A David Collings Picspam

[thisbluespirit]

(Um, yes. But hopefully it will be fairly amusing, anyway, even to people who aren't me.)

Just to show what I've been doing with my time this year, or something. You know me; this is not going to be entirely serious & I will endeavour not to be spoilery, even though this includes Blake. Plus, there will be a cute cat, I promise.

... And I don't know whether it makes it better or worse that the main part of this picspam only exists to justify the highly ridiculous mini-picspam at the end that I wound up with after making icons for naarmamo in August. Hmm...

Pics from Elizabeth R, Doctor Who, Midnight Is A Place, Sapphire & Steel, Blake's 7, Miss Marple & Press Gang. I managed to find an old DWM interview with him from 2003 and have used some bits from it that I thought were interesting/amusing.

Also, I realised at the beginning of this year that everything I'd seen him in, his characters didn't end well, so I went looking for things in which that didn't happen. So I've chalked up happy/unhappy endings (but not in a spoilery way). Indeed, a website I chanced on described him as a "Perennial player of gentle naive creatures with a delightful sing-song voice that invariably come to grief." (Although my main experience being DW, I found that he was just as likely to be the bad guy and come to grief deservedly as well.)


In vague chronological order, rather than order of watching.
Elizabeth R (1970)

In which he plays Sir Anthony Babington, a supporter of the wrong team in this time period.


That is Babington, as in Babington Plot (this is Tudor England, yes) and so he is a historical traitor#.

In Elizabeth R, he is also incredibly naive and stupid & manipulated by Walsingham. (I loved Walsingham too much in this even so. My worrying liking for spymasters... I should do something about that.##)

#He does not have happy ending.

##On a completely unrelated note, I hear David Collings played Cromwell's spymaster in By The Sword Divided...

***

DW - Revenge of the Cybermen (1975)

I'm pretty sure this is him...

Actually, I didn't watch this properly, I just listened to the commentary. Which might have been the thing that started off the rest. Anyway, he is Vorus the Vogan and he is (apparently) still amused all these years later that a) he had a rocket and b) his death, which he can still quote. As he says, "We Vogans didn't need any help making ourselves look ridiculous." (Quite. As alien races go, Vogans will never make the Top Ten, unless it is of aliens who miss the painfully obvious.)

Vorus does not have a happy ending.

***

DW - Robots of Death (1977)
I didn't watch this either, but I did listen to one of the sequel audios, and I did screencap it...

Poul was the first part I really saw him in (apart from children's stuff when I was young and impressionable). justice_turtle once asked me what it was about David Collings. I should just have posted screencaps of Poul, and then pointed out that he also has an amazing voice. So.


He's not noticeable at all in this, no.


"Oh, we've all got something to hide, Commander!"


(I am highly amused by his back-of-shot scene stealing. Poul is uncomfortable with robots, maybe. Heh.) As he says, "that, of course, was the story with those very pretty but rather murderous robots in."

Also, in the interview, he at first says he doesn't usually do interviews because people ask him about things he doesn't remember... and then procedes to explain the plot of RoD to the interviewer when the guy laughs about the costume being flimsy. "... to be fair, I thought it matched the story rather well. It had to fit with the style of that particular show and was designed to go with the decor of the set. It was quite a decadent society they were showing, and I think it was put over very well through the general look." (And in another DWM about the same time, Russell Hunter [Uvanov] was still asking why he'd had to wear a silly hat...)


Poul does not have a happy ending.

***

Midnight Is A Place (1977/78)


"It was your guardian who smuggled an alligator into the House of Lords..."

This was such a desperately cheap production, but as faithful as it could be (while being sooo cheap) to a book I liked a lot as a teen, and by Joan Aiken. David Collings happens to be playing my favourite adult Joan Aiken character, the tutor, Julian Oakapple. (Which explains why I watched it.)


I should note here, that re-reading of the book suggests that the backstory of MiaP is mostly about Julian Oakapple being in love with Denzil Murgatroyd. (Sorry - ex-Librarian: I used to do YA booklists, so I can't believe nobody ever pointed this out in anything. I could have had it on my list!) The TV version fudges over his so it isn't obvious to anyone who hasn't read the book, but I think it's sort of unspoken in it.

Mr Oakapple may actually have a happy ending. (Although he does have to be badly burned and nearly die first. And have a tragic 20-yr backstory. So that's okay, then.)

***

Sapphire & Steel (1979, 1981)


I think I've said enough about S&S for everyone to know that he is Silver in this. I think David Collings is cool in stuff, but Silver I love quite ridiculously, which I blame on being ill. He arrives and starts stealing the door knobs! He is unexpectedly happy David Collings! Anyway, I liked Silver. He is literally the person who comes into the scary show and switches the lights on.


He is flirty and frivolous, but is quite serious about his work. That bit of gold cellophane was once somebody's necklace (which doesn't seem like a fair exchange to me. Cellophane vs necklace. I mean...) However, he can use it to find out stuff about technology from the future. (No, I don't know how.)


Posing contest. (Sapphire wins. She always wins at the posing beautifully). Silver is in two assignments; in this one he has what is either a natty waiscoat with embroidered silver thread or a really tacky 1980s thing with tinselly stuff in. (I can't tell, even with the screencaps). This makes everyone in the fandom call him a dandy, although actually we don't know. It may be random, like Steel's unexpected dinner jacket in A2. Knowing Silver, it seems quite likely, though.


(A3 on-set photo scanned from DWM, because I liked it.)

From the DWM interview: "...we were under-running [in A6], and so they told me to improvise a scene with Joanna, but they didn't tell her that this was what we were doing. She thought I'd gone mad, I think, but she kept up with the improvising anyway. Very game girl, Joanna." (I wondered about this & then realised it must be where they take the car - and, yes, this is a bit un-Sapphire-like of her):



There is no telling what Silver's ending is. (Big Finish's line that ties up with PJ Hammond's intentions anyway, that he got the other two spoiler spoiler, and they went on being assigned and having more adventures is my preferred version, too.) Basically, like everything else in S&S, it is a mystery.


***

Blake's 7 (1981)
(I will try not to be spoilery, which is hard, because he was in Blake.)


There are several cool things about Deva, but mainly if certain people had listened to him then spoiler spoiler spoiler. Also he and Gareth Thomas are good at getting the sense that the two of them actually have got a history behind them.


Look, they totally have a backstory. Or something.

From DWM (this amused me): "I was sent this script where I had a lot of scenes with Blake, and I thought, 'This looks promising' and then I got to the last page and guess what? [spoiler] For that one I dived into the wall, and almost brought the set down. Oh, yes, you can always rely on me to finish off any series that I'm in!"

Basically, it has to be said, Blake is just a Bad Hair Day all round:



Deva does not have a happy ending.

***

Look & Read - Dark Towers (1981)


(I saw this old educational thing on YouTube, so this is the best I can do.)

In which he plays two roles perfectly well while nearly everybody else is hilariously bad. (Or, in Christopher Biggins's case, just enjoyably pantomime.) He plays Lord Dark (who makes unconvincing polystyrene statues) and the Friendly Ghost. Tracey thinks both of them are crackers. Personally, I think she is right about the Friendly Ghost, & the whole thing was just to amuse him, or annoy the Tall Knight or something.

Nothing bad happens to him. Except that one of him is long dead, but anyway...

***

As 1981 was clearly a year in which he had not been in enough cult stuff, he finished it up by being Legolas in the BBC R4 production of The Lord Of The Rings. I have no pics for this, because it is radio. The internet is a wonderful thing, and so is my flist. Thanks to pedanther, I managed to scavenge this from someone else's scan of an article:


Richard O'Callaghan (Merry), David Collings (Legolas) and Stephen Thorne (Treebeard). He has tape round his neck so he rustles like a tree. ♥ Who needs expensive CGI when actors can make their own tree noises? (Excuse me while I go off and laugh a lot about an elf wearing a knitted jumper. An amusingly cute knitted jumper. Sorry. Hobbits might possibly, but elves... *cough*) Also, Brian Sibley described him as "a devoted fan of the books and a great help with the Fellowship scenes." (And I had a suspicion listening to it that he must have read it from his performance of some of the lines. Hah. *is smug & right*)

I did find some lovely fanart, though: David Collings as Legolas (by kilinka, who is amazing at art and draws David Collings a lot.)

Hmm. Legolas has a reasonably happy ending, given that elves are always being sad about something or other. (Lost days, and trees, and people, and the sea and what have you.)

***

DW - Mawdryn Undead (1983)

Okay, so I didn't actually watch this, just the Making of extra on the DVD, but Mawdryn is far too amusing to leave off. (I should picspam it properly some day, because it'd be fun).


He is not looking so well here. (And Janet has his make-up on her hands, whoops). This is the version he describes as being a "burnt Peter Davison" and that it was fine, except embarrassing when you have to go into the BBC canteen looking like a burnt Peter Davison.


Or Mawdryn unburnt. With spaghetti on his head. Presumably that could have caused even more confusion in the BBC canteen. (From DWM: "I had to do a lot of crawling around the floor. It's a recurring theme of my career, that!"


Given that he was considered for the Doctor (and I think it might have been between Four and Five), this cap is Quite Amusing. (That is Four's coat, for those who don't know.) Please add appropriate caption.


Anyway, Mawdryn is the Undead eponymous villain of the piece. Do you expect a happy ending? He does get what he wanted, I suppose.

***

Miss Marple - A Murder Is Announced (1985)


He is a vicar in this, Julian Harmon, here with Bunch, his wife (although for some reason neither of them are allowed to use their names). He is not a suspect, a victim or a murderer. Gosh. Anyway, their cute conversation at the start of the book has been cruelly excised, but I will paraphrase it (badly) here:

Bunch: But what if I accidentally died of fright at this murder party?
Julian: No, you'll live to be an old, old woman - with me.
Bunch: And die on the same day and be buried in the same grave. How lovely.
Julian: *I am so lucky to be married to you*
Bunch: *No, no, I am so lucky to be married to you*
Julian: But you have to keep up this awful old house, which is all my fault for being a vicar.
Bunch: No problem. Anyway, you have to put up with me being so stupid and falling asleep when you read Gibbon's Decline and Fall to me.
Julian: You're not stupid. You're very clever.
Bunch: I love hearing you read; you have a great voice. Tell me the story (that is really a Clue) about Artaxerxes, and then we'll mention the Signifcant Cat as well.
Julian: *story about over academic vicar. I don't know why you find that funny.*
Bunch: Because you'll be just like that one day!
Julian: Oh, dear, I probably will.
Bunch: No, no, Butt the local atheist comes to church now because he is so impressed at how clever you are.
*hugs*
Bunch: Oh, hello, Tiglath-Pileser, crime-solving cat. *sings about murder*

Anyway, I can't say the BBC hates me, because the writer provided this alternative in the middle (which is not in the book at all):

Bunch: Guess what?
Julian: They want me to be Archbishop of Canterbury?
Bunch: Very close. Aunt Jane is coming to stay.
Julian: Oh, even better.
Bunch: I knew you'd be pleased.
Julian: Aunt Jane is coming to stay?
Bunch: I seem to remember telling you so a minute ago.
Julian: A man dies in highly suspicious circumstances here in Chipping Cleghorn and suddenly Aunt Jane is coming to stay?
Bunch: Yes, I noticed that, too.

And then he was obliged to cuddle Delilah the cat for the whole of the exposition scene, which made up for also missing the last bit with him and Bunch. (Tiglath-Pileser was presumably too obscure for BBC viewers.) I promised you a cat, didn't I? Here it is:



[Smug cat just found mouse in jacket pocket.]


Also, another moment where I suspect David Collings read the book:

See above conversation & then this. I only noticed this when I was screencapping, but there is a moment in the final scene where he looks at the Colonel with his glamorous but not-so-nice wife, and flickers a look down to Bunch and then gives this *my wife is best & I am totally lucky* smirk.

***

Press Gang (1989, 1993)


"When I say you can go, Lynda, that's an order, not an opportunity!"

He is Mr Winters, the headmaster, in Press Gang's first and final series. I was up to Head & Heart, and Friendly Fire (S5) in my rewatch anyway, and then I rewatched Both Sides of the Paper (S1) out of curiosity. He has the misfortune to be a headmaster called Timothy, and mainly comes in as the inconvenient side of Authority (as opposed to Mr Sullivan, and Matt Kerr).


Anyway, he makes the mistake of thinking that because he is the headmaster he can tell his pupils (i.e. Lynda Day) what to do and lets himself get annoyed by her defiance into being devious (on the phone) and nearly stopping the Junior Gazette. However, as we all know, you should never try to win against Lynda, so he has to eat his words. (On the phone. Not that I'm annoyed I didn't use this ep in my Press Gang phones fanvid. It only has Phone Ranger in it, that's all...)


Failure to get Mr Sullivan back for S5, let us have Mr Winters instead, which probably works for the best, as in Head & Heart we have a character the audience has never been encouraged to like, doing something wrong, and being hypocritical about it. As Julie says, "The guy's a creep." But this is Press Gang, and even though he's in the wrong, it's never that straight-forward. And it has to be said, nobody deserves unexpected Colin Mathews at a moment like that...

Mr Winters does not have a happy ending.

***

Persuasion (1996)
I borrowed this from my Mum earlier this year and was foolish enough not to take a screencap. David Collings is in this for five minutes, and then his character leaves to have his own story.

Reasonably happy endings seem likely. But you never know. Maybe he walked out and got run over by a horse and carriage, or stepped in a puddle and died of a chill, and that was why he wasn't in the rest of it.

***

The main thing that started this off was the BFA Full Fathom Five, (2003) which I surprised myself by liking a lot, even though it was so dark.

I didn't keep my scan of the cover, but I made these icons from it, so - David Collings finally gets to be the Doctor! In a dark, audio AU. Hmm:



Not the place to look for happy endings, either. No. Although it was not the unhappy ending I was expecting, I'll give it that.

***

And to wind up, these caps amused me a bit when I was iconing for naarmamo, so I, er, had to do the rest of the picspam because there would be no excuse for posting something so silly otherwise. You can probably work out what amused me so much:






"Will everyone stop playing with Poul's hair and help me destroy these killer robots?!"

Comments

[jekesta]

THIS IS UTTERLY FANTASTIC. Sorry, I would leave more of a comment, but I'm hurrying away, but I have much love for all the prettiness!:)

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, so glad you enjoyed the pics and nonsense! I was a little worried that everyone might just roll their eyes at me & run away or something. :-)

[leoniedelt.livejournal.com]

oh my goodness, the fantsatic is FANTASTIC and i cannot believe the eyecandy in this post.

Poul was excellent. The Kaldor City audios are the awesome.

Silver is, of course, the BEST. He's superb in the Big Finish audios as Silver as well :)

[thisbluespirit]

Thanks! I realise I left out any of Silver and Steel which was v wrong and remiss of me, but there... :-)

I've only managed to listen to one of the Kaldor audios; they're not that easy to get hold of. However, while I can't claim to have understood what was going on, I thought it was great. Although I would much prefer Poul to recover rather than go completely round the bend!! :lol:

Oh, Silver is. I've listened to two of the audios with him in - they're definitely on my list of 'to get' audios from Big Finish now, all of them. But especially the one remaining Silver one!

Heh, and I know he was Charn! This was, um, just the things I've watched him in lately in some way or another. But I'll have to take another look at that one sometime!

[leoniedelt.livejournal.com]

My eldest daughter watched Through the Dragon's Eye at school and loved it so much we had to buy a VHS copy and get it ripped to DVD - £45 it costed total!!!

I knew him instantly, soon as he spoke, lol.

I love Robots of Death. Poul is completely round the twist with Robophobia, lol.

[leoniedelt.livejournal.com]

oh, i can help you 'get' all the S&S audios... no problems there! And the Who Unbound audio where Collings plays the Doctor... just give the word and say which download site you prefer! :)

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, that's a v sweet offer, thank you. With Big Finish things, though, I do try to get them all properly, and I'm sometimes quite a slow listener, anyway. (And, happy me, I have Full Fathom Five already). I might take you up on that one day (if you're stlil willing) should I get terribly impatient for the next!

Although what I can't get by fair means or foul are the Kaldor City audios. If you knew where I could find those, that would be another matter. (I listened to no.5 Checkmate, and enjoyed it very much in a fairly mystified way, but couldn't get any of the others at all!)

And, :lol:, all that to get Through the Dragon's Eye! Oh, my...

[leoniedelt.livejournal.com]

btw, he was Charn in Through the Dragon's Eye.

He is in costume all the time and cannot be seen, but he can be *heard*...

[ravenskyewalker.livejournal.com]

Oh, goodness, I knew he was Poul in RoD, but had forgotten he was Mawdryn (which story I just rewatched), so paid closer attention to him when I saw his name in the credits. I also hadn't realized he was Vorus in RotC... and had forgotten about him in "Blake," so thanks for the reminder! Poor Deva.

[thisbluespirit]

Heh, yes. He is one of those recurring guest stars, although not as bad as Michael Sheard or Cyril Shaps. (Although maybe he will still make a fourth? I had forgotten the way Steven Moffat always likes to ref Press Gang & recast people from it - he's already used two actors from it in S5 & 6, aside from Julia Sawalha in the Comic relief thing years ago. It's not as if DW doesn't still need voice roles, if nothing else. Ooh... :-D)

[dimity-blue.livejournal.com]

Hee! I love that he had such unhappy endings...all the darned time! Well, nearly. It's like there are all these casting directors, sitting around thinking, "Who can we cast...who can we cast? I know! We'll get David Collins and kill him off!"

I much prefer your ending of Sapphire and Steel, that Silver saved them (which would annoy Steel so much) and they carried on having adventures. &hearts

[thisbluespirit]

Heh. To be fair, he doesn't always die. Sometimes he just goes mad or is left with his life & career in ruins... :-)

Aw, well, as far as I know, it's about as near to canon as you can get without actually being canon - the script for the last episode had Silver in the cafe with the other two (and he would have got them out by using the cutlery had there been an As. 7). But when they came to record it, they knew the plug had been pulled, so David McCallum rewrote the last scene without Silver to bring it back to the title roles. On the commentary, PJ Hammond was thinking how to rescue them, and basically Silver's the only option he comes up with! The Big Finish audios go with that as well - I understand that it's vaguely mentioned. So I say, anyway. Not having stuff about him being evil, erk. ;-D

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Lovely!!

[thisbluespirit]

Thanks! :-)

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

I must get the other Sapphire and Steel audio with Silver...

[john_amend_all]

*slaps forehead* How many times have I read that book and not twigged that the conversation about Artaxerxes doubled as a Clue?

[thisbluespirit]

I may have reread that particular section a lot of times while sulking at the BBC.

:-)

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

He's been in lots of things, hasn't he? :D Giving serious thought right now to taking the plunge and investing some of my pennies in the Sapphire & Steel complete series boxset they have on Amazon...

[thisbluespirit]

Between 1966 and 1996 he was in EVERYTHING on TV at least once, I think. That should keep me busy... :lol:

Heh, there's too little of S&S to count as a 'boxset'! :-)

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

I have it in my sweaty mitts as of this morning (doing my best to battle the double dip through comsumer spending...or something), and you're right...more like a very thick standard DVD case. I'll try and get some watching in over the weekend and, well, I'll let you know. :)

[thisbluespirit]

:lol: What a hero! Single-handedly and unselfishly battling the recession!

Ooh. But do bear in mind there will be no explosions, running, witty repartee, blood, gore, aliens, or anything like that. Just dingy sets, beautiful posing, creepiness, slowness and Mystery. (But there will be an attack from an Evil Pillow at some point. And Joanna Lumley and David McCallum are pretty cool in it.)

[lferion]

Oh, this is brilliant! Do you mind if I friend you?

Robots of Death is one of my very favorite Doctor Who episodes -- and while Poul's ending is not precisely *happy* it isn't *final* either, and he shows up in the book-sequel to the story, Much Improved (though of course there are no pictures).

[thisbluespirit]

Yay! No, I nearly asked to friend you just on the whole liking David Collings thing, but I see you also like Diana Wynne Jones and Blake's 7, and Sapphire & Steel, and, yay, also Classic Who, especially Robots of Death. (One of my two faves. The other is Ghostlight, so be warned - that is the level of my insanity, I'm afraid.)

Hmm. Corpse Marker is a little more hopeful, especially at the end, but I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say 'much improved', given that people have been purposely trying to drive him out of his mind! *sad* (And then he has gone completely round the bend in the Kaldor City audios. Or is pretending to be, who knows? But then, it seems that none of Kaldor City may actually have happened, so I like to think he got better after Corpse Marker anyway. I am a bit unclear about this, as I only managed to listen to no.5...)

[justice-turtle.livejournal.com]

Oh, by the bye, I have turned your Babington screencaps into a chibi fanart (http://justice-turtle.dreamwidth.org/3888.html). I'm not quite sure why Babington, except I wanted to draw that lovely outfit... :lol:

*goes poking round to decide what to fanart next* XD

[ronnola.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this post! I got totally enchanted by Poul and then Silver. Looking forward to watch and hear more of this excellent actor!

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, thank you! Poul and Silver are still my two favourites as well. I hope you enjoy seeing some more of him! May I recommend the 1970 film of A Christmas Carol and the BBC 1978 Julius Caesar? Also, if you are okay listening to audio and can get hold of things, he's particularly good in that format - I love Big Finish's Doctor Who: Unbound Full Fathom Five, with his as an AU Doctor, their S2 of Jago & Litefoot where he's the main villain, and also as Legolas in the BBC Radio Lord of the Rings, which is a rather lovely production all round.

(If you're definitely hooked, there's even a david_collings community here on LJ. :-)

[ronnola.livejournal.com]

Thanks!
I've just watched A Christmas Carol, he's so adorable there. :-)
Amazingly, I even couldn't take eyes off him in 'Mawdryn'!

That's cool he did get to be the Doctor, even if 'alternative' and in audio. )

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, cool! And it's understandable about Mawdryn - how do you take your eyes off someone wandering about with spaghetti on his head?