| | |
| ||
Philip Martin, the writer of Vengeance on Varos and Mindwarp, decribes how the repellent Sil came about -
"In three stages, really. When I was thinking about having an alien on Varos, I read something of Asimov's, which said that you seemed to seewater-based creatures. This is partly because they don't like water in TV studios. You drop it on the floor and the paint, for some reason, immediately blisters. Designers hate it. If he's in water, he's probably a mutant. The designer came up with that.
"Then we had a real stroke of fortune, in that we had Nabil Shaban, who made that character his own, not only in terms of acting, but in intensity and motivation. He turned it into something wonderful.\ It's been a delight in the studio watching him work and adding so much to it. He started those little green things which he pops into his mouth, what are now called Marshminnows. It's a great delicacy that he offers people, not always to their delight, I might add, when they taste them...
"Sil's race on Thoros Beta, the Mentors, are all different. Some can walk, some stumble along. some have to be carried like Sil. It seems that the more their brains develop, the more the capability to move around is restricted. The less a Thoros Betan can move around, the more intelligent it is.
Sil is in a very powerful position. He has lots of money that he can invest in various enterprises throughout the universe. Now, you can show that in two ways, either show somebody absolutlely mad with power, or you can show the humour of Sil not really understanding what he's doing in certain cases, and being so uncertain of it. It's like Reagan falling down the steps of an aeroplane, you think, 'well, he's only a man,' and this is only a little alien being.
"He's horrible in a way, but children love him because he's like them, he's full of bluster and full of bombast, even though underneath he's very uncertain. He's like a child who's pretending to be an adult, really. When I came to write Sil the second time, I was rather apprehensive that he might be a one-story character, but what with Nabil's contribution when I came back from the studio, you could hear the whole gallery laughing along with his performance."
-Doctor Who Magazine, June 1987
Doctor Nabs World of Paranormal
© 1997 jinghiz@msn.com
| | |
| ||
Get your own Free Home Page
