself,
all shiny, cut, and sparkling, but within it we see flashbacks of its brutal
provenance, until it is presented to the Countess of Morcar in her prime.
We then jump cut to her looking older and far more tired as she travels
back to the opulent Hotel Cosmopolitan from another Christmas shopping spree.
She is played by Rosalind Knight – an actress with whom I was once very briefly
acquainted as she was a friend of a friend’s mother – and her return messes up
the canoodling of her maid Catherine Cusack – played by Ros Simmons – and a
hotel attendant, James Ryder, played the one and only Ken Campbell. Ryder
quickly bustles out the handyman who he has ostensibly employed to fix the gas
fire, one John Horner, a reformed criminal, as played with genuine honesty by
Desmond McNamara, as her Ladyship returns from her ordeal by shopping to have a
bath.
There is a scream as she discovers that the titular Blue Carbuncle has
been (gulp) stolen…
Very quickly, as John Horner gazes into a shop window with Jennie his
wife, picking out the children’s Christmas presents – Amelda Brown (bravely
appearing - with complete dedication to historical accuracy given their poverty
- almost without any make-up) plays the wife – he is arrested by Brian Miller’s
Inspector Bradstreet, even though he claims to be completely innocent.
At Baker Street, we see a lot of street business – using that expensive
outdoor set very nicely – as Doctor Watson is out and about on his own
Christmas shopping expedition. This is still the original, David Burke
incarnation of Watson, nicely played as a vital, clever, and rather dry-witted
soul.
Holmes, meanwhile, languishes in bed, only to be disturbed by one Mr
Peterson bearing a goose and a battered bowler hat in a very nice turn from
Frank Mills. The wise Mrs Peterson has sent him to resolve the mystery
surrounding these items, although Holmes exhortations for him to put down his
goose as he searches for the first cigarette of the day is an utter joy.
Jeremy Brett is immediately fabulous as Holmes, of course, and all of
his little ticks and movements show that he has completely embedded himself
within the character.
Through a flashback, we learn how Mr Peterson came to be in possession
of the goose and the hat due to an altercation the night before and whilst
Holmes struggles to remain awake, in the end Peterson is sent upon his way with
an instruction to eat the goose.
Meanwhile, the Countess is ranting at the Inspector and he suggests that
she might offer a reward, the subsequent news story of which draws the eye of a
returning Doctor Watson and is recounted from the papers by him.
Holmes meanwhile is regarding the simple hat and, in what is - in my
opinion at least - one of the finest scenes in the series, Holmes and Watson have
a contest as to what can be deduced from said hat. Watson is, of course,
skeptical about most of Holmes’ deductions and conclusions, most of which – of
course – turn out to be spot on.
Peterson returns all of a fluster because the Blue Jewel has been
discovered in the crop of the goose he was sent off to cook and he seems
genuinely astonished at the thousand pounds reward that he now seems eligible
for – although if Holmes does intend to keep the Carbuncle as he says, his
payday does seem rather unlikely to actually happen.
Still the “thousand pounds” stuff is played rather nicely, and, via a
swift advert in several evening papers, the plot moves on.
Meanwhile, in jail, as he pleads with his doubting wife that he is now
on the straight, things are not looking too good for the Horners.
Holmes and Watson are studying the jewel and recounting its dark history
as one Mr Henry Baker, formerly the possessor of both goose and hat, appears in
response to their advert. He is played by Frank Middlemass being basically
lovely and he confirms many of Holmes’ deductions, whilst being offered a
replacement goose.
In another flashback we learn of the Christmas Goose Club at the Alpha
Inn which seems to be the nicest pub in the whole of London given how they are
usually portrayed in these things. The landlord seems a caring soul, and
there’s a genuine family feel amongst the regulars. Mr Baker has, it seems sold
his books as a seasonal sacrifice to bring joy to those we love or, as the
script puts it, even those we have married.
Frank departs, confirming the most outrageous of Holmes’ deductions,
and, to the chagrin of Mrs Hudson, dinner is delayed as Holmes and Watson head
out for a game of “Hunt That Goose!”
In the Alpha Inn, we discover that Mr Windigate got his geese from the
market and Doctor Watson comically fails to get his pint. And whilst things
seem to get worse and worse for the Horners, help is as hand as Holmes meets
the seriously pissed-off poulterer Mr Breckenridge at the market and, by a
little bit of subterfuge based around a fictional wager – another delightful
scene – Holmes deviously finds out where the geese were from a Mrs Oakshott.
She is the sister of Ken Campbell’s everso seedy James Ryder, who saves
Holmes and Watson a journey by returning to harangue Mr Breckenridge once more
about the wretched geese. They intercept him and, by displaying certain
information, entice him back to the web of Baker Street and his downfall.
After some banter about aliases and a magic trick involving a gas lamp,
tales of a blue egg, and the Carbuncle itself, the game is up for Mister Ryder
and his dastardly accomplice, who put him up to it, the maid and, through yet
another flashback, we discover how the goose came to swallow the jewel and much
hilarity ensuing over a case of mistaken goose identity. In this, Mrs Oakshott
is played by the fabulous Maggie Jones who turned up in just about everything
at some time or other, and had a very lengthy career being rather brilliant at
no-nonsense northern women.
Ryder grovels his way into a remorse-filled confession and, with a cold
“Get out! No more words, get out!” is sent on his way unpunished by Holmes who
justifies his position by saying that he may have saved a soul.
Then, before they manage to sit down for their cold supper as Christmas
Day arrives, they remember to inform the police that Horner is innocent, and
the episode closes with the Horner family reunited outside the prison in the
snow.
I absolutely adore this adaptation of the Blue Carbuncle – although I do
also enjoy the 1960s BBC version, this is the one to which I return each year
simply because it’s played with such gusto and joy. This pairing of Holmes and
Watson are a delight and, whilst the birds do have terrible things done to them
offscreen - as does tend to happen to such birds at this time of the year – it
remains a lovely tale, even if some of the plotting leaves a lot to be desired
if you think about it too closely.
If Holmes keeps the jewel in his museum, does Peterson get his thousand
pounds? Why did Ryder sneak the jewel away to hide it in a bird, only to then
immediately kill the bird? How does Holmes convince the police to release
Horner? Does James Ryder actually flee abroad? Why does Horner not know his
children’s names? Do the villains remain in the employ of the Countess? And
what future did Catherine Cusack
envision for herself with James Ryder and why did she consider this oily
toe-rag to be a bit of a catch?
None of this matters of course, because it’s beautifully told and gives
a little bit of insight into the ordinary lives of normal London folk which is
often ignored in favour of ghastly fog-filled nightmare visions of the wretched
hive of scum and villainy that those Victorian streets are often portrayed as.
And now, after a sudden realization I made in the summer, I became aware
that the first episode of “Quatermass and the Pit” was broadcast on the 22nd
of December in 1958, and therefore it now earns its place as a Christmas
special in my book, and so it will henceforth have to occupy another slot in
the annual Christmas schedule at Holmes Towers.
We begin in Hobb’s Lane, SW1, where location footage of a satisfyingly
diverse cast finds a group of workmen uncovering some human remains as they dig
the foundations of a new office building…
But that’s another story…
Martin A W Holmes, sometime in 2018
