• Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh - a tribute to Anthony Ainley by Steve Scott

Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh - a tribute to Anthony Ainley by Steve Scott 16/5/04

Anthony Ainley: the 80s Master with a Pantomime Dame performance that was an insult to the legacy of Roger Delgado.

This would appear to be the general take on AA, or at least the one held by the 70s Who Mafia. One of the recent obits (in The Guardian) bears this out; Ainley replaced Delgado's suave charm with a pantomimic cod-insane take on the Doctor's archenemy.

Let's see what I could do to redress the balance here. First off, I am probably not the best-placed person to write an AA tribute. I have never met him in person, have never written to him or have a signed picture on my wall. But despite these crippling disadvantages, I think I'll have a shot.

Unlike a number of Who celebs, it's difficult to imagine AA in any other role apart from the Master. I remember him playing a nasty Nazi in The Land That Time Forgot and recall him popping up in Oh What A Lovely War, but, aside from Who that's it. Perhaps he was winding down in the 80s and saw the Master as the only role he would dabble in. Given that he's from a famous acting family I suspect he had the financial security to do so.

But this is not the place to discuss AA's bank balance. Many fans lamented AA for his arch performance as the Master, but I think this is only a partial representation of the great contribution the actor gave to the series.

Here's a shock to many of you, but AA was actually a damn good actor with a very impressive range (cf. my comments on Colin Baker in my Trial review). In many cases, it was the roles he played apart from the Master that provide adequate testimony. He is superb as the kindly, paternal Tremas and quite stunning as the ancient Portreeve on Castrovalva. This performance in particular is quite brilliant; the viewer without foreknowledge of the dodgy anagram credit system in the Davison stories would never guess that underneath this gentle exterior lies the Master. And it's AA who takes all the credit for this. As to AA's portrayal of the Master himself, I find it veers from the genuinely unhinged (Logopolis) to the genuinely embarrassing (Planet of Fire). It's this inconsistency that makes AA's work so frustrating. When the tone is right, a more pantomimic performance is quite apt. I love AA in The Five Doctors; he treats the script with the contempt it deserves, taking Dicks' sub-Delgado histrionics to their logical extreme. He also exhibits a hilarious talent of stretching words way beyond pub closing time: "What makes you think I want your forgiiiiiiiveness?" and my all-time favourite, "And now I shall help myself, to immmmmmmmmmmmortality".

An oft-quoted mistake concerning the Mater's 80s resurrection was that AA was deliberately made up to resemble Delgado (dark hair, goatee). So the production team were effectively inviting invidious comparisons between the two actors, and given the consistent veneration of all Who produced pre-1980 AA was always going to come off worse.

Let's not get too carried away here. Given that the Master has always been a one-dimensional character we can't grumble about AA too much. A story I heard concerns AA giving a very serious, intense Master performance, only to receive instructions from the gallery to "camp it up". Looking at the broad range of performances AA gives during his time on the show this seems all too real.

But in my albeit twisted mind Ainley IS the Master - the unhinged, camp, Mutley-giggling Master of disguise (who despite all his superior intellect could never master a decent French accent).

AA I salute you. I only hope you're now making amends with JN-T in that big old wine bar in the sky.