The Sunmakers

 

The Season 15 Collection bluray box is about to drop and, cards on the table, you’ll never convince me that the Graham Williams years are bad and that may be because I was the right age for them and therefore always will be.  At that point I may have abandoned the series altogether where it not for the fact that it became witter, sillier and more willing to take chances. Honestly all this stuff about production values – we didn’t notice on our over richly coloured analogue TVs watching just the once. Plus, the appeal of Doctor Who then- at least for me- was not the special effects but the stories and the dialogue. I still maintain I learned more interesting words watching the show in this period than I learned concurrently at school.

All but one of the stories in this season have already been reviewed on this blog in 2017/18 - see links at the foot of this post. Due to personal reasons I wasn’t able to do `The Sunmakers` so I have done so below. A look at the extras in the box set to follow on the main blog shortly.

The Sun Makers

It’s a measure of how I watched this story back in 1977 that my big takeaway from episode one was thinking it was going to be a second Zygon tale because of that insignia on the badges the officials were wearing and that large version of it in the Collector’s office. It bears a resemblance to a Zygon head. I suppose this crossed my mind because, at that time, the wordiness of the story didn’t really register. I was at school and tax didn’t mean anything except something adults perpetually grumbled about. Nowadays I get it. And if you think that the taxes here are exaggerated, well consider how many times we pay tax on the same money and it starts to resemble this story’s stinging financial charges as outlined by the Gatherer in part one.

The story’s origins lay in writer Robert Holmes’s animosity towards the UK government’s Inland Revenue service with whom he had clashed over the amount of income tax he was having to pay as a freelance writer. His particular frustration was with the complicated system he had to navigate to pursue his claim. He had peppered the story with tax references notably P45, the form completed when a person’s job is terminated. Some of these had to be removed. Another source said to have inspired the sci-fi elements of the story is the book The Iron Sun- Crossing the Universe Through Black Holes written by Adrian Berry which included the idea of man- made Suns.

Nowadays I find `The Sunmakers` much more interesting as a tax payer and oddly prescient in terms of Holmes’ depiction of a society where additional taxation is used as the answer to everything. `The Sunmakers`, despite its grandiose title, is not really that interested in science fiction ideas rather Holmes concerns himself with government and society. In fact, save for a few passing references the six Suns that have been made to transform Pluto’s environment are ignored.

The result is the kind of Doctor Who story that was becoming increasingly prevalent in the later 1970s. Darker concepts, adult references and serious ideas sit sometimes uneasily amidst falling production values. The budget is stretched- ironic I suppose given the fiscal subject matter- so the Plutonian locations never look like the same place and there’s no evidence of those Suns, in fact it is distinctly overcast. Then there are sets that appear to have been designed not to look real at all; all large orange- and yellow-coloured blocks and behind the Collector what should be a huge circuit board looks like photos of circuit boards and he just doesn’t seem to be the type to decorate his workplace with pictures.

There’s an alternative epic struggling to escape from this story which in the end, just like the seeds of the revolution depicted, takes place largely off screen. Six manufactured Suns powering a terraformed Pluto is a terrific concept only on screen it just looks like a wet Wednesday on a factory roof.  Six Megropolis cities teaming with workers toiling to maintain the environment for just a few Talmars a day yet we never so much as glimpse any work. Or indeed learn the purpose of the work. If its to keep those Suns powered then post revolt they’d better get back to their machines or they’ll all die! The Sunmakers` would make a great large-scale drama but as it is we have to be content with a small-scale uprising initiated by the Doctor at his most proactive.

It helps that there’s a ready band of would-be rebels lurking in the underground. You can tell who they are as they never wash and are very growly whereas by contrast the workers are pacified by a percolating air conditioning that saps their will though not their strength or it seems their hygiene. Yet these rebels are a great bunch, probably as bolshy as the series would be allowed to go and certainly in the first half of the story it is doubtful how trustworthy they might be. I think they are based on people we might call armchair anarchists who talk a big revolution but only tinker at the edges. This is most apparent in Mandrel whose taciturn threats liven up the scenario yet once the Doctor has taken control and has a plan grouchy Mandrel falls in line. Perhaps the air filters were affecting the rebels more than they thought?

The story is sketchier outlining exactly how the Company came to such control – whoever awarded the tender for Pluto has questions to answer – preferring to set its stall a long while into the scenario. We open with Cordo, a small man cowed further by the large sets and the bamboozling verbosity of Gatherer Hade who is unsympathetic to this Grade D workers inability to pay death taxes. As a result, Cordo goes to jump off the nearest roof.

Robert Holmes is at his biting best firing pot shots at this system though if his ultimate way of changing it is revolution then that’s another story altogether. Unlike many fantasy based dramas that show a revolt this story does show us both sides. The litany of extra taxes Cordo has added to his bill simply for ensuing his father has a peaceful passing is the sort of heartless regulation anyone who has dealt with a family death will recognise. As for the air filters that ensure passivity from the people mean that thoughts of rebellion are far from their minds; perhaps Holmes was saying `what excuse do we have? ` Not that a teatime sci fi slot is going to incite civil unrest.

This is the first of several aspects of the story that are far darker in intent than the  often frivolously played story suggests. Holmes peppers the dialogue not just with corridors named after tax forms but with stinging examples of the way taxes are used as a far more effective way of keeping people in their place than a show of force. The suppressing air does the rest. The scenes when the Doctor and Leela first encounter the underground dwellers are as hard as 70s Doctor Who got and bring out the very best in Louise Jameson. Leela’s warrior is actually well equipped to deal with this band and the scenes where she and they goad each other (at one point she threatens to fillet someone!) are some of the best in the story. Then there’s the steaming scene which reveals the Collector’s sadistic delight at hearing the screams.  Yes, this is a dark story alright.

To counter this the group that gradually assemble to take on the Company have more personality than most similar ones in the show. Cordo goes from downtrodden to euphoric as matters develop. He’s the bellwether character of this story whose turns are depicted by Roy Macready’s expressive acting. It’s such a contrast between his downtrodden initial appearance and his gung-Ho handling of a gun when the revolution begins. Bisham, whose scenes with the Doctor provide the technical backbone of the story, is lighter relief and Mandrel’s initial hostility turns to practical help as things progress. Budgetary issues mean it’s a small-scale revolution but the story uses screens and announcements to keep us in the picture- amusingly the Doctor himself utilises the same tools to push things forward by rigging up a false public announcement. Pennant Roberts directs with a good sense of its tone, ensuring darker sets and busy conversations. Though the action is let down more by what is available to use than anything, even this has its moments including some flourishes in the corridor scene. He wisely avoids focussing too much on the carboard guns!

Holmes mix of the macabre and the amusing comes together with the Company’s higher echelons. Richard Leach’s Hade is a pompous hot air bag of an official drawn straight from a Dickens novel and given government tax babble to spout. It’s an expansive performance that grows bigger as the story progresses; Hade’s reaction to the news that he will pay for something from his own wallet is the funniest moment of all. Leach and Tom Baker only get one scene together but it’s a classic as each tries to outwit the other and the Doctor exits with the word “humbug” while proffering said confection.  Also to be enjoyed are Hade’s increasingly grand salutations to the Collector.

The Gatherer is a petty official with a lot of power but The Collector is something else and I’ve never understood why he’s not considered as classic an antagonist as Sutekh, Davros and co. Maybe it’s his squeaky voice? By turns amusing and deadly serious and there are moments when he is quite chilling as he describes his delight at victims screams from the steamer. He seem driven by numbers and economics to the point where those screams appear to be the only thing about people he is interested in. All this works wonderfully due to Henry Woolf’s interpretation of the dialogue with some dedication. It’s said his prominent eyebrows were a nod to the then chancellor Dennis Healey. I’m sure Robert Holmes enjoyed writing the baddies more than other characters.

I like it that The Sun Makers shows the pros and cons of the `people` rising. On the one hand the Doctor successfully manages to unravel the Collector’s hold by trickery rather than anything more physical. Yet we also hear of insurrection and the story climaxes with the Gatherer being hurled from a very tall building and everyone cheering, a scene that sits uneasily with the established morality of the series at that time. It suggests that the moment the TARDIS vanishes after cordial goodbyes more blood will be spilled and in all probability this disparate set of rebels will fall out amongst themselves. There’s a sequel in there somewhere. It is in the end easier to admire than `The Sunmakers` than love it yet it is one of those lesser known stories you can go back to and discover more than you remembered.  

Henry Woolf

A memorable performance as the Collector with a penchant for steaming happened during a busy period of Henry Woolf’s career. Born in 1930 one of his school friends was playwright Harold Pinter who along with other members of `the Hackney Gang` grew up in the difficult climate of the 1940s. Their friendship lasted until Pinter’s death and it was Woolf, when on a course in Bristol in 1957, who commissioned and directed Pinter’s first play The Room.

Woolf’s early career in the Sixties was spent in the theatre acting in various companies as well as in touring plays. He has had roles in a number of films- including The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Gorky Park - and on television was a regular on ex - Monty Python Eric Idle’s series Rutland Weekend Television and also had a recurring role in Steptoe and Son.

Since 1978 he and his wife Susan (whom he married in 1965) have lived in Canada where from 1983 he joined the Drama department of the University of Saskatchewan eventually becoming the head of its Drama department until retiring in 1990. He has since remained active in the Canadian acting world- in 2003 he directed an all- female version of Twelfth Night at the University of Winnepeg.

His long friendship with Harold Pinter featured prominently in Woolf’s memoir `Barcelona in Trouble` in which he describes how in the Sixties he had to take long bus trips while Pinter and actress Joan Bakewell carried on their affair in his flat, later included in Pinter’s play The Betrayal. Woolf has continued to appear in revivals of some of Pinter’s plays including The Hothouse in 2007 and this year in a production of Spider Love in London’s British Library. He died in 2021.

So what did 1977 fans think of this story?