The Nightmare Man

Archive transfer - originally posted June 6th & June 15th 2005 (contains spoilers)

Just started to watch this classic BBC drama from the 1980s which was released on DVD earlier this year and am really enjoying it. Have only seen two of the four episodes so far, but it's intriguing and slightly scary, which is only to be expected as it is dramatised by classic Doctor Who stalwart Robert Holmes. He knew how to turn on the chills, as did director Douglas Camfield, who directed some of the better 1970s Who stories too.
I have to admit to being wholly unconvinced by Celia Imrie in any serious dramatic role these days; ever since she did Acorn Antiques with Victoria Wood, I can't take her seriously, it completely ruined her image as a serious actress for me. And her Scottish accent's a bit pants too.
But the series is still enjoyably entertaining, although I can't quite work out whether it's aimed at adults or children. It has some very gruesome imagery in the dialogue, but the treatment is reminiscent of 70s Who. I shall wait and see how it pans out and report back after episode four...

Well, I completed episodes three and four and thoroughly enjoyed the whole series, although it was rather disappointing when it emerged that the Creature was actually a mutant Russian marine and not a slavering monster from another world.
Having said that, I suppose you could still argue that the Nightmare Man and his Vodyanoi pod were alien, and the human-looking recovery team supposedly from the other side of the Iron Curtain were just aliens in disguise. There is never any evidence of Russian origin.
The story was well directed by Camfield, but the standard of acting has visibly come on in leaps and bounds since this series went out over 20 years ago. There's nothing essentially wrong with the acting, but like most of the classic series of Doctor Who, you can just tell that these actors are over-rehearsed and sometimes just quoting their scripts rather than performing them.
These days, acting is a much finer art and comes across as quite a natural process on the screen. That naturalness cannot be easy to get right first time, never mind on Take No. 61, so all credit to today's more successful actors. I definitely think British standards have risen.

The Nightmare Man, originally transmitted May 1st-22nd 1981.
Written by Robert Holmes from the David Wiltshire novel; directed by Douglas Camfield.