Welcome Home

by Moris Farhi

It is less a case of whodunnit than of howtheydunnit in this entertaining paranoia story. Moris Farhi MBE is definitely a renaissance man. Author of several novels, including the multi-award winning Children of the Rainbow, poet, acclaimed writer on Jewish history and philosophy, campaigner for writers imprisoned by oppressive regimes, and jobbing scriptwriter on television series from Return of the Saint to The Onedin Line. His late wife Nina Farhi (nee Gould) was a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and I wonder how much input she had on this story, which involves a psychiatrist abusing his power.

Dr Frank Bowers travels to his new cottage after a long convalescence in hospital following a car accident. To his shock, neither his wife Penny or his friends recognise him, and worse another man is living in his place, who tells him patiently that he is the real Frank Bowers.

This is a much more enjoyable example of the twist followed by twist thriller than Deathday was. There is always a danger with this kind of story that the plot become too contrived and reliant on characters acting very stupidly, but Welcome Home stays just about on the right side of logic. One of its most satisfying revelations is about Bowers’ flashback dreams, which are portrayed through time lapsed photos. We later discover that this is not just a stylistic choice by director Eric Hills, but actually a clue in plain sight as to what is really happening.

Casting Anthony Ainley as Frank Bowers One, as he is named in the credits, is a clever idea because from the start he generates distrust. Later most famous for playing recurring villain The Master in Eighties Doctor Who, Ainley had a flair for the sinister and Frank Bowers initially seems very suspect indeed. When talking to his doctor and then later on the train, his smile is a bit too wide and his bonhomie has touch of mania about it. As he desperately tries to prove his identity, only to be thwarted at every turn, first by circumstance and then by what seems to be a deliberate conspiracy, he does begin to engender sympathy though, and by the end he has become a tragic protagonist.

On the other hand Frank Bowers Two, played by Bernard Brown, first appears as a self-assured, patriarchal personality and pretty much stays like that for the whole story. The only crack in his certainty is when Penny begins to be sympathetic to the other Frank, making him accuse her of being attracted to a younger version who more openly needs her, something he says he hadn’t considered before. Bernard Brown had a long television career of playing lawyers, doctors, officers, and other authority roles. It soon becomes clear that he is the driver behind whatever is happening, but the tension comes from trying to work out what his plan really is.

Special mention should go to Norman Kay’s sinister electronic incidental music, which frequently recalls Doctor Who, another show Kay worked on. In fact thanks to the music, the outdoor filming around a weir rather reminded me of a Jon Pertwee era story.

As with much of the fourth season Welcome Home is more concerned with telling a dramatic story than exploring a concept or issue. It does however touch on the misuse of science and medicine, at a time when psychiatry and other therapies were becoming a popular subject. In shares some DNA with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest for example. Although only tangentially science fiction, it carries a warning familiar from many short stories – that people who concentrate too much on a future greater good, and justify immoral actions in the short term, frequently suffer severe consequences – and so do the people around them.