DVD Review - The Mad Death

Nuclear war wasn’t the only thing that was giving the people of Britain sleepless nights in the early 1980s. There was another, far more sinister monster hiding under our beds, another Bogeyman lurking at the back of our wardrobes. But that thing had a pretty innocuous name, a small harmless word really – only six letters in length – but when spoken it struck terror into the hearts of all those who heard it.

RABIES

It’s difficult to imagine now how utterly paranoid the people of Britain were about the possibility of rabies infiltrating our borders and sweeping across the countryside like an invading army. There were posters hanging everywhere warning us of the dangers of taking our pets in and out of the country, informing us what signs we should be looking for in order to tell if a wild animal was infected and the actions we should immediately take. Television programmes of the mid-to-late 1970s tapped into this fear of complacency and near self-destruction – Terry Nation’s post-apocalyptic series Survivors, for example, was as much playing on our certainty that a rabies outbreak was imminent as much as it was about our concerns regarding nuclear Armageddon or another outbreak of the Black Death.

And that’s what it was - a certainty. Make no mistake about it, as a bleak and desperate 1970s gave way to an even bleaker and more desperate 1980s, the mood in Britain was one of pessimism and grave misgivings – no one was quite sure what would hit them first, rabies or nuclear war!

Naturally there was not a shred of doubt in the minds of the commissioning bods over at the BBC that this was indeed a most propitious time to hit the viewers with a series that swung wide the door of our wardrobes and let the Bogeyman out to play.

The Mad Death is one of those massively important watershed moments in TV for me, one that had such a precise and devastating impact on my young over-active imagination, that it has stayed with me for 35 years. Transmitted over 3 Saturdays in July of 1983 this 3-part mini series deals with the consequences of a French woman smuggling her cat into Britain after it has been bitten by a rabid fox, and unknowingly unleashes a rampant and seemingly unstoppable infection on the wild animals of Britain and then, inevitably, the people.

Before I sat down to finally watch this after all these years, I attempted to explain to my wife just how that 10 year old boy reacted when watching the series on its original transmission, how the atmosphere of the piece both fascinated and disturbed me, how despite the fact that it was a bright, warm summer’s evening outside the window of my living room it could not diminish or dispel the horror that was unfolding before my young eyes.

Although still a great little series, unfortunately the impact it may have possessed in the early 80s has greatly lessened over the years. Most of the series’ problems can be found in Episode One with the entire cast, bar one, pitching their performances to such an overly dramatic level that it borders on the ridiculous. One gets the feeling that they are giving stage performances, throwing each line over the footlights rather than playing for a TV camera. The exception being Barbara Kellerman, whose portrayal of Dr Ann Maitland is both naturalistic and sensible, which is ironic given that most of the time in her other TV apperances such as 1990, Quatermass and The Chronicles of Narnia she's usually the one member hamming it up unashamedly.

The other major problem is that none of the characters are particularly likable. Richard Heffer’s Michael Hillard is a totally arrogant creature with a complete intolerance for everyone around him, whose lack of compassion for other people is matched only by his lack of any redeeming features whatsoever; Kellerman’s Dr Maitland uses her body to play two men off against each other, hopping from one bed to another and not caring about either’s feelings; Jimmy Logan's Bill Stanton is an over-privileged, pompous whiskey soaked old duffer whose favourite pastime is shooting animals; Richard Morant’s Johnny Dalry is as arrogant and intolerant as Hillard, only with more money in the bank; and Brenda Bruce’s dotty old Miss Stonecroft is so unhinged and childish that she endangers the entire country just so she can get what she want.

The only truly likable character is Ed Bishop’s dopey but well-meaning businessman Tom Siegler, but unfortunately he doesn’t make it past the first episode.

Things pick up from Episode Two, when the emphasis moves away from characters that we don’t really care about and the story kicks into gear with the race to stop the infection from spreading across the country begins.

As well made, interesting and enjoyable as the series is, I just can’t shake the slight feeling of disappointment I felt as the end credits of Episode Three began to roll. This wasn’t quite the series I’ve been seeing in my mind's eye for over three decades. That's not the series' fault of course, but even without my high expectations and childhood memories, this still isn’t up there with classics like Doomwatch, Day of the Triffids or Threads.

Simply Media’s DVD release of The Mad Death is as sturdy and top notch as we've come to expect from such an excellent company. However, one can’t help but feel that it's sadly lacking, coming to us as it does in a vanilla release. A 30 minute documentary, appreciation piece or collector’s booklet would have rounded off this set marvellously...an audio commentary at the very least.

This aside it’s still a great release to have on your shelves, one that I would definitely recommend.

Buy it at the SIMPLY MEDIA website