|
|
 |
|
Punchline When was it made? 2000 Who made it? BBV What format was it on? CD Familiar voices It stars Sylvester McCoy. Familiar names It was written by Robert Shearman under the alias "Jeremy Leadbetter". The blurb
In a nutshell… Sylvester McCoy is the Dominie and the Dominie is Dominic Perkins – star of a dreadful domestic sitcom. Every day he gets home from work, kisses his wife and drinks a gin and tonic. Then his layabout son turns up with a get-rich-quick scheme and Dominic ends up getting something all over his trousers. The doorbell rings – he hopes it isn’t his boss… it is – it’s Sir. Oh my golly gosh, oh crumbs. After a while he begins to notice that things aren’t quite right. Either they don’t quite make sense or they keep happening over and over again. Somewhere in the back of his mind are memories of travelling through time and space. Is it any good? It certainly is. Robert Shearman wrote it under a pseudonym but I can’t imagine it was out of embarrassment at the script. Though it feels a little inconsequential in comparison with his later "Chimes of Midnight" script, Punchline is a clever little story which never outstays its welcome. It also doesn’t feel the need to explain absolutely everything which is a plus. It starts out as a straight spoof of the Terry and June style suburban sit com. Sylvester McCoy is fantastic, giving the lines the right mix of knowing pastiche and well meaning enthusiasm. We’re never meant to believe this is a real setting and because everyone plays it at the same level it is really good. Had one of them tried to be too realistic or one been too over the top, the whole thing would’ve sounded a bit embarrassing. Special mention must go to Barry Gordon as Sir – he sounded just like BOSS from the Green Death. So the first scene plays out – Dominic gets green paint all over his trousers when his layabout son decides to become a far out modern artist. Then Sir turns up unannounced for dinner. Luckily, wifey is able to conjure up a perfect steak dinner for Sir. Unluckily, Sir is on a strict vegetarian diet as his doctor says steak could kill him at any moment. Dominic’s quick thinking paints the steak green and he passes it off as a vegetable. A happy ending. The domestic bliss, domestic crisis, domestic bliss chain continues through several more gin and tonics before Dominic begins to sense that something isn’t right. When he decides he wants ginger beer instead of gin and tonic the fantasy world reacts – he’s given some foul mixture which his son says is ginger beer, he gets ginger beer down his trousers, Sir tells him a story about how he fired a man for liking ginger beer. Whatever it is that is keeping the Dominie trapped doesn’t want him to get any ideas. There are foreshadows of Chimes of Midnight – at one point Dominic decides he doesn’t want to play along any more so the intelligence (for want of a better name) has the layabout son playing both his own and Dominic’s role. Dominic tries to leave at an unexpected moment and finds that there is nothing outside the house. The rows of trees and houses are only there when the intelligence wants the door to be opened. Dominic tries to destroy this fantasy world – he smashes the canned laughter machine (an act which is written into the comedy scene and later forgotten by everyone except Dominic), he starts asking questions he knows his co-stars cannot answer and eventually he simply refuses to be part of this world any longer. It is an hour long and that seems the perfect length. As a four part Big Finish style play it would’ve dragged. They would’ve felt the need to add something monstrous to it. As it is the only monster is a hastily created one which the intelligence gives to Dominic in an attempt to make him happy. He wants to be an adventurer who fights monsters so he is given a monster to fight. But he’s also given a convenient ray gun which takes all the fun out of it because the intelligence still believes that cosy, happy endings are the root of all happiness. It is definitely on a par with Shearman’s Big Finish work and that’s pretty damned good. Anything for the BBC to object to? By this stage I think they were past caring. I don’t mean that in a bad way – just that BBV had made the cosmetic changes to the range ("The Dominie and Alice" instead of "The Professor and Ace") and any similarities to Doctor Who were now Big Finish’s problem since they won the official licence. Which is just as well as Punchline contains some pretty explicit hints that this is the Doctor. Most notably that he describes his time and space machine as a blue box that is bigger on the inside than the outside. Did it help fill the void? Ha! The answer is literally yes because the point of Punchline is that this sitcom world is created in what is otherwise a void and when Dominic/Dominie/Doctor leaves, it returns to its natural void state. Otherwise, no because McCoy (and Aldred) was doing Big Finish plays now and they were all together more real. Albeit, most of them aren’t as good as this. Would it work on radio? Certainly – the only genre the listener has to know about is domestic sit coms and I think most people are at least aware of the "Hi honey – I’m home!" breed of comedy series. The pace is just right with doubts dripping in to stop it becoming unintentionally stale (as opposed to the intentional staleness of the comedy routines) and an ending that is extremely good as part of a range of science fiction CDs but which would be even better if this was a stand alone play on Radio 4. If we didn’t know that the Dominie was right about being a time traveller, the ending would be even more powerful – stepping off in hope is generally more satisfying than stepping off in certainty. Verdict Production 5/5 Entertainment 5/5 Whoishness 4/5 Overall 5/5
|
Title