Defense: The Crusade (1st Doctor)–Acting Greats, Shakespearean Intrigue, Strong Women

The Crusade is riveting Who that you should make time to watch. It’s Episode 14 from the second season of the First Doctor, and a four-parter. It’s on the “Lost in Time” Hartnell collection, and two of the four episodes exist in audio format only, though its easy to find the many stills stitched together in order to accompany a listen in various place online. The Crusade deserves your precious time for four reasons:

1. Character driven, actor-fueled high intrigue from start to finish. The storylines in The Crusade are bookended by two acting greats representing mortal enemies, Julian Glover as Richard, and Bernard Kay as Saladin. Just over one minute in, Julian Glover’s sonorous tones seize our attention. He was only thirty years old at the time, and the same commanding presence he’s reliably been since. The perfect choice for Richard, Coeur de Lion, or Melek-ric, as the Saracens called him. (Note that fourteen years later he appears as Scaroth with the Fourth Doctor in Douglas Adams’ The City of Death.) Interestingly, Julian Glover notes in the commentary to Episode 3 that he was hired for The Crusade just after having completed the 1960 television serial, “An Age of Kings,” which was director Peter Dews’ BAFTA-winning soap-opera style rendering of Shakespeare’s history plays. Douglas Camfield saw Glover in Age of Kings, and wanted talent like Glover and Jean Marsh in Who. A wise casting decision.

Saladin sees less screen time than Richard, but one wants more, given Kay’s superb, thoughtful and humanizing performance. He already proved his mettle as resistance fighter Carl Tyler, one of the standouts in The Dalek Invasion of Earth, and here returns in a more substantial role. More on his stellar performance below.

Apart from Glover and Kay, the acting is solid in Crusade: Jacqueline Hill is luminous. (Saladin says, “her beauty lights the room”: and it’s accurate–Hill is especially good here–vibrant, assertive, demonstrating how indispensable she is to these early episodes’ success). Jean Marsh (later cast as Sara Kingdom in The Daleks’ Master Plan) is great in a significant part, playing Richard’s headstrong and politically cunning sister, Lady Joanna. Smaller but equally memorable parts include the duplicitous merchant Luigi Ferrigo (Gabor Baraker), and the colorful Bazaar shopkeeper Ben Daheer (Reg Pritchard). The latter shines in a small role with delicious Simon Fisher-Becker-like bigness (of stage presence, not girth!). With few exceptions, nearly every role in The Crusade is linked to the complex web of illegal schemes or political maneuvering to curry favor with one of the warring sides. This complexity is a triumph of early Who writing.

2. It all begins with swashbuckling action. It throws the viewer instantly into the mix–there aren’t epic battles fought on-screen, but The Crusade hooks you immediately, outlining the greater war being fought. In the first moments, not one but two simultaneous swordfights break out involving the Doctor and Ian both on the defense. Barbara disappears, taken captive. And they realize they’ve stumbled into something big: the Doctor hears the Saracen name for King Richard, “Melek-ric.” (This stuff thrills me, and it’s great for hooking kids and adults alike on history (and science)–it starts those wonderful conversations, which Classic Who was so good at starting.)

They learn they’re in the woods outside Jaffa in the Holy Land. Barbara is a prisoner of Saladin, the Sultan of Egypt and Syria. All this in the first ten minutes. If this is what Who was aspiring to with “the historicals,” I want in–bring it on. Fantastic job bringing the viewer into the action. A little slow in the beginning of Episode 4, with the dual imprisonment of Barbara and Ian and some languid dialog, particularly the hokey accent and scheme of Ian’s captor. You’ll wince at the repeated (but not necessarily inaccurate) caricature of a middle Easterner intoning those “you are my truly, truly brother” lines; but that’s quickly resolved, and it’s the exception to the rule of complexity and great writing in this four-parter.

3. Fantastic writing, every bit as good as (better than?) Moffat’s Nu-Who Scripts. David Whitaker is the writer here, and my new fave Dennis Spooner is the script editor. The Crusade is a spectacle of pacing and wonderful writing, proving Whitaker every bit as able to write captivating scenes as did Spooner in The Romans. For one example, the meeting between the Doctor and Ben Daheer, at 13 minutes into Episode One, and the following scenes, are emblematic of the rich comic turn Who took, as I’ve argued earlier, after The Romans. Watch how the subplot is revisited in Episode 2 to great comic effect. For a second example, see (approximately 20 minutes into the first episode) the quick-paced questioning of Barbara by Saladin and his brother, and her beautifully nuanced and timed responses:

Saladin: You rode into the woods?
Barbara: No.
Saphadin: You walked into it?
Barbara: Not that either.
Saladin: You arrived?
Barbara: Yes. In a box.
Saphadin: In a box? Ah, you were carried into the woods.
Barbara: Yes.

Hill’s acting sells the scene. Watch Hill’s delightful expression after that final “Yes.” Anyone that blames Who for bad acting or writing hasn’t paid attention. This scene immediately reminds one of the tightly written, and equally well acted, parley between Alex Kingston and Matt Smith in The Big Bang:

Doctor: Are you married, River?
River: Are you asking?
Doctor: Yes.
River: No.
Doctor: Hang on. Did you think I was asking you to marry me, or asking if you were married?
River: Yes.

Continue to watch past Barbara’s “Yes,” and the scene facilely segues from comedy to discussion of life and death matters. It works. And it’s followed by another fantastic scene involving the rest of the TARDIS crew and Julian Glover’s King Richard, furious at the loss of his friends and refusing to help the Doctor and companions save Barbara from death. That’s just the first episode. So well written is The Crusade wordplay throughout that, like The Romans and The Big Bang–it’s pure joy to watch. It’s about the characters. Thus, of course, this is Who at its finest. For the opposite end of the spectrum, see my assessment of The Web Planet.

Another choice example of the stellar writing is in Episode 2, at 17:00, where another three-actor scene unfolds, “Who’s on first” style, as the Doctor is blamed by the Bazaar shopkeeper Ben Daheer for stealing clothes. Reg Pritchard as Daheer, here as in his first appearance in Episode 1, nearly steals the scene. It’s great writing, a humorous, conniving addition to the plot, and a well-used opportunity to provide some clever moments to Hartnell’s Doctor (not to mention the moral questions it poses: is it morally acceptable for the Doctor to have stolen items, for his personal use, from a thief?).

Whitaker uses Richard’s play for peace with Saladin as the basis for the most compelling scenes involving the serial’s bookend historical figures Richard and Saladin. The two never actually meet, but are always talking about each other. The writing for Glover particularly shines. See, for example, at 4:20 in Episode Two, as Richard laments how his sister receives jewels from Saladin’s brother, while both sides “armies do we both lock in deadly combat, watering the land with a rain of blood, and the noise of thunder is drowned in the shouts of dying men.” It’s Shakespearean. Richard is one of British history’s most romanticized Kings, so Whitaker’s willingness to forward the most noble reading of this episode, should be unsurprising–but it’s passionate, wonderful stuff all the same. Particularly satisfying, and a nod to what Who later becomes–where the Doctor “knows everybody that is anybody”–King Richard takes an immediate shine to the Doctor. Also notable, in Episode Two: “We dub you Sir Ian, Knight of Jaffa. Arise Sir Ian, and be valiant.”

The realpolitik wisdom-versus-ambition dialog at 13:00 in Episode 3 between Saphadin and Saladin, likewise, is tremendous; Bernard Kay’s Saladin, his expressive, haunted face, and his considered delivery of each line, conjures up the young Paul Scofield the following year in Man for All Seasons (1966). And at the beginning of Episode 4, the scene with Leicester, Richard, the Doctor, and Vicki is edge of the seat intrigue, particularly beginning at 6:12, where Richard admits to the Doctor and Vicki the political maneuvering required to keep the loyalty of men like Leicester, and maintain the support of the Church in Rome. The dialogue again is Shakespearean, directly conveying the dilemmas and court tensions faced by the king. Vicki despairs after Richard departs: “Can’t we tell” Richard that his campaign is doomed to failure? No, “history must take its course,” replies the Doctor. Whatever license Whitaker takes romanticizing Richard’s intentions, The Crusades remains satisfyingly a gripping “historical.”

4. Strong female roles. Finally, focusing on Richard’s play for a marriage-driven end to the Crusades allows not only for a broad portrayal of Richard, but also an assertive role for Jean Marsh. Richard wants to use Joanna as a bargaining chip to secure an alliance and peace. Richard dictates a letter through his scribe proposing an alliance with Saladin, promising to deliver Lady Joanna to Saladin’s brother Saphadin for marriage. Richard hopes this will secure the peace, making Richard and Saladin brothers. Joanna, though, will not be used. The Episode 3 scene where she confronts and threatens Richard, and where Richard accuses the Doctor of having leaked the plan to Joanna, is pure fireworks.

Likewise, demonstrating the evenhandedness that Whitaker applies to both sides of the conflict, Barbara’s capture by Saladin’s men, and faked rescue by El Akir, allows Whitaker to humanize Saladin. And Barbara is no potted plant, attempting three escapes. She’s given shelter by Haroun ed-Din (George Little), and if we didn’t already know El Akir was bad, we find that he kidnapped Haroun’s oldest daughter, killed his wife and son, and burned his house; the stakes are raised, as Barbara’s rescuer announces that he has vowed to kill the Emir El Akir. Haroun insists that Barbara must kill his younger daughter, then herself, if El Akir finds them. But, Barbara refuses–making good on the humanitarian instinct that failed her in The Aztecs, and despite the Doctor’s advice to not interfere with local customs. When El Akir’s men capture her, Barbara finds herself imprisoned along with Haroun’s oldest daughter in El Akir’s harem. Here, she tries, unsuccessfully, to escape the second time. While Barbara’s role is weaker than Joanna’s, she still makes her mark: she orchestrates an escape for Haroun’s younger daughter, giving herself up to El Akir’s men.

So while the scope of each of Joanna’s and Barbara’s roles are somewhat constrained by the story, neither of them “accept their fate.” Both woman are used as pawns, and neither accepts it. That’s refreshing to see, and very modern, particularly in a 1960’s period piece about the twelfth-century Crusades.

The Crusades is a fine and worthy successor to The Romans. Acquit!