A Bit of Yellow Peril in Your Dr Who DVD Boxset

‘Why is an ancient Chinese god living under a music hall and feasting on the flesh of young women?’

Of course I like Dr Who (old and new – all regenerations) and watched it from a young lad in front of a black and white Radio Rentals Rediffusion through to my current flat screen plasma HD Star Trek like screen. Good news that there’s a new DVD  re-release, or Revisitation as the BBC  title it, featuring episodes with Tom Baker as the fourth Doctor, Peter Davidson as the fifth Doctor and Paul McGann as the eighth Doctor. All well and good.

In among the episodes included is the classic Dr Who Yellow Peril down Limehouse way episode The Talons of Weng-Chiang from 1977 – the Tong of the Black Scorpion, devout followers of an ancient god Weng-Chiang, disappearing women, an Oriental stage magician, a murderous ventriloquist’s dummy and giant rats in the sewers. Weng-Chiang was a Fu Manchu clone and played by a white actor; some North American TV channels refused to screen it citing racism and stereotyping.

The DVD comes with commentaries by various knowledgeable people and when it comes to The Talons of Weng-Chiang we get some pithy comments from, among others, Anne Witchard of Westminster University, who’s recent book Thomas Burke’s Dark Chinoiserie: Limehouse Nights and the Queer Spell of Chinatown ChinaRhyming has plugged a few times.