Beyond the Roundels

I said I'd made a post about Enemy at the Door, and here it is. (I'm thinking of doing some more fandom manifesto type posts for old TV I've watched, because they're fun and possibly even useful, if only to inform people of things to avoid. :-D)

So, what is it? Enemy at the Door is a 1978-80 UK drama series about the German Occupation of the (British) Channel Islands in WWII, focusing on Guernsey (and the fictional Martel family). It stars Alfred Burke, Bernard Horsfall and Simon Cadell with Antonia Pemberton, Emily Richard, Simon Lack, John Malcolm, Richard Heffer, Helen Shingler and David Waller. It was created and script-edited by Michael Chapman, produced by Tony Wharmby and written by Michael Chapman, James Doran, NJ Crisp, Kenneth Clark and John Kershaw. There are 2 series of 13x 50 min episodes (26 in all). It is out on DVD (definitely in Regions 1 &2); it is not on YouTube at the moment, though. (It was repeated on Yesterday, a freeview channel here in the UK last year, so it may get another turn.)

If you're not keen on old UK TV, then this obviously isn't for you. If, however, you are, and you are interested in well-written, well-played, low-key drama, WWII generally, or what happened to the Channel Islands in particular, then it may well be. Sadly, it was cancelled before they reached the end of the War, but what there is of it is well worth watching. Also, while it was shown pre-Watershed over 30 years ago (so there's very little they can actually show in terms of blood, violence etc.), it does deal with a lot of difficult subjects (very well generally): execution, imprisonment, depression, multiple suicide attempts, shooting, murder, possible rape, and beatings/interrogations.

Why, you may ask, especially after that cheery list of warnings? Well, it depends. If you want a lot of action and battles and other such fast-moving set-pieces, again, it's not going to deliver. But it explores its historical subject pretty accurately and also takes advantage of that situation to explore the ethical dilemmas of occupation from both sides with subtlety and intelligence and three-dimensional characters, and that's what's so great about it.


Enemy at the Door
Basically, you can't even have a cup of tea without worrying about it in this show:

Major Richter: Would you be happier with a more conventional attitude of hostility, then?
Olive Martel: In a way, yes. It would be less confusing. Small kindnesses tend to cloud the issue.
Richter: Which is what?
Olive: That we are at war, and you and I are enemies.
Richter: And ordinary humanity has no place in it?
Olive: As I say, it confuses.

In the summer of 1940, the British surrendered the Channel Islands to the Germans. Hitler intended the occupation (unlike that in much of mainland Europe) to be a "model occupation", to encourage the British to also surrender. It was also used in much propaganda - a piece of Britain in German hands, hence if you search online you'll no doubt soon find pictures of British policemen next to German soldiers. Enemy at the Door follows historical events pretty faithfully, but its Islanders and Germans are all fictional, allowing the writers far more freedom than they would otherwise have had. (Note, though, that the secretary of Guernsey's controlling committee, John Ambrose (played by Richard Hurndall) is named for the two senior members of Guernsey's real controlling committee, Ambrose Sherwill and John Leale.) Sadly, the series stops in early 1943, so the viewer is left to worry about the characters' fates forever and ever. (Or that might just be me.)

ETA: I made a trailor, because Network wouldn't:



Also also it is up on YT here, though episode Two is missing and some of the others are out of order. (Ep Two is here.)


"You know, I have this feeling about Richter. If we'd met him then, when the sun shone and the bands played in all those little towns along the Rhine, we might not have thought him such a bad fellow at that. Not such a bad fellow at all."

Bernard Horsfall is Philip Martel, a Guernsey doctor asked to join the Controlling committee for medical issues and so is required to regularly visit the Feldkommandantur and interact with the German officers - which constantly brings into question the line between necessary co-operation with the occupying forces and collaboration. Not to mention dealing with all the shortages of every day items, including medical supplies...

Obviously, if you're a classic Who fan, the short version of this post is: So, you're a Classic Who fan. Naturally, you want more Bernard Horsfall in your life. Here, have 26 episodes with him as the lead character. \o/



"The war is being fought elsewhere, not on these islands, not on Guernsey."

Major Dieter Richter (Alfred Burke), a former academic, is (together with Major Freidel) in command of overseeing civilian affairs on the Island. As a principled, intelligent man, who once lived in Cambridge (on Trumpington Street where there were cherry trees all along, he says), he has plenty of his own ethical dilemmas to face in trying to govern humanely whilst obeying and interpreting instructions from commanding officers and mitigating the actions of the SS (well, Reinicke, mainly). And Alfred Burke is quietly and consistently an excellent actor.



"When will it be not just survival? When is it helping the enemy? When for the Controlling Committee - when for you?”

Olive Martel (Antonia Pemberton) is Philip's wife. She's also his unofficial secretary, and the one who has to continually deal with queuing up for food, making meals out of parsnips, and the trouble other people in her family gets themselves into. Also SPOILERS.



"I don't feel like loving my enemy."

Martel's daughter, Clare (Emily Richard) is far more fiercely opposed to the Germans. And... at this point I can't say more, because SPOILERS. Awful spoilers, sorry.



"I don't see what all the fuss is about. The man was only a Todt worker."

And in an unlikely turn of events, the villainous SS Officer of the piece is Simon Cadell from Hi-de-Hi! Hauptmann Klaus Reinicke is ambitious, petty and a party member. But, as I said, everyone here is a three-dimensional character who changes over the course of the show (only in his case, mostly for the worse). Of course, it also means that one of the main entertainments of watching EatD is the rest of the German Officers annoying Reinicke. (As Richter says: "If I were you, Reinicke - which God forbid! - I would wish to maintain a more than discreet silence!") Well, actually, anybody annoying Reinicke is great. He's kind of the show's guilty pleasure at times.



Reinicke: Niceties in wartime are a luxury, Kluge. Are you sure you can afford them?
Kluge: I can - and I always will!

One of Reinicke's main sources of discontent is that due to shortage of space he has to share an office with Otto Kluge (John Malcolm), a former policeman from Hamburg. Kluge can be relentless and brutal, but his heart is more in police work, arresting criminals, finding the truth and seeing justice done, than in army affairs. He would like to work more closely with the Island police - they're the ones he identifies with most - but that, to them, is collaboration. He's also convinced (mostly rightly) that a lot of the anti-German activity on the Island is down to Peter Porteous.



"Look, you're fighting the bastards. I'm just the one who didn't get away."

Peter Porteous (Richard Heffer) is an old friend of the Martel family's, who's going out with Clare, (but refuses to get engaged or marry her, because he's determined to leave the Island and get back to the mainland where he can join the RAF). Basically, SPOILERS SPOILERS again. He annoyed me the first time round because I didn't realise that SPOILERS. (It's an evil, evil series.)



"Is it madness to want to save a man's life?"

I think the short version about Helen Porteous (Helen Shingler), Peter's mother, is that she is awesome and she should be in it more than she is (which is quite a bit even so). She is wheelchair bound, but still very active in helping people and playing her own part in opposing the occupation.



"... would you report me back to your Brigadefuhrer? 'Major Freidel, who is to some extent drunk, is a danger to the security of the Reich, and Major Richter, who is to some extent a bloody intellectual, has been heard to quote from the works of Heinrich Heine who was a Jew.' To report such intelligence is why you're on the beach, hmm?"

And there's Major Ernst Freidel (Simon Lack), the Feldkommandant, who is civil, bland-faced and capable of some impressive deviousness when necessary (mostly for good rather than evil, although not always). You never quite know with Freidel, really. He's the one directly in charge of civilian affairs and works closely with Richter.



"My God, that is an appalling story! Quite apart from the inhumanity, it makes us look so bloody silly!"

S2 has a new regular, in the shape of the Islands' commander-in-chief, Generalmajor Muller (David Waller), who's of the "I'm just a plain soldier" school of thought, but, again, not quite what everyone was expecting.


Also, cards on the table here, Episode Two was called "The Librarian" and after this, I was never not going to like the series:

At least I have done nothing to be ashamed of, whereas you, I think, Hauptmann Reinicke, have very little to be proud of."

This is Thelma Whiteley as Miss Cecily Brown, the librarian, who is put to the test when a minor incident involving Reinicke and The Adventures of Mr Polly gets out of hand. What she does, she does chiefly because she's a librarian and she's opposed to censorship. Martel tells her she could go back to working in the library and she says, "It wouldn't be a library any more, not in the true sense."


It's primarily a story of the week series, so the guest cast are pretty uniformly great. Let me show you a random selection I happened to have screencapped: (Yes, sorry, my posts are not as beautifully planned as they ought to be...)


Anthony Head in his first TV role as Philip and Olive's son, Clive Martel (2 episodes, S1).


Joss Ackland and James Maxwell as brothers-in-law Major General Laidlaw and General-Major von Wittke (and therefore the reason I accidentally ended up watching this - it had James Maxwell in). Also the ending contains the best and most apt use of an over-used Julius Caesar reference that I've yet come across.


Terence Hardiman as Hauptmann von Bulow, a very Prussian SS officer (S1). (There is probably something in which Terence Hardiman is not a Nazi, the demon headmaster or some other villain, but this is not it.)


Martin Jarvis as Nils Borg, the visiting neutral (Swedish) journalist who learns that neutrality isn't really possible in the middle of a war. (S2)

And many, many more, but this post would get epic: Stephanie Cole, Edward Woodward, John Rhys Davies, John Nettles, John Normington, Norma Streader, Kenneth Cranham, Gary Waldhorn and Clive Francis amongst others I have probably forgotten.


***



"War must be fought, even if it's only in the mind. You cannot win if you do not fight... but you cannot fight if you do not survive."

***

Anyway, it's very good, if also upsetting (some of the episodes are the most painfully evil/ironic/messed up things I've ever been privileged to watch), so that is what it's about. If you have the patience for old TV and its limitations, and if you have the means to get your hands on it, it's a very assured, thoughtful and sometimes heart-breaking series.

Also, there is so much tea and coffee drinking and discussion about tea and coffee (mostly about how in fact it's not tea and coffee), I'm beginning to wonder if they were secretly sponsored by Tetley or Gold Blend. Indeed, the Germans arrive and read out the rules of Occupation, after which Major Richter says, "Waiter, I think we should all like tea now!" So, Enemy at the Door - low on battles, big on tea. I watch all the exciting TV...