Released: May 2011
Range: Short Trips
Range Number: 3.05
Read by Peter Davison
Written by Mathilde Madden
Directed by Nicholas Briggs & Ken Bentley
The walls of a manor house are dripping wet at night. But why can only mad Lady Catherine - and Peri - see it?
Wet Walls is a very curious beast. In some ways, it's a interesting, very different style of story, that perfectly suits the Short Trips range, but, in others, it seems that it's rather ludercrous. A pregnant house certainly could seem rather far-fetched. It also doesn't really feel like much actually happens, just that a house gives birth and a father gets killed. There's also a twist about the maid in actual fact being a man, but that just doesn't really go anywhere.
A pregnant house is a rather interesting concept for a story, if a little off-the-wall. What I think limits the story is that the idea isn't really built upon. It just seems like the idea was poked around with, but never really developed. The idea that it is the house, but not the house is also a little odd as well, especially because it removes a rather more interesting element from the story. The characters in this as well feel underdeveloped, and rather uninteresting, leading me to the impression that this might have been a story rushed into production. Then again, it is, like Chain Reaction and Seven To One, a more high concept Short Trip. It's just a pity that I don't feel that this works as well here, because there is some real potential. Peter Davison's narration is competent enough, but I'm not sure he was 100% convinced by the script. It's not dull, or tired, but it certainly gives a feeling that prehaps even Peter didn't think that this was quite as good as he could have hoped. Nick and Ken's direction is also a little relaxed, which prehaps was the wrong approch. Had the direction been a little more taught, it might have given the story a fighting chance. Daniel Brett's music and Matthew Cochrane's sound design don't particularly help either. To start with, it's effective at building up menace, but, by the time the sci-fi plot has been revealed, even that starts to fall to a distinct feeling of averageness.
Averageness is a word that can be applied to all of Wet Walls in fact. It could have been more interesting, but instead feels a little bit like a piece of fluff, picked out to pad out this collection. It starts off well, with a setting that's right out of the Tom Baker years, but quickly leads towards an awkward sci-fi plot. It's not awful or offensive, but it's most remarkable quality is it's unremarkableness.
Rating - 5/10
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