Harrison Mandel
Check the behind the scenes section, the revision history and discussion page for additional comments on this article's title.
Harrison Mandel (PROSE: City of Death), was an art lover who (with his companion) visited an art gallery in Paris in 1979 where they mistook the Doctor's TARDIS, which had been parked in the gallery, as just another exhibit.
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.
Harrison and Elena 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 Fourth Doctor, Romana II, 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 male and female art lover characters were unnamed in City of Death. John Cleese and Eleanor Bron shared the collective on-screen credit "Art Gallery Visitors".
- Cleese and Bron only agreed to appear on the condition that they received no advance publicity or credit in Radio Times — their appearances thus coming 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.
