Horizon: To Infinity and Beyond.  Steven Berkoff presents this Horizon documentary on numbers, including a googol which is a 1 followed by 100 zeroes.  I liked the children being asked what is the biggest number- answer: 120.

An infinite number of monkeys will eventually produce Shakespeare's plays- they could only afford one monkey.

Berkoff appears in arty black and white with shadows, and sometime his voice is echoed.

All images from the film.

A documentary, Words of the Blitz from 2010 directed by Paul Copeland.  Steven Berkoff and fellow actors Dominic West, Romola Garai, Sheila Hancock, Russell Tovey, Alex Jennings, Joseph Beattie read from diaries and letters who were in the blitz in the second world war.

Corrie: The Road to Coronation Street- Coronation Street, nicknamed Corrie, is the world's longest-running TV soap opera currently in production, having started in 1960 and still going bold.  It is directed by Charles Sturridge in 2010.  The Cinematographer is Tim Palmer and the editor is Adam Green.  The writer is Daran Little who also wrote more than 100 of the Coronation Street episodes.

 The struggle to get the show started. 

Steven Berkoff plays Sidney Bernstein, the head of Granada Television who has to be convinced the series is worth doing.  Berkoff is convincing in the role.

"a beautifully crafted love letter to the past by former Street archivist and writer Daran Little, which ends just as Britain's first TV soap opera begins" (Ian Wylie, The Guardian, 16 Sep 2010).

The real Sidney Berstein.

All images from the film.
 

The Borgias

The Borgias, Neil Jordan's series on "The Original Crime Family" with a prime British cast, Jeremy Irons as lead Borgia Pope Alexander VI and in the first episode Derek Jacobi, from 2011-2013.  The Borgias were "a powerful family in Renaissance Italy. Despite the fact that they produced two Popes, their name has become associated with all kinds of dark deeds" (from history revealed here).  The Borgias, who were Spanish,  have massive might, but so do competing powers such as the Sforzas,

Steven Berkoff plays the priest Savonarola, the same role he played in A Season of Giants from 1991.  He appears in series 1 from 2011 in the episodes Death on a Pale Horse and The Borgias in Love (both directed by Jeremy Podeswa) and Lucrezia's Wedding (Simon Cellan Jones) and series 2 from 2012 in the episodes The Confession and World of Wonders (both by David Leland,) The Siege at Forli and The Choice (both by Kari Skogland) and Day of Ashes (John Maybury). He is  introduced giving a hell-fire sermon about the evils of the Borgias.

The series has a good cast, powerful scripts and classy photography by cinematographer Paul Sarossy such as the duel in the vaults...

...or the Pope and his cardinals filmed from above.

And a large number of extras (actual people and realistic CGI) used well, such as the French army marching through Italy and threatening Rome with pillage and destruction.

Pope Alexander VI (Jeremy Irons) has to face opposition from other powerful families the Medicis and the Sforzas, as well as handling his family including a mistress and children, the invading French army, and the rising power of Savonarola (Berkoff).

Berkoff is convincing as he moves from rabble-rouser to leader of disenchanted followers who like his fundamentalist approach.

But the Pope recognises the threat he poses, and he is arrested for heresy.

He is tortured to sign a confession, but refuses to sign.  Eventually his signature is forged and he is burned as a heretic.

All images from the film.

Doctor Who: Power of Three.  The doctor and his two companions investigate after mysterious small cubes land all over the Earth and no-one knows what they are.

The cubes initially seem innocuous, and the people collect them as ornaments or paperweights.  Everybody seems to have one.

Suddenly a number appears on each and slowly counts down.  What will happen when they reach zero?  And a small girl reacts to the doctor.

Steven Berkoff plays Shakri, the controller of the attack on Earth- well actually he is a hologram.  He wears heavy make-up, but does have a very small number of lines- his role was cut a  lot.

"In an interview with SFX magazine's J.R. Southall, ... director Douglas Mackinnon rather diplomatically stated that 'you could ask anyone on the cast or crew and they'll agree that his [Steven Berkoff's] participation was extraordinary.' As the years have passed, some details have come out in various fan circles that suggest this is code for 'he was an absolute nightmare to work with.... The day's shooting with Berkoff was virtually unusable and Chris Chibnall had to hastily rewrite dialogue to work with what they could salvage. The Shakri was never originally intended to be a hologram, but Berkoff's stock still performance necessitated such a rewrite.  In an interview a few years later, Berkoff complained about being worked to death and spending the majority of his 15 hours in the make-up chair" (Mark Donaldson, What Culture website, 15 Jan 2022, click here).

The title refers to a cube (the power of three) but also something Shakri will never understand, the power of three friends namely the Doctor and his two assistants. 

Directed by Douglas Mackinnon who also directed Berkoff in The Flying Scotsman and written by Chris Chibnall in 2012.  The doctor is Matt Smith and his companions are Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill.  Berkoff's previous television role was in The Borgias and Selva Rasalingam was also in both.  Behind the screens Julia Ankerson (foley artist)  and Martin Marty McLaughlin (special effects) worked on Rancid Aluminium and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo respectively.

All images from the film.

The Boy With a Camera for a Face, a short 15 minute film from 2013 directed by Spencer Brown.

There is no dialogue but Steven Berkoff provides the narration, in verse "Once upon a time a child was born / A child without a face /Where normally a face was worn / Was something in its place".

The boy was born with a camera instead of a face.

Despite everything he finds love, but there are troubles coming up for both of them.

The film is a surreal exercise but lacks the anarchic structure and visual imagery of other short surreal films such as Un Chien Andalou by Luis Buñuel or The Flat by Jan Švankmajer.

Some good photography.

The Director of Photography is Chris Moon and the Editor is Masa Skalec.

“… a timely parable about how we document our entire lives as much, if not more, than we live them... The Boy with a Camera for a Face is a strange, timely, multi award-winning short film… It is very much worth your time, all 14 minutes of it.  Filmmaker Spencer Brown‘s parable is about our obsessive interest in other people’s lives, our insatiable urge to document every moment that happens to us, and the distorting effects of doing so" (Joe Berkowitz, Fast Company, 21 Jan 2016, click here).

All images from the film.

Steven Berkoff plays King Nikolaus in five episodes of Witches of East End.

The Frankenstein Chronicles.