My Favourite Martian

The Geek Twins are holding the My Favourite Martian Bloghop and inviting everyone to write about their favourite alien, whether they are from Mars or not...

It was tough to choose just one I considered Spock, Worf, Odo, Quark, Rom, Nog, Zek, Garak, Weyoun, Martok, Tuvok & Phlox from the various Star Treks, Chewbacca & Yoda from Star Wars, Tweak from Judge Dredd, Ford Prefect from The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, The Gronk from Strontium Dog, Dargo & Chiana from Farscape and Nibbler from Futurama, but somehow inevitably I ended up at...

The Doctor, from Doctor Who

Eleven reasons why I chose the Doctor:

1. He begins as intriguing, but distinctly unlikeable. How many loveable characters start out as kidnappers, that consider committing murder and lie to their travelling companions? I can name one. William Hartnell's Doctor is not always easy to like, but even harder to dislike.

2. He can regenerate. Many series are forced to recast as they mature and ignore the fact that a new actor has taken over. Not Doctor Who, they embrace it. He's the same, but different. Hartnell started Doctor Who off on a great footing, but the supremely talented Patrick Troughton ensured its longevity.

3. He could become an action hero without it damaging the show. Jon Pertwee's Doctor was still an intelligent leading man, but he did alien martial arts and worked with the military. The format of the show changed enormously and yet there was never any doubt that it was the same TV show.

4. He is an alien. Sometimes he fits in, sometimes he doesn't, sometimes he doesn't want to. Tom Baker was obviously continually asking himself how would an alien do this? Whether its accidentally hitting himself in the head with a chair in The Android Invasion, finding uses for his scarf or proffering a jelly baby, you were never sure how he would react.

5. He is timeless. He is at his youngest when he's an old man and Peter Davison plays an old man in a young body brilliantly.

6. He proved that the clothes do not maketh the man. Sartorially, his clothes are often criticised for standing out (in particular the ensemble worn by Colin Baker), but I would argue they should. A man out of time, should never fit in.

7. He sees the big picture and plays the long game. Sylvester McCoy's dark Doctor bragged about being judged by the quality of his enemies. He would keep people in the dark, put them in danger and let them die in the short term as long as the ends justified the means.

8. His story can never really end. The series ended in 1989, but never really went away. After seven years off the air, Paul McGann brought the Time Lord back to life in 1996. When that didn't lead to a series, it left a void filled by books, comic strips, radio, audio CDs, etc. Nine years after the US TV movie, Doctor Who got another fresh start. If it all ended tomorrow, I'm confident that it would be back before too long.

9. Sometimes he lets someone else save the day. How brave is the series that has a huge relaunch and allows its main character to be almost passive? Fantastic, but passive. Christopher Eccleston's Doctor inspires others to save the day: Rose, Jabe, Gwyneth, Mickey, the possible last Dalek, Cathica, Pete, Jack, Blon and Lynda with a Y all step up to the plate in one way or another, while the Doctor doesn't.

10. Sometimes he can't move on and sometimes he has to. He fled his homeworld and probably barely missed it until he could never go back. He formed lasting friendships and briefer acquaintances all the time, but each of David Tennant's three seasons explores a different relationship: romantic love, unrequited love and friendship.

11. He's outmanoeuvred by his own future. The Doctor's past catches up with him as much as any other character, but as a time traveller the things he is about to do are all already done. Sort of. It's an idea used in Battlefied and to an extent in the multi-Doctor stories, but it really comes into its own with the introduction of River Song. Sometimes so complex that you may need a diagram, her toing and froing, backwards and forwards, with and without Matt Smith's Doctor really shows the possibilities of time travel.

Here's a photo of all eleven Doctors together (presumably from the filming of the forthcoming The Eleven Doctors, you heard it here first):

And this is a somewhat terrifying caricature blending them all together again:

But enough about me or the Doctor, who's your favourite alien?

Monkey Tennis?

I wrote this article for Cult Britannia in August 2012:

Monkey Tennis?
By David Black

When Alan Partridge sat down to lunch with BBC TV's Chief Commissioning Editor Tony Hayers in the first episode of I'm Alan Partridge, three momentous things happened.

The first and most important for Alan was the revelation that there wouldn't be a second series of his TV chat show Knowing Me Knowing You With Alan Partridge. The third was the funniest example of cheese brandishing in a visual medium. In between these two events something extraordinary happens. Alan is obviously disappointed by the news that he hasn't been re-commissioned and so Hayers offers to listen to his other ideas. He is quite taken aback as Alan turns the lunch into an impromptu pitch meeting.

This scene not only offers us a hilarious insight into the workings of Alan's mind, but with the benefit of fifteen years hindsight it seems entirely possible that the panicked scramble of a fictional third-rate television presenter has accurately predicted the future of British television.

Alan: Shoestring, Taggart, Spender, Bergerac, Morse. What does that say to you about regional detective series?
Tony: There's too many of them?
Alan: That's one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is: people like them, let's make some more of them.

Alan goes on to outline his idea for Norwich-based detective series Swallow and while television has so far chosen not to feature the lawman of Norfolk's crime capital, the existence of Lewis, Endeavour, HolbyBlue, Vera, Midsummer Murders, Rosemary And Thyme, Inspector George Gently, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, Judge John Deed, Merseybeat, Murder City, Rebus, Scott & Bailey and Wire In The Blood would seem to vindicate Alan's position.

Alan: Alan Attack! Like The Cook Report, but with a more slapstick approach.
Tony: No.

Tony Hayers took the high road on this one, but sadly in reality television executives green-lit the likes of Don't Get Done Get Dom, Rip Off Britain, Cowboy Builders and Rogue Traders (apparently featuring an extra rogue) taking consumer issues and making light of them. Slapstick may not necessarily be the order of the day, but they are often crammed full of embarrassing puns.

Alan: Right, ah, now you'll like this one. Knowing M.E., Knowing You. I, Alan Partridge, talk to M.E. sufferers about the condition. You know, we intersperse it with their favourite pop songs, make it light-hearted, you know, give them a platform, you've got to keep the energy up, because… You don't like it?
Tony: No.

Once again, Alan is ahead of the game here. Want to make a documentary with a potentially serious subject matter, but worried that the audience won't give it a chance? Give it jokey title like The Undateables, The Hoarder Next Door, Seven Dwarves, Embarrassing Bodies or Beauty And The Beast. Then you can pretend that you aren't exploiting the focus of your efforts by trading off the confrontationally mocking tone of your title against claims that you are spreading awareness. Remember to fill it with inappropriate pop songs as Alan suggests.

Alan: That's alright, that's OK. Inner-City Sumo.
Tony: What's that?
Alan: We take fat people from the inner cities, put them in big nappies, and then get them to throw each other out of a circle that we draw with chalk on the ground.
Tony: No, no it's a bad idea.
Alan: Very cheap to make.

Inner-City Sumo may not have taken off itself, but the television schedules are littered with obesity-related TV shows like Big Body Squad, Supersize Versus Superskinny and My Big Fat Fetish. The most obvious parallel is competitive weight loss reality show The Biggest Loser, I'd be amazed if they've never featured sumo at some point. To be fair to Alan, at least his idea doesn't pretend to be a therapeutic experience.

Alan: Cooking In Prison.
Tony [Laughing]: Oh, no.

Cooking In Prison clone Gordon Behind Bars has just finished its run on Channel 4.

Alan: Youth Hosteling With Chris Eubank.
Tony: No!

We've been spared Youth Hosteling With Chris Eubank itself, but it is an idea that is emblematic of many others. The celebrity-orienteering format shows like All Roads Lead Home, World's Most Dangerous Roads and Wainwright Walks, which saw "face-of-the-channel" Julia Bradbury practically become the BBC's rambling ambassador. The residential cheek-by-jowl living of any reality TV show purporting to be a social experiment (Big Brother houses, etc). The combined effect of these shows is that Youth Hosteling With Chris Eubank suddenly seems much more plausible than many similar ideas that actually made it to the screen. Throw in his episode of the excellent When Louis Met… and it begins to feel as though we genuinely have been Youth Hosteling With Chris Eubank.

Alan: Monkey Tennis?

Sadly while Monkey Tennis has yet to appear on our TV screens it has been made available as a computer game: there is a minigame on the Nintendo Gamecube release of Super Monkey Ball 2 that features monkeys playing tennis. I know that's cheating really, but I couldn't bring myself to leave it out.

Tony: I've listened to your ideas, I've listened to them all, and I haven't liked a single one.

I'm not trying to suggest that there is an actual causal link between this fictional pitch meeting and the change in the landscape of television over the last decade and a half. I'm proposing something far more sinister.

Picture the scene: it's the mid to late 1990s and Peter Baynham, Steve Coogan and Armando Iannucci are putting together a list of TV ideas for their grotesque broadcaster to try to sell. Between the three of them they come up with a list of programme names which each create an instant image, speak volumes about Alan himself and ultimately get a laugh from their contemporary audience. More importantly the list is meant to be ridiculous, a nightmare TV schedule that the 1997 audience can laugh at in the safe and certain knowledge that the BBC they know and love would never put them through this dross.

Yet somehow the opposite has happened. Cut to the present day: Baynham, Coogan and Iannucci's Alan inspired TV wasteland is upon us. Watching the original scene it's easy to laugh at and yet still root for Alan, but looking back over the years in between then and now it's difficult not to wish that more TV executives had the principles of Tony Hayers. Either Alan Partridge was a TV visionary or TV is getting worse. Sadly, it looks as though we are one step closer to Arm Wrestling With Chas And Dave or A Partridge Amongst The Pigeons.

However it is whilst pitching Inner-City Sumo that Alan makes his most revealing comment:

Alan: If you don't do it, Sky will.

How right he was.

Lenin's Launch

Lenin's Lunch is now available online.

Lenin Lunched

Eighteen months ago, I took part in the filming of Lenin's Lunch for the New Factory Of The Eccentric Actor. The film received its premiere the other day, which is very exciting. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend. It has now been unleashed on an unsuspecting public and I'm very much looking forward to seeing it. The film is a lo-fi, continuous single shot taken from Lenin's point-of-view as people compete for his attention whilst he attempts to eat his midday meal.


The script was by Penny Dimond and was filmed in collaboration with Agnes Hay. It was shot in a lovely garden in North London. Most of us were wrapped up in Winter coats and scarves on an absolutely beautiful Summer's day. Gary Merry, who directed and played Lenin, had this to say on his blog about the filming.


As well as Gary and Penny, the cast includes the supremely talented Ann Firbank, David McGillivray, Anthony Best, Eva-Mary Carroll and Kathryn Hamilton-Hall among others. It's people like these that keep me coming back to work for the New Factory time and time again.


Kathryn and I played a pair of Dadaists. We had a ball.


All the photographs here were taken by Daisy Wormell. Here's one which shows off my lipstick.


I'll post the film itself here once I've managed to see it myself.

Dredd Alert

I'm a big fan of all things 2000 AD and Judge Dredd. I used to read 2000 AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine regularly until a period in my life when funds were not in abundance. It was a period that went on long enough that when I eventually came back to them I'd lost track of what was going on. I had become a lapsed reader.

I recently got back into the comic strips through the graphic novels and it's been an interesting experience rediscovering something I knew, but from a period before I knew it. Does that make sense?

I've started another blog called Dredd Alert.

The idea is to start at the beginning and work my way through writing about a Dredd-verse strip every day. I've posted a half a dozen so far and I'm still enjoying it.

A Carruthers Conclusion

At the end of last year (or a few days ago depending on a point of view), I posted a potentially final entry on the Carruthers Blog.

It's unfortunate, but there has been little to write about for a long time. If the situation changes I'll be certain to let you know.

There are still a number of Carruthers-related things I plan to write about here.

New Year's Dave

A Happy New Year to you all.

Sarah and I spent Christmas Day itself separately and out of necessity Christmas has become a moveable feast for us. We celebrated yesterday instead: stockings, food, presents, crackers, paper hats and John Carpenter's The Thing. We had a lovely time.

So as well as New Year's Day, today is technically our Boxing Day as well.

A Happy New Year and a Happy Boxing Day to you all.