Masterpiece Theatre: The Smugglers

Masterpiece Theatre

Number 10: The Smugglers

Masterpiece Theatre Number Ten brings us to the first historical story we have covered in this section. Indeed, Black Orchid and An Unearthly Child aside, this is the first pure historical I have ever watched, although listened to is strictly more accurate as The Smugglers is entirely missing from the archives apart from a few seconds here and there of violent deaths trimmed by the Australian censors.  I have used a Loose Cannon reconstruction to experience William Hartnell’s penultimate story in all its bloodthirsty glory.

The Smugglers placed 159^th in the Doctor Who Magazine Mighty 200 survey from three years ago. It also has the distinction of being the lowest rated Hartnell story, with only 4.2 million watching Episode Three, although Battlefield would have killed for those ratings in 1989. It’s one of those stories that’s just there, with little reputation either good or bad. The Smugglers’ notable features include the first extensive location filming, the appearance of the earliest-born actor in Doctor Who (Jack Bligh, born 1890) and the caretaker from Grange Hill as a pirate.

In terms of story, it’s a shameless rip-off of Moonfleet and Treasure Island, with pirates searching for gold hidden by their long-dead captain and a smuggling ring whose base of operations is an old crypt. Author Brian Hayles does little to disguise these elements, so The Smugglers rather resembles an adaptation of one of those novels than a fully-rounded Doctor Who story. This means that it is also quite a difficult story to love.

The main problem for me is that Doctor Who has never done pirates well. Both The Smugglers and its recent cousin The Curse of the Black Spot suffer from the problem that pirates are, well, just a little bit dull. Both stories play to the stereotypical image of double-crossing, gold-stealing blackguards and both stories therefore are populated by ciphers rather than characters. It’s hard to find any distinguishing features in either Pike’s motley crew or Avery’s lily-livered bunch. In The Smugglers we have Cherub, who’s bald and good with a knife, rather like Greg Wallace on Masterchef; Jamaica, who is an overly superstitious and gullible black character; Gaptooth, who is old; Spaniard who ones presumes doesn’t come from Cornwall and Daniel who is so bland his name changes halfway through to Davy. In The Curse of the Black Spot we have McGrath who dies of a poorly finger before the credits; the Boatswain, who magically disappears halfway through the episode in one of the worst continuity errors in Doctor Who history; Dancer, who loses a sword fight with Amy Pond and fancies Lily Cole; De Florres who stands in the background before dying, and Mulligan, who does little apart from double cross his crew-mates and then he dies too. Would it be too much to ask for a pirate with a parrot and a wooden leg going ‘Garrrrr’? The only eyepatch we see in either story is the one worn by Madame Kovarian when she spies on Amy through that creepy little window.

It’s not that I dislike pirates. I enjoyed the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy and quite liked On Stranger Tides, but that is probably more to do with the supernatural elements that keep the stories interesting than anything else. In that world we have the Kraken, pirates cursed to be undead by Aztec gold, vicious mermaids, a tentacle-bearded Davy Jones and the edge of the world, amongst other things. The Smugglers would be greatly enlivened by the appearance of a similar otherworldly presence, I reckon.

This leads me on nicely to a realisation; pure historical stories did not work in Doctor Who, which is why they were phased out three stories after The Smugglers. Now I realise that I am basing this on a watching of a reconstruction of one of the lesser historicals, but bear with me. After its initial few months on the air, Doctor Who had already ceased to be an educational programme as originator Sydney Newman imagined, and had instead become a series firmly based in the fantastical. I concede that Marco Polo, The Aztecs, The Romans, The Myth Makers and The Massacre were probably good stories in their own right, but the concept of fully historical stories sits ill at ease with what Doctor Who swiftly became. I’d imagine that there were many disappointed children each time a story turned out to be utterly devoid of monsters. But that’s not the biggest problem. Right from the start, the makers of Doctor Who seemed to be wilfully obtuse in their choice of historical events to show. Most of the early historicals depict events from other countries. Marco Polo takes place in China, with an Italian explorer; The Aztecs is set in Mexico; The Reign of Terror depicts the French Revolution, although admittedly this is a pretty recognisable era; The Crusade is located in the Middle East. By the time we get to The Massacre, the series is choosing totally obscure historical events. Not once do we get to see the history of Great Britain, where the series was first broadcast! I presume the remit from Sydney Newman was to extend the audience’s knowledge, not show things that they already knew something about. Also I suppose it allowed Doctor Who to be that bit different from the many historical series at that time. But what every one of the historical stories misses is a properly identifiable historical figure at the very centre of the story.

In Hartnell’s era, we meet Marco Polo, Robespierre, Richard I, Napoleon, Nero, Kublai Kahn, Catherine de Medici and Johnny Ringo amongst others, but Marco and Richard aside, none are more than peripheral characters and none of the stories featuring them do much to flesh them out beyond the pages of history books. There’s nothing new to be said about these characters. They are simply re-enacting the events for which they are famous. Contrast this with some of the historical figures who crop up in later Doctor Who stories after the pure historical had been summarily executed. We have Madame de Pompadour proving to be so intelligent and brave that the Doctor falls in love with her, Queen Victoria shooting that wolf-worshipping monk bloke with a shaking hand, Shakespeare reading the Doctor immediately and Elizabeth I fulfilling many a woman’s fantasy by losing her virginity to David Tennant. These character traits are surprising because they are so unexpected. This is Doctor Who playing with history, finally using the whole massive playground that its concept allows it. Altering one’s perception of these figures may throw out textbook accuracy in the name of story, but this sea-change has meant that a new generation falls in love with some of the most extraordinary men and women to ever live. My own step-daughter sought out extra information on Shakespeare and van Gogh following the episodes featuring those characters, and there is definite evidence that Doctor Who has improved her historical knowledge, more than a dry recital of events and dates would have done. This is an area where modern Doctor Who gets it so, so right and classic Doctor Who limited itself and its ambitions. History teaches the Doctor something new. He’s a Time Lord, who can see everything that has ever happened and everything that ever will, but the human race, past present and future, can teach him more than he will ever know. That’s history as a tool to improve the future, and if that’s not a fulfilling of Sydney Newman’s intent to educate I don’t know what is.

The final issue with pure historicals is that in the denouement there is usually little for the TARDIS crew to do but watch as events in which they cannot involve themselves unfold in front of them. This means that the audience is not invested in those stories as the outcomes are already known. Most historical stories seem to consist of the crew realising where they are and attempting to escape back to the safety of the TARDIS. Very few of them actually take the time to make a telling comment on that era or on the series as a whole. The one exception to this is The Aztecs, which presents the concept of not getting involved in a clear way for the first time; an idea that resonates through to Doctor Who in the present day. This is a historical that moves our understanding of the programme along, and allows our heroes to be permanently changed by the events they witness. Sadly this model was ignored as the series went on, and by the time we reach The Smugglers we are stuck in the cycle of capture – escape – recapture to avoid returning to the TARDIS. This is true up until William Hartnell’s fantastic moment listed in the ten best bits below. Then The Smugglers shows signs of what it could have been if it weren’t just ripping off the works of Robert Louis Stevenson.

Incidentally, it’s no wonder the pirates couldn’t find Henry Avery’s treasure; he threw it overboard in The Curse of the Black Spot before he flew off around the galaxy with Lily Cole!

But back to The Smugglers. It’s clearly a lesser historical tale, created at a time when the interest in them was faltering, both in terms of the audience and the production team, and its cause is not helped by its absence from the archives. This particularly affects Episode Four, when we miss out on seeing what sounds like a decent set of sword fights and full-on battles. The soundtrack can only do so much, and it is very hard to imagine what the fight between Cherub and Pike actually looked like. Yet it is an important story in establishing to Polly and Ben as the new companions that the Doctor is telling the truth and the TARDIS is indeed a time machine. It embeds them as the new generation of companion in readiness for the new generation of Doctor at the end of the following story. It represents the last-but-one breath of a dying Doctor Who story-type and it is a real shame it no longer exists as I think it would be more fondly remembered. As it is, unfortunately it is hardly remembered at all.

Ten Reasons The Smugglers is buried treasure

1.       A few minutes into Episode One, William Hartnell provides one of my favourite Billyfluffs. The Doctor is justifiably annoyed by the sudden presence of Polly and Ben in the TARDIS. He doesn’t want them there, just as he didn’t want Ian and Barbara way back at the start of the programme. His belligerence gives way to a sense of superiority as he explains the workings of his ship to his mystified new companions. Unfortunately the Doctor then blows it. ‘Now you see that scanner?’ he asks Ben. ‘That is what I call a scanner up there.’ Ben, to his credit, doesn’t dignify this obvious statement with a reply, but the Doctor’s mistake only endears him further; his annoyance and his superior tone is a facade. He doesn’t actually know what he is talking about, and he is as susceptible to error as the rest of us.

2.       The Smugglers features the first true example of location filming. Director Julia Smith, who later co-created Eastenders, enjoyed a full five days filming in Cornwall. This was the first moves of the series beyond the confines of the studio. In a few short years we’d have Cybermen outside St Paul’s Cathedral and Autons on Ealing Broadway. There’s a great story of Julia Smith, filming a scene on a boat and feeling the effects of seasickness, shouting ‘Get ready, cameras – oh hold it,’ throwing up over the side of the boat and then continuing with ‘Action!’ in the same breath. It’s such a pity we can’t see what she achieved as The Smugglers may well look like one of the most expensive stories of the Hartnell era.

3.       The running joke of Polly being mistaken for a boy is a subtle but amusing one. Anneke Wills is one of the prettiest companions ever, and certainly the sexiest in Doctor Who up to this point. With her legs that go on forever and her long fluttering eyelashes, she’s a sixties Karen Gillan. So it’s quite implausible that anybody could mistake her for a boy, let alone every single character that comes across her. Either everyone in Eighteenth Century Cornwall was blind or they were very sexually confused.

4.       George A Cooper’s Cherub is an effectively menacing character. He out-villains Pike, the supposedly lead baddie in the story, and almost manages to double-cross him successfully. He is also responsible for the death of Holy Joe and Kewper in scenes considered too violent to show in Australia. His skills at knife-throwing make him an unusually effective henchman in Doctor Who terms. Cooper gives him a rough edge that makes him a believable killer, so that every time his character crosses paths with one of our heroes, you believe he could do them some serious harm. In that regard, Cherub is one of the most underrated Doctor Who villains.

5.       Ben and Polly are trapped in a jail cell, like so many companions before or after them. Rather than waiting for rescue. Or resorting to violence, the two companions affect their escape by making a little straw doll and convincing poor thick Tom the guard that the Doctor is a warlock who has captured Tom’s soul. The terrified jailer lets them go immediately. In this scene, Ben and Polly show a level of resourcefulness that marks them out as good companion-stock.  If only Turlough had thought of doing something like this in the Peter Davison era, in the seven thousand times he got captured, he wouldn’t have spent most of his episodes in a locked room and could actually have got on with the business of killing the Doctor.

6.       The Doctor’s speech in Episode Three is reason enough for the story to exist. It’s the last bit of truly brilliant Hartnell. The travellers have been unable to return to the TARDIS because the seaside cave where it materialised is cut off by the high tide. However that tide has now receded and Ben and Polly urge the Doctor to leave. His response is one of the high points of Hartnell’s Doctor and sets the bar for any Doctor to come. ‘I’m afraid I can’t leave here. Not yet. It may be difficult for you to understand, but I feel a – moral obligation. I have become involved in the affairs of this village. Who knows, my interference may even have brought about the threat of destruction. I feel I must at least try to ward off the danger.’ In that one speech, Hartnell beautifully encapsulates the Doctor’s reasons for travelling in the TARDIS; his reason for living, if you like. He will fight for good no matter where he goes. He will interfere with the timeline because his sense of justice compels him. It is here we see the direct line from the First Doctor through to the myth of the Eleventh. Here is a man who has done so much good; who will do so much more, yet he puts the lives of people he has never met above his own. No wonder the universe would come to his rescue if he asked. What a hero.

7.       Jamaica’s perfunctory death is both brutal and shocking. It marks the arrival of Captain Pike as a properly bloodthirsty character. Lifting him from his endless scenes of dialogue. The surviving footage indicates a fair bit of blood, whilst Jamaica’s unseeing eyes are wide with shock. Doctor Who transcends its children’s TV heritage to become edgy and dangerous. It would walk this fine line for the rest of the Sixties and Seventies.

8.       Polly and Ben split up in Episode Four. Polly is returning to the TARDIS and Ben is going to locate the Doctor. Before she can go, Ben calls out to her. Ben: ‘Polly?’ Polly: ‘Yes?’ Ben: ‘Put the kettle on.’ Obvious, but funny.

9.       John Ringham is one of those jobbing actors who always seemed to do fantastic work on Doctor Who. Here he has very little to work with as Josiah Blake, the earnest revenue man on the trail of the pirates, but he imbues Blake with a dogged determination and keen eye that raises the character above the mundane.

10.   Anneke Wills and Michael Craze are both brilliant in this story, providing a sense of the modern that had been lacking for quite a while in Doctor Who, unless you count Dodo’s unfortunate mess of a character. They are the last contemporary companions until Liz Shaw at the start of the Pertwee era, and so are the only TARDIS travellers who give a taste of the swinging sixties at its height. The two work so comfortably together and it’s so obvious they will get together when they leave. It is unfortunate they never got the regard they deserved from the production team, who felt the need to replace them rather quickly.

The Smugglers has been lost in more ways than just its junking from the archives. Most of the actors involved with it are dead now, and it seems to have faded from the collective consciousness of those still alive. Similarly it occupies a place at the edge of the Doctor Who world, unloved and mostly forgotten. It is better than that, and for the single reason that it represents Hartnell’s last hurrah, The Smugglers is worth a listen.

Next Time: The Long Game