TV Gold

A further three years have now elapsed as we open this ninth episode of the series entitled ?Dress Rehearsal?. As the opening caption states we focus initially on ?The Russian Royal yacht ?Standart? on which King Edward will meet Tsar Nicholas at Reval, June 1908?. Now here, for the first (and hopefully last time) I have to say how unconvincing I find this particular set, in particular those staged on the yacht?s main deck. I can see what they were trying to do, matching the surroundings as closely as possible to the photo still of the ?Standart? but at the end of the day, I feel, they simply don?t pull it off. It is partly the harsh bright lighting and intermittent seagull sounds but also when the cast move too close to the edge of the set you can clearly see the surrounding backcloth material. Having said that the later night time scenes with the main cast dancing the evening away just manages to rescue the attempted recreation although use of a real ship might have been better. A valiant attempt but in the final analysis it doesn?t quite work. From my perspective the episode?s plot appears to centre around the political machinations of Foreign Minister Isvolsky and certainly noted actor Peter Vaughan makes good use of the material he has to work with in portraying such a shifty and underhand central character so convincingly. Although, personally finding this opening episode of the third disc rather slow paced and difficult to follow I got the basic understanding of the plot and how events ultimately lead to the World War I. Lastly on this episode, and, ever on the look out for familiar faces not mentioned in the beautifully illustrated and very informative viewing notes booklet I recognised the white haired appearance of a character called Clemeneeau played by John Bennett. For me Bennett is best known for his memorable oriental henchman role of Li H?sen Chang in the classic late seventies Doctor Who story (and my personal favourite (period detail meets science fiction (a winning combination!))) ?Talons of Weng-Chiang?.