Harrison Mandel was an art lover who, with his friend Elena, visited an art gallery in Paris in 1979. (PROSE: City of Death) They mistook the Doctor's TARDIS, which had been parked in the gallery, as an art exhibit. (TV: City of Death, PROSE: City of Death)
Biography
Harrison discovered letters belonging to Ada Lovelace describing an alternate type of computer. Harrison, fascinated, built the computer. The United States ordered ten thousand of the new type, while the Russians ordered twenty thousand. Concerned, Harrison sold it to a private bidder and became rich.
While at a party, he encountered Elena, who believed Harrison looked sad and offered to take him to Paris and show him the city until he found something he saw as beautiful. They visited the Eiffel Tower, where Harrison noticed the Fourth Doctor and Romana II. They then went to a "happening space", where Harrison felt uncomfortable and met Bourget, an artist. (PROSE: City of Death)
Elena took Harrison to an art gallery, where he noticed the TARDIS, which he found beautiful. Harrison proclaimed that "since it has no call to be here, the art lies in the fact that it is here." At that moment the Doctor, Romana and Duggan entered the TARDIS and it dematerialised. The art lovers seemed to admire the TARDIS's disappearance as just another aspect of the art. (TV: City of Death)
Behind the scenes
- Both the female and male art lover characters were unnamed in City of Death, sharing the collective credit "Art Gallery Visitors", although John Cleese suggested they be named "Kim Bread" and "Helena Swanetsky". In James Goss' novelisation, they were finally named "Harrison Mandel" and "Elena".
- Cleese and Bron only agreed to appear on the condition that they received no advance publicity or credit in Radio Times, so their appearances would come as a complete surprise to viewers.
- Cleese's outfit is the same one he wore as Basil Fawlty in the very last Fawlty Towers episode "Basil the Rat", recording of which had been halted due to BBC industrial action.
- In DWM 471, Pete McTighe noted that, when brainstorming a mini-episode to accompany the trailer for the The Collection Blu-ray release of Season 17, he considered bringing Bron and Cleese as their art-lover characters. However, he feared that the characters would be too obscure for general audiences, and ultimately scrapped the idea in favour of Risen, which brought David Gooderson back as Davros, tying in with Destiny of the Daleks rather than City of Death.