Back To London!

   “Well done Fotheringay. Well you’d better get back to London before any embarrassing questions are asked.”
    Well done Fotheringay, he didn’t do anything! He was there simply to egg the pudding. After all if Number 6 expected to land in an office he knew in London, he would expect to see Fotheringay there. And these “embarrassing questions,” what might they be, unless of course Fotheringay wasn’t supposed to be away from his department and in The Village!
    “What’s my next assignment?”
    “The Colonel will give you your orders when he returns.”
    He’s keen this Fotheringay, but judging by the expression on the Colonel’s face after Number 6 discovers the deception, makes me think the Colonel will not be returning to London any time soon. After all the failure is his, nothing to do with Number 2.
    I wonder how Fotheringay first became embroiled with The Village? Perhaps he, like Number 2, woke up amongst them one day as a prisoner. I cannot see Fotheringay holding out for very long against any method of interrogation used against him, and so could be easily turned. And the same could be said of the Colonel. Fotheringay seems a gentle, warm, affable fellow. But do not be fooled by the exterior, because he didn’t think twice about betraying his old colleague, on the other hand its something the Colonel would relish!

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The Girl Who Was Death

    Well it was worth a try Number 2. I suppose anything is worth a try once! In fact this episode would have served equally well as the prequel to ‘Fall Out,’ how Number 6 would have managed to be taken to meet Number 1 by the Supervisor I’m not at all sure. Perhaps he could have come walking into the nursery asking Number 6 what he wanted, because Number 2’s attitude is one of having just scraped the bottom of the barrel. The idea that Number 6 might drop his guard with children does seem to be the last hope of the desperate. It also suggests that those that be, have run out of ideas. Number 2’s attitude would suggest that that is just what it was. Thinking about it, it makes one wonder why they even bothered with this particular method, and instead why they just didn’t use the psychological method of ‘Degree Absolute’ instead. But perhaps this particular Number 2 wasn’t up to that challenge, that a different calibre of Number 2 was required. That would make this episode something of a stop gap until they brought a more suitable Number 2 back to The Village who was up to the task!

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Favourite Scene In Dance of The Dead

    I’ve done that, stood where Pat McGoohan stood when I appeared in a re-enactment of this scene at a Prisoner Convention.
    “I have my duty.”
    “To whom?”
    “To everyone, it’s the rules, of the people, by the people, for the people.”
    “Takes on a new meaning.”
    “You’re a wicked man.”
    “Wicked?”
    “You have no values.”
    “Different values.”
    “You won’t be helped.”
    “Destroyed.”
    “You want to spoil things.”
    “I won’t be a goldfish in a bowl.”
    “I must go……I may see you later?”
    “Can you avoid it?”
    “I hope it’s alright…the radio.”
    “What would you do?”
    “Report on it, ask for instructions.”
    “Number One?”
    “Yes.”
    “Who?”
    “No!”
    “Tell me.”
    “It’s all I know, all there is to know.”
    “In the place where you work?”
    “Don’t keep asking me questions!”

    And when it comes to asking questions…….. I attended a Prisoner Convention in the mid 1990’s when Norma West, who played the role of Number 240, was one of the special guests. It never occurred to me at the time to ask Norma why she wore her cloak inside out. Whether it was a request by the director, or whether she herself decided to do so. Perhaps Norma West found the colourful striped cape too garish.

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Special Imports!

    When it comes to the basics, such as crockery, citizens in The Village have to eat off plates, and drink out of cups the same as anyone else. And since The Village lacks a pottery, such items are specially imported from various parts of the World. For example Number 2 drinks out of Crown Derby cups. Pictured here are ‘Penny Plain’ jugs, along with salt and pepper pots from a village in Wales. There is also the familiar blue and white Cornishware produced in Church Gresley in Derbyshire. At the back of the dresser behind the Cornishware is the distinctive Bitossi Art Ochre pottery from Italy. And on the shelf the Denby Brown coffee pots, produced in Denby again in Derbyshire.

    In Number 6’s cottage when Number 86 makes him a refreshing cup of tea, and later when he gives 86 a lesson in how to make a descent cup of tea, Penny Plain mugs are used. However the teapot in question is a Royal Worcester side handled brown teapot produced between 1960 and 1979. While at the café, as well as at the Old People’s Home, coffee is served in brown coffee cups, with white interiors, and of almost a hexagonal shape. The pottery which designed and produced these is unknown to me…………….. Now I think I’d like some tea.

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The Therapy Zone

   Having left the Green Dome, after an interview with Number 2 in ‘Hammer Into Anvil” Number 6 his ego bruised, and wanting revenge on Number 2, turns his attention to the bay window of The General Stores.
   Once inside the General Store he takes a copy of The Tally Ho from the newspaper rack the headline ‘Increase Vigilance Call From New Number 2.’ It’s not important that Number 6 pays for The Tally Ho but leaves it behind. It’s the fact that in this episode that same edition of The Tally Ho is on sale two days running, at the kiosk where Number 6 has a private advert placed in the personal column of the next issue. Yes Number 14 takes the next day’s issue of The Tally Ho to Number 2 in order for him to read Number 6’s private advert in the personal column. “Hay mas mal en el aldehuela que se suena,” There is more harm in The Village than is dreamt. And that’s alright as it goes, but how do we know that issue of The Tally Ho isn’t the same issue from the beginning of the episode, but used as a prop for another edition?

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Living In Harmony

    Number 8 said that his technique had always worked, I wonder how many times this technique has been used before, and was it always this scenario of an American frontier town in the 1800’s? I suppose it could have been used in any setting, revolutionary France for example, or at the time of the English civil war for another. The technique was good, it was the human element which was the problem. After all humans will always do what they would do in a real situation, they become involved sooner or later. And this technique used against Number 6, did it die with Number 8 I wonder?

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Village Life!

    “Nice day.”
    “Yes, it will be nice again tomorrow, where are you going?”
    “I’m on my way home.”

    “Aren’t you stopping for lunch?”
    “Why should I do that?”

    “It’s lunchtime.”

    “Yes, that’s why I’m going home.”
    “Well there’s no need to be like that, its people like you who’ll put me out of business!”
    “Ooooh so you say!”
    “Coffee’s on, at least stop for a coffee.”
    “What, when I can make my own coffee at home?!”
    “I can make you a Latte.”
    “Yuck! It’s all milk!”
    “What happened in Eighteen-thirty?”
    “How should I know!”
    “Didn’t you catch the Professor’s latest lecture?”
    “I was watching ‘Danger Man.”
    “Oh I missed it. What happened this week?”
    “Drake had to infiltrate Colony Three, somewhere on the Steppes of Russia.”

    “That’s the one where Colony Three turns out to be a typical English town.”
    “That’s right.”
    “A bit like The Village wouldn’t you say?”
    “Not really, it’s more Italianate.”
    “The Professor’s next lecture is on architecture.”
    “I’m only perpendicular when I’ve had a few in the Cat and Mouse!”
    “Where are you off to now?”
    “To begin writing my next book.”
    “You’re a writer I never knew that!”
    “Well my name is Ian Flemming.”
    “What James Bond?”
    “Shhhhhhh, don’t let everyone know, they’ll want a free signed copy of my books!”
    “What’s your next book about?”
    “Bond resigns his job from British Military Intelligence, and then he’s abducted from his home in London and wakes up in some isolated village where everyone is a prisoner!”
    “It’s bound to be a best seller. Stop for a coffee, and I’ll make sure it’s shaken and not stirred.”
    “Yes that’s what the other waiter said yesterday, and there was more coffee in the saucer than in the cup!”
   

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