Sunday 18 September 2022

Ra-Ra-Rasputin


A lot of people commenting on the hirsute version of the Master seen in the trailer, now that a proper photograph has been made available. He seems to be mirroring a pose adopted by Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin - the "Mad Monk" of Tsarist Russia. It is being suggested that it will be revealed in The Power of the Doctor that Rasputin was the Master. It might explain why it was so difficult to kill him (supposedly he survived poisoning and had to be shot several times before succumbing to a final bullet in the head).
The Cultbox site have taken this theory further and are claiming that it might have been whilst the Master was trapped on Earth in the 20th Century during Spyfall Part II that he adopted this role... 
Er... slight problem. The Master was trapped on Earth, without TARDIS, from the Second World War onwards - so how exactly could he have been Rasputin, who was born in 1869 and was dead by 1916?
If he was Rasputin at one time, it has absolutely nothing to do with the time he was stuck on Earth in Spyfall.
If he is playing the Master posing as Rasputin, then Sacha Dhawan follows in the illustrious footsteps of Tom Baker and Christopher Lee. It's one of only two roles they shared, as far as I'm aware - the other being Sherlock Holmes.
Baker was recommended for the role in Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) by Sir Laurence Olivier. (The resemblance is remarkable, as was Michael Jayston's Tsar Alexander II).
Lee only agreed to reprise the Count in Dracula, Prince of Darkness on the condition that he got to play the title role in Hammer's Rasputin The Mad Monk (1966) - which he always maintained was one of his favourite roles.

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