24: The Celestial Toymaker

Before Watching

I love the surreal. One of my earliest memories of Doctor who was watching “The Mind Robber” when it was first broadcast in the late 60s, and seeing Zoe trapped in what I thought was a giant drum. Actually it was a jar. Why? It was all to do with the riddle – when is a door not a door? Now, I can’t say that my love of the surreal can be traced back to watching The Mind Robber when I was a kid – but on the other hand, I can’t swear to it that it wasn’t either.

When I was formulating my mental list of the ‘missing’ stories I most wanted to see, back in the late 70s, “The Celestial Toymaker” was almost universally viewed as a ‘lost, surrealist classic’. If you just read the synopsis, and consider that the Toymaker himself was played by an actor of the calibre of Michael Gough, then you can see why it enjoyed the reputation that it did.

Well, it’s probably not unfair to say that few if any Doctor Who stories have suffered such a drastic critical reappraisal over the years. I’m afraid that many fans don’t have much nice to say about it at all. I intend to try to find out why.

After Watching

There’s bad stories and there’s bad stories. Let me put that another way. You can get a bad story where you just kind of accept it, because it could never be any better bearing in mind the unpromising raw material from which it’s made. Then there’s the kind of bad story which gets you really frustrated because, bearing in mind the raw material it’s made from, it ought to be a lot better than it really is. Such a story is the Celestial Toymaker. Why?

Five Reasons Why The Celestial Toymaker Should Be Better Than It Is.

Michael Gough. The late Michael Gough, who passed away in 2011, was a terrific actor, and had a very fine career both in Britain and in Hollywood – he’s maybe best remembered for playing Alfred the butler in the Tim Burton Batman films. Yet he gives a disappointingly two dimensional performance in the title role of the Toymaker. This is an immortal being of seemingly limitless power. Yet . . . he’s a bore, and he’s made of cardboard. Michael Gough does manage to imbue him with a little bit of feline charm, I suppose, but it’s very tame stuff when compared with what he was capable of. I’m willing to put that down to the script and the direction – although it should be noted that Michael Gough’s later appearance in Doctor Who was as renegade Time Lord Councillor Hedin in another turkey called “The Arc of Infinity”. To appear in one poor story may be seen as unfortunate , to appear in two . . .

William Hartnell. If he was hard done by in “The Massacre of St. Bartholemew’s Eve”, he is almost criminally underused in this. In the cliffhanger at the end of “The Ark” we saw the Doctor starting to fade. For most of this story he’s either invisible or just his hand can be seen (which wasn’t even William Hartnell’s, so the story goes), and for much of this time he is not allowed to speak either. All of which means we never get a really good confrontation scene between the Doctor and the Toymaker – and the irony is that Hartnell is absolutely brilliant at that sort of thing. Just think back to his scenes with the Monk if you want to know what I mean by that. It would surely have helped the character of the Toymaker come across better too.

The Surreal and Nightmarish concept. The unknown is frightening. However, when you can take something that is real, well known, and normally not in the least bit frightening – the trappings of childhood for example – and twist them so that they take on a frightening and sinister aspect, then that can make for great and scarey television. “Doctor Who” would go on to do it on a number of occasions in the future. Yet, and I’m sorry to say this, it just doesn’t come off. The reason is – well – and I admit I have only seen recons of the first three episodes, together with the 4^th episode which does exist – the script and direction consistently undercut any really frightening qualities that the story has. Take the clowns in the first episode. Joey and Clara, well, for all that they are playing a game of Blind Men’s Buff with Steven and Dodo with the stakes being the companions’ continuing humanity – well, they’re just not sinister at all. The only thing they do is to cheat. Big deal. Yet it really isn’t a difficult job to make clowns sinister. Just think of The Greatest Show In The Galaxy , for instance.

In the second episode the game involves Steven and Dodo playing against some playing cards to find the safe chair out of seven. Now, the way the other 6 chairs deal with the sitters is suitably macabre – but it’s all so matter of fact. For the most part it’s just dolls who get their comeuppance, and who cares about that? The level of threat is so downplayed that one suspects even Mary Whitehouse could have watched this story without foaming at the mouth and reaching for her green biro.

The third episode has a protracted game of hunt the thimble, which is punctuated by a long and pointless episode with two characters, Sergeant Rugg and Mrs Wiggs. I presume that this part was meant to be funny – although I wouldn’t presume for one moment that anybody has ever found it the least bit amusing, but whether it is funny or just tedious ( it is just tedious) that misses the point. This is totally the wrong place for comedy – and there’s far too much of it anyway. Then Steven and Dodo have just to dance their way around some dancing dolls, and the speed and ease with which they do it suggests that this wasn’t much of a challenge in the first place.

A supporting cast who give their all for a dying cause. That’s a bit mean, but give credit to Campbell Singer, Peter Stephens and Carmen Silvera (Madame Edith from the seemingly endless ‘Allo ‘ Allo) who give it 100%, and they each have to play several roles. Peter Stephens in particular is excellent as cheating schoolboy Cyril. Yes, of course he’s meant to be Billy Bunter. Why they bothered I don’t know. Bunter was a bit of a fool, but he wasn’t renowned for cheating at games or being a bad loser, really. I did read somewhere that Frank Richards took exception to this usurpation of his most famous character - well , it could only have happened through a medium since he died in 1961 – but I digress. Each of them deserves a hell of a lot better than the lines they get given to say, although to be fair Campbell Singer and Carmen Silvera do manage to squeeze just the tiniest bit of pathos from the fact that it seems that if they lose to Steven and Dodo, then what tiny bit of their humanity remains will be lost forever. Now that might have been worth exploring properly in the script. Fat chance.

The Script. Actually you might ask which script. Take one – the original script was written by Brian Hayles. The same Brian Hayles who later created the Ice Warriors, and wrote a further three stories to feature them.  Take two – it was never uncommon for the production team to request rewrites, but Brian Hayles was unavailable to do them. So then script editor Donald Tosh did the rewrites, and it was agreed he would take the writing credit, with Brian Hayles credited with the original idea. No worries there – Donald Tosh co wrote The Massacre so he knew how to write for Doctor Who. Take three. Donald Tosh’s tenure as script editor came to an end, and Gerry Davies took over with new Producer Innes Lloyd before the story would be aired. The budget for the show was cut, which meant that Davies had to do re-writes, which Donald Tosh didn’t like – hence his name being removed from the production, and the writing credit returning to Brian Hayles. So what you actually have is a script by committee, which has undoubtedly been watered down from the original versions in order to save cash. So what ends up on screen is still an intriguing idea, but poorly realised, because they couldn’t afford to do it properly. You can’t blame the cast for that.

How Bad Is The Celestial Toymaker?

It’s not easy to strip away the two layers of reputation that have attached themselves to this story over the years. First of all it was viewed as ‘the great lost classic’ back in the 70s and 80s when it was unavailable in any form, and then, when people could actually hear it and see parts of it the disappointment led to its reputation as a turkey of epic proportions. Even ignoring all of this, and trying to judge it solely on what I’ve seen over the three recons and the surviving episode, it’s very hard to find much that is very positive to say about it. This isn’t a great Doctor Who story, it isn’t even a good Doctor Who story. It isn’t awful though – for example it never descends into the levels of tedium already plumbed by Galaxy Four. It is, though, a good example of why, however good the idea, if you can’t do a particular story properly, then you’re better off not doing it at all. A missed opportunity.

What Have We Learned?

The production team at this point just seem to want to keep Hartnell off screen at all costs

The Doctor has escaped from the Toymaker at some point in his past

The Toymaker is immortal and indestructible. . . and a bit of a bore