Fans of Jon Pertwee’s paternalistic Doctor have always found plenty to love in 1971’s The Daemons: the adventure that dared to juxtapose the occult world of Dennis Wheatley with the cosy world of UNIT and Pertwee at his most mother hennish.
Looking at the story again, it’s remarkable how black the magic gets. When Russell T Davies’s The End of Time: Part One tried to stage a black mass, the most they could get away with was a few token prison warder lesbians in power dress.
Here, the imagery is considerably stronger, and, in casting Damaris Hayman as white witch, Miss Hawthorne, the production even had the benefit of one who had a lay interest in the ars magica. No milksop Hayman, as the commentary makes clear, this is a woman who knows her ars from her elbow.
So many of the greatest moments in The Daemons involve Miss Hawthorne. Whether she’s defying supernatural storms or facing off to the Master in his latest disguise as Rev. Magister, she is a pure delight.
When Hawthorne airily dismisses Magister as ‘a rationalist existentialist priest, indeed!’, it’s in a line which has the double value of sending schoolchildren scurrying to their dictionaries while chiming, with an adult audience, as an eerily prescient commentary on the current state of the Church of England.
As a depiction of a strong female character, it’s fair to say that Miss Hawthorne fares rather better than Jo Grant who, for all her strong-willed loyalty to the Doctor, also has to endure the sort of dialogue which makes you want to chew your arm off.
‘But it really is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius!’ says Katy Manning with more conviction than more ironically-minded actresses could be expected to muster, while the Doctor gets on with the business in hand of metaphorically patting her on the head.
Dear muddle-headed Jo with her superstitious belief in magic and her inability to read a map! If you didn’t know it was the early Seventies from the preoccupation with Beltane and the Talisman of Mercury, her characterisation alone would be a clue.
It’s a testament to the cosiness of the production, however, that Jo is not the campest thing in it. That’s an honour which belongs to BBC reporter, Alastair Fergus, and the rest of his production team. Always on the edge of a hissy fit, Alastair keeps it strictly business for the camera, but behind the scenes he and Harry have a habit of flaring up at each other in dialogue which suggests they’re probing more than Devil’s End.
‘I only asked!’ storms Harry, ‘There’s no need to make a production number out of it!’ But Alastair knows better than to go to bed on a quarrel. ‘I’m just a bit on edge,’ he soothes. ‘I’ll be alright.’ Really, there was a spin-off series waiting for those two alone.
Extras: The main selling point of this DVD is undoubtedly the enhanced picture quality, thanks, as ever, to the sterling work of the Restoration Team.
Location footage has been tinkered with less than studio scenes here, but the studio footage is a revelation. So much sharper and richer than the scenes shot on film, it’s a reminder of just how clever those Restoration Team members are. They’re the real magicians here, and we’re lucky to have them.
As for the rest of the extras, the commentary is a mothballed one from the early Noughties, but has the great benefit of featuring the late Christopher Barry and Damaris Hayman at her most magisterial.
Damaris has done her homework and anticipates key moments. She also, it turns out, knows ‘Lo and behold!’ in Latin, and is a knowledgeable expert on the correct pronunciation of ‘daemon’. Can we have her on every commentary please?
Damaris isn’t the only one who induces waves of nostalgia. The sight of a 1990s era Judith Hann and Howard Stableford – them off Tomorrow’s World – is a reminder of just how shonky the BBC’s educational programming used to be, even when it was good.
Rather more charming is gorgeous location footage from the Aldbourne shoot: cast in a golden summer glow, there is Pertwee in his shades, looking like Jason King. There are Jon and Katy doing an impromptu dance, and there are line of UNIT shoulders butching it up in a line along the church wall. It’s every bit as charming as the story itself.
But if you will be revisiting the extras for one feature, it’s the documentary, Remembering Barry Letts, which pays tribute to the great man in style, and proves that, if it were not for Barry and script editor, Terrance Dicks, Doctor Who would not have survived beyond 1971.
As interviews with Barry’s sons, Dominic and Crispin, make clear, in Barry’s experimentation with new technology, his understanding of actors, and the positivity and pragmatism of his film-making, Letts was not the most obvious leader of the show, but proved to be a natural at it nonetheless.
In interview footage shot from 2008, Letts talks about his lifelong fight against consumerism and big business, and one is left with the enduring impression that the world needs a few more of Barry Letts in it.
Released on Monday 19th March 2012 by BBC Worldwide.
What are your memories of The Daemons? Let us know below…