Inspirations - Delta and the Bannermen

 

It's the old, old story.

Boy meets girl. Girl turns out to be alien fleeing from other aliens. Boy turns himself into human-alien hybrid so they can be together. Both fly off together into the twin sunsets, to live happily ever after. We've heard it all so many times...

Romance of one kind or another has been part of Doctor's Who's DNA ever since Ganatus fell head over heels for Barbara Wright. She was mostly lusted after (Vasor, Nero etc), but this was proper love with Ganatus, though sadly - for him - unrequited. There can't be many fans who don't believe that she eventually married Ian Chesterton. Or that Ben Jackson went on to marry Polly. (Personally, I think the reason Dodo left the Doctor so abruptly was because she had the hots for that tough guy from the Inferno Club...).

There have been lots of romantic subplots in the programme (Jo Grant was another one who had Thals falling for her, as well as Peladonian monarchs), but a romance has never really been a central part of the plot before.

Delta and the Bannermen puts the love affair between the title character and holiday camp odd jobs boy Billy at its heart. Despite already having a girlfriend - Ray - he falls madly in love with the aloof Delta on first sight, and isn't at all fazed to discover that she has an egg which hatches into a green lizard baby. In fact, he wants her so much he's prepared to turn himself into a green lizard / human hybrid so that they can be together. Don't feel too sorry for Ray - I think she fancied Billy's motorbike more than him, and she gets to keep that when he flies off to the stars.

This story is a love story, albeit one with a bizarre guest cast, as well as the obligatory villains to provide a perilous situation every twenty two and half minutes.

As well as a love story, it is also a bit of a musical. There is a lot of music in this story, tying it to its 1950's Rock 'n' Roll setting. The first time music in the series was more than just incidental would probably be The Gunfighters. Then, the "Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon" featured as incidental music, commentary on the plot, and as heard and played / sung by characters within the story itself.

Likewise The Macra Terror, where the annoying jingles of the colony aren't just for the benefit of the TV audience, but are experienced by the characters themselves.

There are few other stories where the music is feature of the story itself (as in The Talons of Weng-Chiang, with its music hall numbers, or The Masque of Mandragora and its dance music). On a couple of occasions we have had chart hits playing (which have usually had to be edited out for the subsequent VHS or DVD releases due to copyright issues). As well as appearing on the Space-Time Visualiser in The Chase, the Beatles could also be heard playing in the coffee bar in The Evil of the Daleks, and the factory workers in Spearhead from Space are listening to Fleetwood Mac.

Delta and the Bannermen features some Rock 'n' Roll loving aliens who are on a trip to Disneyland, but get side-tracked to a Welsh holiday camp after colliding with a satellite above the Earth. Luckily they are still in the right time zone, and the aforementioned Billy is lead singer with the camp's resident band. (The guitarist is Keff McCulloch - arranger of the McCoy theme music, and incidental music composer for several McCoy stories. He's following in the footsteps of the late great Dudley Simpson, who cameo'd as the music hall conductor in Talons).

As well as McCulloch's incidental music, the era is also brought to life by a rendition of Devil's Galop on the soundtrack - the theme music to BBC Radio's Dick Barton - Special Agent (1946 - 1951). Within the story itself, we also hear radios playing music from the times - such as the theme to Worker's Playtime. That ran from 1941, launched to increase productivity in factories and so help the war effort, to 1964.

The villains of the piece are the Bannermen, led by a man named Gavrok. These were inspired by the samurai films of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, some of which were in turn inspired by the works of Shakespeare - Ran (1985) is King Lear, Throne of Blood (1957) is Macbeth. He then went on to inspire some famous movies of the Western genre - with Yojimbo (1950) being remade as A Fistful of Dollars, and Seven Samurai (1954) becoming The Magnificent Seven (and later still the Star Wars cash-in Battle Beyond The Stars).

In Kurosawa's samurai movies, various factions are represented by their having colourful flags and pendants which they wear on their backs.

The main inspiration for this story, however, is probably its writer's childhood experiences of stays at holiday camps.

A uniquely British experience, the holiday camp was born back in 1936 when a man named Billy Butlin bought a site at Skegness, on the east coast of England, and built cheap accommodation - to provide affordable holidays for families. The plan was to have all the amenities on one site, so families lived, ate and were entertained without having to set foot outside the complex - usually at a single, all-inclusive price. There was no problem if you had small children - you could still spend the night in the Hawaiian Ballroom, as staff were employed to patrol the site and listen out for crying babies. Entertainments ranged from beauty contests to knobbly-knees competitions. We were easier to please back then, obviously.

After the war, Butlins expanded to other locations thanks to some abandoned army camps. Butlin also ran some proper hotels, both in the UK and in Spain, and even ran the revolving restaurant at the top of the Post Office Tower (sharing the space with WOTAN?). These holiday camps were hit hard by the relative cheapness of the package holiday - with a little more sun in Spain than could be guaranteed at Skegness. There was also competition from one main rival (or imitator) - Pontins. During the 1970's and 1980's, the holiday camps kept themselves going by hosting weekend music events, providing much needed exposure to otherwise forgotten singers and bands. A whole nostalgia-music scene grew out of this. The camp used for filming this story was real one, though one that was closed for refurbishment. You'll notice that the grass between the chalets is very long. The cast and crew stayed on site, and reported that the place was overrun with rats. After it was demolished, the location featured again in Doctor Who, for filming on The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances in 2005.

You can't watch this story, if you are British, without being reminded of the Jimmy Perry / David Croft sitcom Hi-de-Hi!. This was also set in a holiday camp of the 1950's - this time a fictitious one called Maplins. Butlins had Redcoats, Pontins had Bluecoats, and Maplins, like here, had Yellowcoats. These were the young camp staff who provided all the entertainments, and quite a few UK singers and comedians started their careers as Redcoats (e.g. Des O'Connor, Michael Barrymore, Jimmy Tarbuck). A certain Bradley Walsh was a Bluecoat, as was Lee Mack, who guested in Kerblam!.

 Hi-de-Hi! ran from 1980 to 1988, so was contemporary with the broadcast of this story. One of its stars was Ruth Madoc, who had been married to Doctor Who guest artist Philip Madoc. Her character used to play jingles and sing to the campers, just as one of the "Shangri-La" camp staff does here.

As for that bizarre guest cast? Well, as the Toll-Keeper we have Ken Dodd, that well known comic, singer and tax avoider. Fans were furious at his casting, thinking it the ultimate in JNT's stunt-casting of light entertainment figures (to boost publicity, whether they were right for the show or not). We do get to see him gunned own in cold blood, however. He is joined by Stubby Kaye as CIA agent Weismuller. Kaye was a famous Broadway and Vaudeville musical star. Brian Hibbard, of the acapella singing group The Flying Pickets, is the bounty hunter Keillor. Then we have Hugh Lloyd, another comic actor, as the enigmatic Garonwy, who some fans think is another Time Lord in self-imposed exile on Earth. As Burton, head of the camp, we have yet another comic actor - Richard Davies, who was best known for the sitcom Please Sir!. Don Henderson, as Gavrok, at least has a history of playing villainous types.

The last thing we should say about this story takes us back to Ray (Sara Griffiths). Bonnie Langford had made it clear that she was only going to do one year on the show, so a new companion was needed. It was decided to test out two characters, in this story and the next. Ray was one, Ace the other...

Next time: Aliens meets Star Wars meets The Wizard of Oz meets Space Truckers, on the Planet of the Film Theorists...