Supernatural: Mr Nightingale (Sylvia Coleridge Season)
Supernatural is not a series I am very familiar with. Frankly, I don't personally find its main premise very appealing: it is an anthology show and the idea is that in every episode a prospective member of the Club of the Damned has to tell a story and their membership is decided on how scary their story is. If it isn't frightening enough, they are killed. Creator Robert Muller set out to make a series akin to the horror films of the 1920s and 30s, deliberately different from most modern television. The series broadcast during summer 1977, and overall has tended to receive mixed to negative reviews. Notwithstanding this historical fact, it has a band of devoted fans online, mixed equally with the people who (as far as this episode is concerned, at least) can't make head nor tail of it.
In Mr Nightingale, an elderly Mr Nightingale is depicted as a youngish man who has been sent to Hamburg (in the nineteenth century) by his businessman father to stay with a colleague's family and to conclude a deal of some sort. We see precious little business going on, and instead we see Nightingale's socially acceptable arrival and his rapid descent through (suggested) drunkenness, via trying to bed the daughter of the house, to rudeness and, well, whatever is happening to him. It might be frank mental illness, but there a few things going on in this episode which I have decided to deal with thematically so that I don't just write that it's confusing, as do so many reviews online.
The first theme is sex. It's fascinating that so many of the online reviews describe Mr Nightingale as 'virginal'. Personally I think that's the wrong word. The word I would use to describe him is adolescent. This episode makes me think of that time we all have in our teens which frequently takes place on a holiday, or at least out of our normal familial setting, where sex suddenly becomes a reality, even if intercourse doesn't actually take place, and the teen goes a bit wild, returning home changed. I think the reviews pick up on this aspect of Nightingale's visit, and many viewers even suggest that his father has deliberately sent him abroad to make him have this experience and grow up.
The second theme is the aspect of hospitality. As Nightingale gradually falls apart he intrudes on the Steekebeck family's life in ways which are increasingly rude. For example there is a lengthy argument over whether a foodstuff is a pancake or an omelette, which rapidly deteriorates into cries of strumpet and Nightingale offering to tell the family members the exact moment of their death. My opinion is that this is set up to be deliberately disorientating to the viewer, and we are intended not to have a single, easy, answer to what is going on here.
The third theme is that of the Great Fire of Hamburg which took place 18 years before Nightingale's visit. It becomes present in the conversation and then is actually seen by the family: whether it is actually burning, whether we have been transported to the time or whether it is merely seen mentally by them, is never explained.
After Mr Nightingale's visit, one member of the family dies, and then another, who Nightingale has made pregnant, miscarries and becomes insane. This is not easy viewing, by any stretch of the imagination.
The final theme I would identify is the theme of the doppelganger, which seems to be one of the most controversial aspects of this episode. Repeatedly, Nightingale sees another man who is his identical double, in his bedroom. It is clear that nobody else can see him, although it is never explained why Nightingale can see him. The double is present, even as he is telling his tale to the Club of the Damned, unseen by anyone else.
I think it must be remembered that this is supposed to be a horror film, rather than a mystery or a ghost story, and it is therefore to be expected that inexplicable things happen. It was also intened to be deliberately different to much of the television of the time, and if you approach it expecting, say, Tales of the Unexpected, you're going to be confused and disorientated. I think this is the mistake a lot of the reviewers on the internet make. We are not intended to understand it; we are intended to be horrified by it. I suspect the family's custom of reading ghost stories aloud to each other in the evening, sets up the viewer to expect a ghost story, which this is not.
Sylvia Coleridge's role is as one of the elderly ladies in the household, who is suitably horrified when Nightingale tells her he will tell her when she will die. Otherwise her role is largely confined to looking horrified at his behaviour and listening to him through her magnificent ear trumpet, however it is clear that the two theatrical giants in the cast are Jeremy Brett and Sylvia Coleridge.
There are a couple of criticisms I have seen online about this show which I think are misunderstandings. There is the one where I think the show is unfairly criticised for being confusing, when that is deliberate. There is also a criticism that Jeremy Brett over-acts, and I can only conclude that the person who commented that has never seen any of Brett's other work. Do they not understand that the entire point of casting Jeremy Brett in any role is to have him overflow it and thesp everyone else out of the linelight completely? Personally I can't think of another actor who could carry the role of a man who gravely betray's the family's hospitality before beginning to see his double and finally trying to get admission to the Club of the Damned. with a story so fantastic that even they don't believe it and put him to death!
I do, however, have one criticism, and I wonder whether this was caused by a difficult casting the role. Brett is too old for the role he is playing. The character's age is not given in the episode, although he does strike reviewers as virginal, however I see that Brett was born in 1935, so was about 41 one when he was playing this character. As I noted, the sexual theme of the episode seems rather adolescent, and certainly an actor in his forties is was too old to be carrying on like Nightingale is.
Overall, however, an excellent drama if you approach it as a horror film, and a great vehicle for Sylvia Coleridge in a minor role, although I suspect most viewers will genuinely either like this or not according to taste.
Credit: I found the review by Richard Markworth on the spookyisles.com site very helpful in forming my own thoughts to write this post.
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