Hello, dear listen, and welcome back to Flight through Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast, whose origin story will be the
subject of a TV movie sometime later this year.
Johnny Lee Miller is playing me.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Peter.
I'm Simon.
I'm Greg, and I'm a much scrunched and abused hanky soaked in piss
and vinegar for this one.
Well, it's the 21st of November 2013, and in 2 days' time, Doctor
Who will face his greatest and most terrifying enemy, his 50th
birthday.
So let's turn the urometer all the way back to 1963 to see how the
legend begins as we discuss Mark Gatis's anniversary, special and
adventure in Spain and time.
It's funny, this one, because I hadn't seen it maybe since the
year of its broadcast or something after.
It's nearly been 10 years since I watched this.
And I was actually surprised by how much I enjoyed it to be
honest.
You were surprised.
I wasn't surprised.
I was not surprised.
I'm not a big fan of the sort of biopic documentary thing because
if it properly tracks someone's life, it tends to be kind of just
a bunch of things that happen and we don't really learn anything
just like life, you know. history.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I cannot change even if you try, apparently.
But I think this is given a sort of unity, I guess, by making it
the story of Bill Hartnell more than anything else.
Yes, it starts as the story of verity and then quickly becomes the
story of Bill Hartnell and it's not a biopic per se, because it's
about events rather than a person, per se.
And usually these kind of things are reasonably fictionalised.
And of course, we can discuss the various historical inaccuracies
in due course.
Or accuracies.
We get to that.
Well, no, there are many, there are lots of accuracies, but of
course there are also some things that they, you know, change.
But I think not only is it so heartwarming and beautiful, it is
also structured in a way which is a logical story.
It creates a 90 minute movie, which isn't just here's a series of
stuff and oh, we're at the end of 90 minutes and so we'll stop
here.
Yeah, that's right.
If it had been a docudrama, I think it would have been a lesser
thing, so...
Yeah, and well, maybe not, but it would have just been a retelling
of the events, like you said.
And in 2010, there was the thing which paved the way for this
which was the road to Coronation Street, which was Coronation
Street's 50th anniversary sort of making of program.
And I think that was more of a docudrama and it wasn't quite as
entertaining, although it was successful.
This works because it's not just the story of the genesis of the
program.
It's the story of the people involved and the fact that Bill
Hartnell, like we mentioned, was an actor in the Twilight of his
career, and it was almost his redemption story, if you want.
But it is also the story of pioneers.
And so what Mark zeros in on is the fact that verity was obviously
a young female producer in a corporation which was full of middle
aged man.
Warris was a young Anglo-Indian director.
In fact, the youngest drama director that the BBC has ever had
making his way.
And you want the stories of these people.
You want to know why Doctor Who was pioneering and innovative
effort, and it's tied up in the fact that these were young, go
getting people.
And it's also a love letter.
It's a love letter to Doctor Who, it's a love letter to the 60s
generally.
It's a love letter to television centre, particularly.
Yeah, to the founding powers of Vidal So soon.
The rock bed on which this is built.
So it manages to do the whole love letter thing without being too
cheesy.
It walks the right side of the line.
It's astonishing how little crunchy fromage there is on this, isn't
there?
Did you know if Gauges could be this good?
Oh, this is clearly the very best thing he has ever written for
Doctor Who.
It's Doctor Who stories.
I think, can I have a bit more of this, please?
beautifully done.
This felt, I don't know, I like to hear from Greg, but this felt
to me, as a round table question, a really thin premise, and I'm
looking at this thinking much like Doctor Who.
Well, exactly.
No, that's exactly right, because I'm looking at it thinking, how
and this is the case I know, and Peter, you know, this, of all
narrative drama, is how will you engage with thin facts that on
the surface no one will be interested in unless they're fans?
Well, you make it about the human drama.
You make it about the fallen gods, you make it about the rise.
I mean, this is really a Greek tragedy, isn't it?
You've got Athena rising over there and then you've got the old
gone, you've got, he's hardly Zeus, isn't he?
But you've got poor old Prometheus crumbling to ashes on as Bill
Arnell on the right.
And then, I suppose, Carol Anne Ford is the Deus X Makina
suppose.
You also reorder things a bit because some of the historical
problems are bringing the emotions forward to the right part of
the story rather than where they actually occurred in the real
world.
And collapsing characters together.
Yeah, that's right.
But I do like that Richard Martin and Warris Hussein are actually
the same person, even though they're played by 2 actors in this.
According to the script, it's still Wars.
So, yeah, I think I think what it manages to do.
And I guess it's that conceit where we start on Bill Hartnell
driving to work on his last day of work.
And is he where is he?
That's uncommon.
Yes, with his everlasting matches.
Yes.
The kiss to the Daleks novelisation is just gorgeous.
Is it his way too, or is it his way back?
No, no, he's on his way back.
It's leaving after his last scene.
And he could actually be on his way home in Kent.
That is a path from the BBC television centre to Kent goes past
Barnes Commons.
And so having the policeman say, you know, you're in the way.
Yeah.
Which is a little bit on the nose.
It's the most obvious thing.
A magic ring. there's another bit there.
Of course, what does the policeman do?
He knocks 4 times on the car. didn't pick that one up.
I didn't say that either.
I mean, magic realism would have had Bill step into the police box
but I like this.
I like this one.
Well, I suppose that could have been a choice rather than Matt
Smith appear at the end and we'll get to that.
You could have had him getting into the police box on Barnes
Common. materializer.
We're going to get to Matt Smith appearing, I'll need a Hanky
right now.
I guess I guess what it's doing is it tells the story of someone
who is a bit of a miserable old bastard.
And we see him famous, miserable pastor.
And we see him being mean to his granddaughter Jessica, who we now
know about.
But as Brian said when we were watching it, he said, that was my
grandfather.
Yeah, his grandfather would speak to him.
Mine as well.
Yep.
And that kind of brusque tone, you know, sit there, don't make a
noise when I don't want you to make a noise.
I'm reading the paper. watching the television or I'm having my
scotch or whatever it is.
Very, very typical.
What it is, is it's a beautiful portrait of a man whose time has
passed.
His era has passed even in 1963, his way of doing things is being
pushed aside.
It's the kind of the 2nd World War generation, I suppose, that are
now beginning replaced by the baby boomers.
Like the theme of the idiot's lantern as well, which is the same
kind of thing.
Yeah, same kind of thing.
So he learns to, you know, he becomes the doctor.
He becomes Doctor Who, who is a silly, cuddly character. as we all
observed, I think, when we went through this for flight through
entirety, that he's actually much less grumpy than John Nathan
Turner thought he was or Richard Herndle thought he was.
His actually really lovely.
So I assume that we've all seen the interview with Bill Hartnall
that is in one of the DVDs, which they unearthed, where he's in
the dressing room in a panther off 10 planet.
And he this very much informs how he is depicted in this because
that's a glimpse into Bill Hartnell, the man, which we don't
have.
Not fumbling, not stuttering.
Yeah, and sort of and sort of small and tight and resentful of
life.
And in fact, one of his lines.
One of his lines in this is drawn directly from that where he says
I am a legitimate star of children theatre.
That word legitimate, film and theatre.
Not of television, because television, even having done the
television.
Not real.
It's a bit of...
Before we get all to that...
You know, he spent over a decade living with Charles Hawtrey.
No?
Yeah, they shared digs on and off, but they were very, very good
mates.
So before we get... legitimate star of the theatre.
Well, I suppose living with Charles, but Charles was completely
effing mental.
Now, he would actually, apparently he would set off fire alarm so
he could get the fireman over and then he'd drop his knickers for
them.
Oh, God.
That's it, much like this podcast.
But if we just, if I can just expand on that point.
It's not just the choice of words, which they get so right, and
they're lifting it from that interview, which is probably the only
decent length clip we have of Hartle being Hartle.
The only primary source.
It's not just that it's the delivery.
The intonation.
That's angry legitimate.
Yeah, yeah, but it's not just the way he says that.
It's everything he says during that interview.
It's very hard edged and very army and very, you know, brusque.
The whole thing.
And that, I think, is what we see in the performance.
And when he's dealing with that reporter who's there, he is almost
like he believes that the reporter is a station below him.
It's like treating like treating people badly in a restaurant
which, in fact, he does in this episode.
Yeah.
He has a sense of class.
Not necessarily just upper class, middle class, lower class, but
in terms of almost caste system in terms of...
You only work in a shop.
It's Mr. Hartnell to you, et cetera. all that kind of stuff.
Sunny boy.
And then I guess what happens is the tragedy is twofold.
One is his increasing illness, and then the other is the people
that he loved and relied on, gradually disappearing from the
show.
One of the things we hear about all the time in Doctor Who is the
team of people.
And the team is being built and then it's being torn apart and
built again, torn apart and towards the end, he's obviously not
interested in building new teams.
Yeah, especially not when they bring in a statuesque Scandinavian
to play Ben.
Far too tall.
The Ben in this is so gay.
It's unbelvable.
But all those, all those repeated shots of the publicity shots
being taken in the courtyard of television centre, which is
actually, I think, from the 1st anniversary drinks that they have
when the show's been sold to the Australia.
That's that famous photograph of them all recently. with verity.
Yeah.
So it's just, obviously, it's not real, but it's actually quite
beautifully done the way David Bradley is less and less engaged. as
each new cast arrives.
And by the time you get to Ben and Polly, he's just, he's actually
just not there.
Yeah, yeah.
And the whole thing with that entire courtyard thing is it's a
Panopticon, of course.
So it's got a point in the middle where you can see everything
around it, which is that television centre of thing that, sorry, I
mentioned before.
It's a lovely letter television centre.
It's featured so prominently at a range of points and it's a very
different appearance each time.
Is television centre at this point?
Like when does television centre get sold off?
So this was the last drama that was ever shot at television centre
and I believe that very soon after, like maybe within a month it
was closed and was starting to be renovated into apartments.
Yeah.
So it is very definitely that, isn't it?
I mean, there's no way that Mark Gatis isn't making it a love
letter to...
Oh, absolutely.
Even though the show's not actually shot there.
No. in the early days, but it's still home based.
And you know, the production office isn't there.
It's at threshold house, whatever.
No, but I'm totally willing to let that go.
Oh, yes.
Just all of those loving establishing shots of the horseshoe at
night with the lights lit up and everything as a Doctor Who fan
when you were growing up, it was just this kind of far off mecca.
It was like our Hollywood, where it were just, you know, make
these incredible adventures with mummies and maggots and things
like that, and to actually see it, and to see it evokes so
beautifully, really tugs at the heartstrings.
It does, yeah, yeah.
The 1st time that I went to London by myself where, you know, I
was just spending time doing whatever it was that I wanted and it
was, you know, 2008 or something. being interfered with my parents
or partners.
But not parents, partners.
I did do a little pilgrimage to BBC television centre just so that
I could say that I had sort of been there and seen it.
And it was.
It was exactly that.
I'm standing outside thinking, somewhere in that building, Tom
Baker was telling everyone to hurry up really grumpily so that he
could be replaced by Peter Davison later on in the same shot. it
is really special.
And I guess the other thing that this is celebrating is the
knowledge that we have of how the program was made.
And Doctor Who, when it was released on DVD from sort of 2000
onwards, became perhaps one of the most well-documented television
productions.
Oh, the most in history.
Oh, before that.
And you're not just talking about the tele snaps, are you?
But all of those documentaries, every story gets a documentary
made about it based on stuff that we have.
I mean, we know the entire history of Carol Anne sandwich orders
don't we?
Interesting, the waves of that.
I mean, the risk of digressing, you've got the kind of the early
wave of Doctor Who knowledge, which is basic effectively, the
received wisdom of 3 people, 50% of which is actually wrong or
just their memories of the thing.
And then it kind of gets built up in the in the very late 80s and
into the 90s.
And then you get the whole, the 3rd level, again, is then the DVD
documentary.
It basically goes Jeremy Bentham, Doctor Who magazine, archive, DVD
documentaries.
Yeah, yeah.
Because, I mean, I was watching this with Calvin on the couch
yesterday and he was quite engaged in it.
He won't normally watch Doctor Who with me, but he certainly was
watching this.
And I just couldn't resist, you know, okay, maybe twice. 25
minutes.
Like, I didn't go crazy.
We know that that's a real thing.
You know, that actually happened.
You know, I've seen the pilot where the doors open.
And even little touches like him dropping the scarf on the
ground.
Yeah, yeah.
With the best eye roll ever from Warris.
Yes, yes, just those little touches are part of what makes up.
And I like that.
They're all conflated and they're done in an overstated way.
One thing that got me this time, even more so than it did on 1st
viewing, is that the performances are not just RP.
They're really boldlerized, especially those of, I mean, it's
unfair to say which cast members, but there are some, Jackie Hill
never played it like that, and even Carol Anne got a lot more
naturalism in, and even when you watch Bill in his farewell
speech.
I just think the, it's not, it's done like this to serve the
narrative.
But there's actually, the one thing I would say that I would
criticise about this production is that it lets the truth of the
original performance down a little by not giving them their dues.
They were not that wooden, or they were not that obvious.
I think that's just a kind of a film and television trope, to use
that word.
But, Susan...
It's played honestly live here.
But when people when people are acting in these kind of things
within the show, they often make it a bit more wooden to make it
clear that this is... acting.
And as well as mocking the sort of the terrible terrible RP.
I'm actually too excited about the wigs to really be offended.
I actually thought the woman who played Barbara was...
Oh, damn gray.
Basically, you look like us.
You sound like a.
She's been she's been having that on repeat.
So good.
I think that Jamie Blover catches the essence of William Russell
really well.
Considering who his father was and what he lived with all those
years.
Yes, absolutely.
When he does the police box standing in a junkyard line.
I think it's absolutely perfect Okay, can I just say, these
recreations are special magic for Doctor Who fans to watch these
iconic scenes, which you know so well remounted so lovingly.
It brings a tear to your eye, but also, it put me in mind of our
legendary plays from the 90s for the conventions.
So I half expected Ian to turn around and say, let me get this
street.
A police box standing in a junkyard can go anywhere within 20
miles of the BBC television centre.
That was yours.
I heard a cry.
That was one of the best lights you wrote for.
I think too.
One of the things that may be a little unfair, and I think Richard
is likely to agree with me on this is the reliance on Billy Fluffs
as a way of indicating that he's getting increasingly ill.
And we don't know why those happen, but it is telling that they
often don't happen.
You know, they don't happen when he's playing the Abbot of
Amboise.
They don't happen, apparently.
Yeah.
That happened generally in the historicals.
Yeah.
So maybe it's just a question of engagement here.
Yeah.
Yeah, and it's also, you know, it's a mixup of character tick and
actor tick as well.
Like some of those Billy Fluffs are character stuff.
But certainly they are using them to tell the story of his illness
I think.
No, he's also, I think the sequence where he's like, you know
trying to remember the lines from Web Planet and his wife's going
through them with his bed.
I think he's just tired.
He's old and tired.
I think there are 2 stories there.
There's one where it's such a gruelling schedule.
He's got 25 minutes that he's carrying every week of new dialogue
half of which is practically unintelligible.
I mean it makes me shudder to think about it.
Well, exactly.
And so I think there are 2 lines there.
One is the illness, but the other is just the fact that it's just
gruelling.
And actually, it gives truth to what Rex Tucker says early on.
You know, the much maligned Rex Tucker in there, too, I don't
think was a misogynistic bastard. that is played like that.
Well, I think it's just to summarise the year of it, giving his
tube doing a shoddy job of directing the gunfighters.
There you.
I think it actually highlights, though, it's a nice little tonal
piece because even men who would consider themselves to be
gentlemen and good to their wives and daughters.
I remember officers in the late 70s, early 80s, as a student still
behaving like that.
Yes, when you got, they had that documentary with Annabelle Crabbe
old women in Parliament in Cabinet.
And they all say, you know, on all sides of politics, basically
the women in the room would all report afterwards of basically
they'd come up with an idea.
And then it would kind of be picked up and suddenly it's somebody
else's idea and they're effectively, it's as if they're not even
in the room.
The example in this story is Jeff Rawl's character, who he plays
Mervyn Pinfield, I think, is ours, isn't he wonderful?
And he's delightful.
I mean, no one is sweeter than him, I think.
He's a really lovely actor, but verity still has to stop him from
calling her...
Yeah, dear lady, that's right.
Can we just take a moment to realise that he was Plantagenus in
frontier?
Yeah, yeah.
That's just...
Oh, man, goodness.
I was thinking of him and drop the dead donkey.
Or Sarah Jane Adventures, where he's the Mona Lisa sidekick.
So what is the actual real history there?
I mean, obviously, dramatically, they're kind of a Mervyn Pinfield
there is kind of a combination of Mervyn and David Whittaker
really, because David Whittaker is the one who gets the short
straw.
It just doesn't get mentioned at all, which I think is very sad.
And Terry Nation, interesting.
Terry, get termination, get some mention. that comedy writer.
The Hancock person.
Yeah, but let's make that clear.
Terry Nation's role in the beginning of Doctor Who gets one line
that comedy writer.
Yeah, and Anthony O'Burn gets no mention really at all.
Yeah that's true.
The fleas.
What about you?
I was waiting for Bunny Webber.
We did that.
And later on when, you know, they're talking about what to do, do
they have to cancel Dr. Hipp, because Hartnell just can't go on.
And Mervyn is in the room with Sidney Newman.
Is he like, what is his actual role in Doctor Who?
And then is he kind of senior in the BBC after that?
No.
So this is one of the things which I can forgive because it's
dramatic license.
But you notice that Mervyn Pinfield didn't get one of the they
went on to do this at the end.
That's because Mervyn Pinfield died in 1966. shortly after he was
meant to direct Galaxy 4 and so couldn't have possibly been in the
room to discuss William Hart and all this.
That's fine.
Yes, Mervin Pinfield died before the end of this program.
Correct.
I mean, there are sort of other inaccuracies, obviously, if we're
sort of talking about inaccuracies.
There seems to be a lot of rehearsals going on in the actual set
which seem to be early rehearsals, script in hand rehearsals, the
kind of stuff that would have been done in acting or wherever.
I mean, because they just had like an afternoon in the studio
didn't they, as a kind of a dress rehearsal before then, going to
dinner and then coming back and recording it?
That the way it worked, didn't it?
That's right.
So those scenes of Bill Hartnell and the others basically throwing
around lines from the 1st episode with Sidney Newman coming in to
see them on set and that, that was clearly long before they would
actually be shooting.
Yeah, and so it's a bit of a conflation.
And Bill Harton was saying, you know, I want to see the set of the
TARDIS.
Well, obviously they would have seen this out of the TARDIS
because they were filming on the same day with that set.
But having said that, I think we can get away with that as
dramatic license, even though as purists.
We know that wasn't exactly the way it was.
The one thing which got me was the regeneration.
I sat there thinking, you know, why is Bill Hartnell walking to
set and shooting the regeneration and like there's a big lead up
whereas we know these episodes were shot within basically real
time.
You know, I had an hour and a quarter of studio time to churn out
25 minutes.
But then I did more research and realised that's actually what
happened.
Mark got it right.
The regeneration was shot 1st thing that day and then they went on
and shot the rest of the episode.
So it's actually true.
Oh, fascinating.
That's interesting.
Was that because they were worried about getting the effect
right?
Yeah, originally it was supposed to be that the doctor would fall
down with his cloak over his face and then the next episode, the
cloak would come off and Patrick Trouton would be revealed, but
Shirley Coward, the vision mixer, knew that one of the vision
desks had a problem and would flare to white when you mixed it.
And so she said, I think we can actually do an effect.
Wow.
So they set it up and shot it 1st to make sure that, you know, it
was all in the can.
That's actually a beautiful summary of why Doctor Who is so great
is people like that.
Serendipity.
It's not to no, it's not really serendipity.
It's people using what they have and almost using what they have
which they know is actually a bit broken and leaning into that and
making that work.
Like the division mixer is not supposed to flare to white.
You know what I mean?
It's a broken piece of equipment.
That's actually very poignant.
That they're utilising to give the effect.
And I think that's a summary of what Doctor Who's so great.
Or is made so great.
Just going back again to the 60s thing, if I may, those are little
touches to sort of place you in the 60s, but also to place you in
an organisation which is so, you know, in some respects stuffy as
the BBC.
You know, you've got the wonderful William Russell in that opening
scene when Cindy Newman arrives in the car park and he's playing
the car parking attendance.
Like, that's not the way we do things at the BBC, sir.
I mean, it is such a good summary of that kind of person in those
kind of roles in that kind of era.
But also in the beginning where, you know, Hartnell's waiting to
go out to shoot.
I mean, his dressing room and when you go out and to shoot the
regeneration scene.
And you've got, you know, the stage hand knocking on the door
saying, well, they're ready for you, Mr. Hart and blah, blah
blah.
And he's saying, look, I'm only doing my job.
That is such a good summary of that kind of, you know, I'm only
doing my job sort of attitude.
Yes, the BBC was full of stuffy shirts and jobs worth.
Yeah, which is in contrast to the vision mixer lady.
And in contrast to our 3 main people here, Verity and Warus and
the other outsider who we didn't mention, the Canadian outsider.
Sidney Newman.
Yes.
And isn't it nice to see Brian Cox in such a very, varied role?
I expected him to be playing the 5th monkey again with his
telescope and he really fatted up for the job. really improved.
I mean, he is in Doctor Who, actually.
He is the voice of the main ood in the end of.
Of course he is.
Brian Cox main nude.
The other thing that's really playing with the timeline is
bringing Dalek mania forward for a whole year because the Daleks
did not become so popular until after the Dalek invasion of Earth
they were But I had a look at the transcript in the dead planet, or
the Daleks, if you want to call it, exterminator extermination is
mentioned 5 times by the Daleks in 7 episodes.
You can't imagine people, kids will be playing Daleks on the bus.
That's just to make the story work better.
I mean, yes, but I don't know about that because if you look at
the ratings for the Daleks, they go from 6000000 at the start to
10000000 at the end, so the audience had doubled in this time, and
they particularly jump in the episode after the Daleks themselves
were introduced.
So there was a genuine cultural thing that was tapped into there.
I mean, it's all conflated a little bit.
That actually made me quite happy.
I think there are 2 ways of Dalek, man, because, I mean, remember
the 1st Dalek story starts practically on Christmas.
So it's the following Christmas.
Yeah.
With Dalek, after Dalek Invention of Earth.
Yes, that's when I think all the merchandise hits.
Starting with the place.
Starting with that annual, yes.
But I think I think that the I think that kids are almost
certainly playing Daleks on buses and in playgrounds and so on.
And maybe it's one of those things it's like, it's like, you know
auton smashing out of shop windows in speed of different space.
It never actually happens.
And it's almost like, you know, maybe they do only say exterminate
5 times in the 1st Dalek story, but for some reason, that's the
word that is grabbed onto.
I mean, I have to say, the depiction of Sidney Newman, while I
think it's an important character.
So it's a little bit broad, but the whole pop, pop, pop and all of
that.
And so I thought that was one of the slightly weaker elements.
But Brian Cox does a really good job of bringing to life Sydney's
outsider status.
In fact, there was no nonsense and he had the right instinct.
You want to be a producer, baby.
You want to be a producer?
John Lennon Glasses, play a trumpet.
Exactly.
But that's actually something that I wanted to point out, that
sequence where, you know, he's all charming too, to Heartwell, to
try and win him over and then basically pulls verity aside.
That's such a great...
But be a producer, find a way to deal with.
That's when she obviously marches into Peterborough Chackie, is
it?
The Tardis console is that.
Another one who's slightly villainised.
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I love a Peter Pan.
Peter Pan, because there's a lot more to betrach his design than
what he builds on that desk.
But he's actually very interesting because Sidney Newman is
actually Michael Grade, who is the villain in Doctor Who history.
Michael Grady brought in from basically a commercial type
enterprise.
Well, I suppose it's channel four, which is, which is he gone to
channel four?
Yeah, commercially.
He comes from a commercial background, like Sidney Newman does, to
shake the place up because the BBC is starting to flail a little
bit in that it's basically being overwhelmed by its own stuffiness
its own conservatism.
And Sydney Newman's brought in to shake all that up.
And likewise, Michael Grade in the mid 80s is brought in to shake
up the babies.
And Michael Grade arguably does a decent job of it.
It's his successor, Jonathan Powell, and then John Burst, who
really kind of mucked things up.
But grades term it the BBC.
It was actually doing quite well and was quite popular.
Oh, well, I'm just more talking about throwing the baby out with
the bath water.
Oh, yeah, no, but, you know, in terms of grade being a villain.
Yes, he's a villain to us, but his broader instincts were probably
right.
Oh, yeah, probably.
Yeah, cancel the show for God's sake.
From what we know of Newman.
And this is the lovely thing of conflations and truth within
dreamt reality, which is Doctor Who.
I really would, I know, we've talked about this before.
I would have loved to have seen this actually go quite cocktail
like and just truth and reality bleeding together.
And then I would have liked 490 minute episodes with that crew
revisiting new, both new and old monsters and new ideas before we
started with the lovely Mr. Capaldi.
I just think it would have been quite beautiful.
As we go through the history of Doctor Who in those first couple
of years, just those glimpses are so important to us as fans, so
it's not just the Daleks or the 1st episode, we're on the set of
the Reign of Terror.
Yeah, with the hat, yes, yes.
Yeah, I want to see Marco Polo, Marinace, and the Aztecs.
Well, I mean, I think the Marco Polo thing was a really, really
great thing and that's a moment, isn't it?
Don't we pan up from like seeing the set on the little monastery?
On the black and white?
And someone says, imagine if this was in colour and then the
camera goes up and it is in colour.
It's gorgeous.
Well, because that was an absolute triumph of design.
That's Barry Newberry, isn't it?
Yeah.
It is.
And of course, you know, it's important to this story because it's
Warris Sain's 2nd episode.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, we do have the illusion that Warris Hussein is the only
director of Doctor Who for a certain block of time.
But I can live there.
Four stories.
If only.
Well, we have Richard Martin, don't we?
Directing... and he's even wearing a cravat, which I think is
absolutely...
And I love the fact that you got Douglas Canfield as an assistant
floor manager.
One thing that I didn't think would ever happen is that Richard
Martin wouldn't yell at a performer for some technical problem
would just kind of let it happen.
Yes, exactly.
Because, I mean, who cares?
I have a couple of things to say.
So when I interviewed Richard Martin in 1995, he was wearing a
cravat, very like that in the photographs that I took for DWM.
I like the fact that he is played by Ian Hallard, who is Mark
Gatis's husband.
Oh, wow.
And also to your point, Nathan, about Richard Martin not yelling
anyone because he didn't care.
He actually related a story to me when I interviewed him of being
on Westminster Bridge when the Daleks were coming towards them and
Robert Jewell, I think, who is the Australian, I may get, may have
that name wrong, but I think it was Robert Jewell, who was the
Australian Dalek operator.
He was yelling, come on, you're getting out of line.
You're not keeping up with the others.
And apparently was berated by this Dalek operator.
You get inside one of these things and try it out.
So that's kind of based in reality.
Wow, okay, that's amazing.
Fantastic.
There's another great story.
I thought you were going to say from the Richard Martin interview
which was about what Warris Hussein wanted to do.
You have to, is that reliable?
Yes, in fact, there was the instance where, you know, Richard
obviously worked with Warris a lot, and Warris apparently said to
Sidney Human, as relayed by Richard Martin.
But Sid, can't I do passage to India?
Director Sidney Newman said, we may do a passage to India.
You're going to do Effen Doctor, who...
Yes, but it was like that kind of wistful passage.
And in fact, he did end up doing passion...
Yeah, except not exactly after dog two.
Right Sometime later.
I was actually surprised by how much, because, you know, we used
to Warris Hussein as he looks now or in the last few decades, but
Sashuan is actually quite...
It's astonishing.
He's obviously the slightly Hollywood-ized version of Warris, but
I don't think Warris minds that.
I'm sure he doesn't.
But I also like to imagine that because he also plays the master
in years to come.
He's going back for his vengeance on the doctor after being put in
all those bad situations of lots of exposition.
So we're going to tie her up and exposit at her for an entire
episode.
So I reckon that is the master, right?
Because he gets left behind in World War 2 by the doctor, on the
Eiffel Tower, and then he gets a job in 2012 or 2013.
He's just directing passage to India, I think, goes off to meet
the doctor.
But just going back to the Daleks for a minute, if I may, actually
thinking further about what you were saying. there, Greg.
The way they introduce the Daleks in this program is beautiful.
When you've seen it from the inside, you don't get a clear shot of
the outside.
All you get is these shots of people looking at them and get
verity with her fangs.
Could you be more specific?
She was holding a cigarette as well.
And uh, and uh, and then you see them and you see those
beautifully reconstructed sequences, which are just so well done.
And you can see how in such a tiny space the whole thing is being
created in, which makes it so magical.
And it realised when I saw them trundling past and we both, Ryan
and I turned each other, said, yeah, they were phenomenal.
I mean, 1963.
The design of the television.
Like, this is something...
It's extraordinary.
The design.
Yeah, it could be. it could have been dreadful.
It could have been made out of cloth.
Like one of the original...
Yes, one of the original ideas was, would could it work?
Because, you know, Remember Terry Nation wanted them to be like
ballet dancers. not ballet dancers, particularly kind of Russian.
Georgia, Georgia.
Georgia, I think, yes, Georgia said dun.
Like, you know, you don't see the feet move.
You just see this thing.
And one of the original ideas was to create like a kind of a wire
mesh and then drape these cloths over it.
We all love Alpha Centauri.
Yeah, yeah, but it basically would have been that Victoria
Waterfield.
They would have had a skirt like the crotons.
Yes, it would have been like that that was that original thing.
Didn't that go that long?
Well, again, budget.
Cusick really gets claustrophobia. and he really gets, and don't
forget, this is a, have you built your bombshell?
Have you got your new Anderson shoulders?
Yeah.
You know, we only we only had the Bay of Pigs a year before.
So the whole thing of that, the claustrophobia of the Dalek sets
that really is extraordinary.
And it really brings home that incredible original design for the
Daleks because even in light of the 21st century RTD version of
Daleks, which rebuilds them as something which looks more
industrial.
And yeah, you know, more sort of real to the touch, but still
keeping the silhouette.
Those originals in situ.
Look beautiful.
And fragile.
Incredible.
And their fear works both ways.
I think we feel their fear. compounds our own fear.
Yeah, they're not robots.
They're not speaking with robot voices.
They're not emotion.
Nick Briggs in a week.
Yeah, I know, it's so great.
In a liberanti wig.
Let's say, yeah, he's a kind of Ford, isn't it?
Who is he being?
Who do we think he's being?
Is he Peter Hall?
David Graham?
I would say I admire Mark Gaterson's restraint when redoing those
scenes from the Daleks that he doesn't have the Daleks say
exterminate.
He has the Daleks say historically accurate fire.
Yeah.
Oh, yes, it's all historically accurate.
That stuff is all...
It's beautiful.
Are you conflating five-ish doctors, though?
because I'm still seeing.
Yeah.
It's not just the lines that are right.
It's the intonations which are right.
And I think that's what makes it so magical, especially from the
regular crew.
Yeah Yeah.
And it is just for us.
I mean, that's not for the not we watching this over the
anniversary we.
But that's because it's made by people who love it and know that
that's it's good so easily of just being just all the same lines
or approximately the same lines, just read in a completely
different way.
So well done.
So the reason that I mentioned having met people like Warris St.
Richmond is I used to do the interviews for Doctor 2 magazine over
a number of years, which is where I got to meet a lot of these
people.
And so I've met Warris twice.
I did 2 interviews with him, and I think that this story does
justice to him.
Because he's such an interesting man and such an interesting
character that to build the story around him was the right choice
I think.
The woman who plays verity, who was obviously in high.
Lovely Jessica Rain.
Call the midwife.
So magnificent.
Probably good.
She's also Reverend Golightly from the Unicorn and the Wasp's
wife.
Oh, she is.
And in other things as well.
She's actually the only one that I really fought because she's
just too warm and soft. and everything we know about the wonderful
and talented verity and from Janet Jake Porter, who most of us
have met when we were young children, who was best mates of the
and other persons in the business, like, you know, what she did to
the creator of Rock Follies, and then became, um, verity was never
a puff piece.
She was never soft.
So the little moments of stealiness.
No, really, we do know this.
No, I know she's not soft, but there's actually soft, and there's
speaking in it with a soft voice and carrying a big stick kind of
soft.
Yeah, yeah, no, exactly.
No, exactly.
And I think she was more of that kind of mole.
She was very strong.
I won't say hard.
I wish to be respectful, but talking to women, I know.
Well, and we know women who have worked in the industry either on
the sidelines with her or who have friends who developed these
things and verity was not a gentle person.
The reason she succeeded is because of all the reasons that Simon
said.
I don't know if we've ever mentioned this on the podcast, but
doesn't she come to everyone's attention as a production assistant
on a show called Underground, which was going out live, and one of
the main actors died during the, during the broadcast and she
managed to keep it going?
Despite this.
That's right.
Yeah, yeah.
I remember this story.
I'm just looking it up Yeah, that's right.
She's Sidney Newman's assistance over at ITV or whatever.
Yeah, where she'd worked with Jackie Hill. true friendship.
Yeah, an actual genuine real friendship is.
I mean, she was 28 when she got this job.
It's incredible, yeah.
I mean, now, even now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it's pretty impressive to think about the kind of person she
would have had to have been to have made her way in the BBC at
that time. like Patty Russell, another incredible woman who, I
think, was the only female director on staff until Julia Smith
came out.
And it makes you wonder, although verity is clearly whip smart and
forthright.
Was she brittle, and that got her as far as she went, or did she
have to become brittle to make her way in the BBC.
She was already pretty strong.
She was sex from Granada after 6 months for being a mouthy young
woman.
So yeah.
But don't forget, she got 6 0 levels at Rodine, and then went to
the University of Paris.
Wasn't that Rada?
Same difference.
But yeah, no, and her dad was a very successful Jewish accountant
much like our other hero of the podcast, Joan Collins.
I'm joking.
So yeah, she came up with a sense of if you want to take on the
British establishment and the class system, you're going to have
to be extraordinary in every way.
It's another Thatcher principle, isn't it?
And you're going to have to beat them at their own game.
Richard Martin said that he broke his finger once, slamming it
down on the desk telling Verity Lambert to bugger off.
And he said, he said she came right back at me.
That's why I loved her.
That conjures so many pictures.
He was a very interesting man.
He didn't have very nice things to say about David Whitaker either
but you know, at the end of the day, you wonder, is the problem
with everyone else?
We look at Richard's stories as they appear on screen and we look
at everyone else around him and yeah, all's fair, but yeah.
Is there anyone that you feel was underserved by this?
We've mentioned David Whittaker.
But Jackie Hill.
Yeah?
Yeah.
I mean, there's not that much time, but yes, it is, there's a
great tragedy about Jackie Hill, isn't there, where we can never
be sure.
Little fan she knew how powerful her...
Well, I don't know.
I mean, we know a lot of fanboys from the early 90s who would
would pay homage to her and, you know, worship the feat and she
would give them DVD copies of stories that you just couldn't get.
Actually, no one in Sydney.
You've got a listen.
So and she she got it.
But I also think that she was professional enough and hopefully
aware of her own talent enough that she saw it as another job.
But I honestly don't believe the show would be here if it wasn't
for her in it.
No, I also think that the love of Jackie Hills Barbara is
something that's developed over the years, not just because of her
death.
I just think it's something that's appreciated more in the 21st
century than it was in the 20th. yeah At the time.
I'm not saying we didn't like it.
I think it was just all too, it was just too mysterious.
We have to remember, yes, there were illicit copies of these VHS
going around that you could barely see or hear when you watch
them.
But the vast majority of fans did not have access.
And it's only in the very early 90s when things start getting
released on VHS that and BSB Sky Bean all that kind of stuff
start.
Yeah, she died in what, 96?
93?
No 93, it was before the it was before the 30th anniversary.
So it's exactly.
See, it's quite early.
So she's effectively, she's one of those things that's discovered
you know, rather like the fact that the people fighters actually
isn't the worst story ever.
Well, you know, kind of.
But it also tracks fandom in the as gay fandom rose, Jackie Hill's
reputation moves from fantastic to fabulous.
And so that's why she becomes iconic.
Yeah, as we come of age, so does her reputation.
And there is that thing of getting, yeah, certainly young gay men
looking for, and let's not even go into the psych of it, but
looking for a woman who plays a strong person in the John Crawford
mould.
And she's practically unique in that regard in the program.
I also think she's the best one on screen.
She elevates and ties Bill's performance together and knits it
into a workable shape and every scene she's in with him at some of
the best scenes in the 1st series.
Yeah, definitely.
I was going to say that Jackie and William Russell were cast early
because they were effectively the leads and the other characters
developed into stronger roles as it went along or devolved as
Susan did.
Yeah, I mean, that's one of the things too, that is clear that
Bill into a rat infested pit of screaming.
Well, Hartnell's the sort of titular character, but he's not the
main character when it starts.
And so not only is he doing sort of 40 weak years or longer, but
suddenly he's the main character who is saying all the lines, which
is not really what he signs up for.
I mean, we talked about this on an FT many moons ago where if
you're looking at co-leads in Doctor Who, the only time there has
ever been a true co-lead for Doctor Who is William Russell, because
Ian is clearly the lead character along with the doctor.
And as fabulous as Jackie Hill is, and as wonderful as Barbara is
and as key to the action and those early episodes, it goes back to
what we were saying about the stuffiness of the BBC and for want
of a better word patriarchy in this story, in that Jackie Hill
clearly was not as valued by the BBC as William Russell and
William Hartnell.
So when you have the salary negotiations, the edict comes down
from the BBC high-ups, give Bill Hartner what he wants, give
William Russell what he wants, Jackie Hill is disposable if she
won't accept these terms.
And you just think that is so far divorced from the weight of what
they brought to the program.
She was every bit as integral to it.
It's just not the way that things work then.
I don't know whether this is a bit of invented Peter Haning
apocrypha, but the 1st Radio Times cover, which is for Marco Polo
has Mark Eden with heart on it. apparently, according to that
telling of the story, William Russell was livid, that he was not
on the cover of the radio times instead of Mark Eden because he
regarded himself as the leading man of the show.
Yeah, understandable.
Which is probably what was sold to him at the time.
Well, he came in as a leading man.
That's what was salty in his role.
He'd been the lead in Adventures of Lancelot a few years before.
Exactly, yes.
And to fantastic. that recently, actually, yes.
And let's not forget that he was not like cast as like the young
lead because he was almost 40 when he was cast.
So he wasn't like some 25 year old whose 1st job it was and he was
like the young action man.
He was an established actor.
Oh, yes, he'd been in films like the man who, the man who wasn't
there, the one about where they drop a dead body into the
Mediterranean during the Second World War with some invented plans
to try and put the Nazis.
Is that the man that wasn't there or the man?
The man who haunted himself.
I was going to say, but he's in that.
He's actually in that as a young RAF pilot.
Right.
Yeah, his career started really early.
He is the BBC's affordable Roger Moore.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, I mean, the doctor's a character part.
He's not the leading man at all.
He's the crazy old man who gets them into scratch.
Legitimate.
It's a legitimate old man.
Not variety.
But going back to what you were saying, what you were asking about
who gets the raw end of the deal.
Not so much.
We've talked about David Whittaker, but some of the cameos, there
are some cameos missing.
You know, we have Gene Marsh and Anika in the in the farewell
party.
Where's Peter Purpose?
Was he just not available or is he actually somewhere on the
cutting room floor?
I think he might be on the cutting room floor because I have a
memory of them doing one of those flashbulb scenes outside
television centre, which has Peter Purvis in it, in his celestial
20s.
Yes, it is.
Yes, and Dodo with the O red singer.
Yeah, yeah.
Dodo absolutely got the amount of screen time that she deserved.
No, I'm not talking about Peter Purvis.
I'm talking about the real one, the cameos, by the way.
No, no, Peter Perth's not in it.
It might have not been about.
Mark Eden, in that shot, we can see Anna Kerr and the wonderful
Gene Marsh looking exactly like, yeah, expect Sarah Kingdom to
look like, not after being dragged through the time.
Just a few seconds from the end of Dalacast.
I don't know why these women even put up with us.
But there is a much older fella behind them.
It's not Toby Haydoke in a wig because he's at the bar.
But there is, but there is... behind the failing to serve wars.
Yeah, yeah.
And I was trying to think, it's okay, it's not Mark Eaton, because
we know what Mark Eaton looks like.
Do we know who he was?
It is in the list, but it just spins. isn't Mark Eden Donald
Batherstock at the start talking to...
Of course he is.
Yes he is.
Oh, wow.
Oh, I see, yes.
Yes.
Wonderful.
It would have been wonderful if they'd had a radio times cover and
given it to him.
Now, is there a cameo that everybody noticed just after Carol Anne
Ford's cameo?
No.
The little, so...
The camera pans into through the window into the living room and a
little boy is watching the end of the Daleks.
He turns around and it is Connor from Heartstopper.
Oh, wow.
And once you realise it's him, it's so opposite.
It's so obvious.
He turns around and we both went, that's Kit Connell from
Heartstopping.
And we looked it up and yes, it was.
Yeah, it is like this little boy and it's him.
Yeah, Doctor Who turned us all gay.
I think that given the way the story is structured around Hartnall
and his performance and his difficulties in the role, It's
understandable, but a bit of a shame that Maureen O'Brien doesn't
get a bigger deal because, I mean, it is very clear that she was
kind of keeping him going.
And it was, it was her departure, perhaps more than Carol Anne's
departure that had a huge effect on him, I think.
So in some respects, you could argue that that's emerging of
characters.
He's hit hard by her departure by Carol Anne's departure in this
whereas in reality, it's...
It's kind of a series of blues, isn't it?
The 1st real blow is William Russell, Jackie Hill and Verity Land
but all leaving very basically.
Yeah, which is something that Bill might not have recovered from
except for the fact that Maureen O'Brien and Peter Purvis were
actually very good friends with him.
He relied on them and trusted them.
So they kept him going a little bit longer all through that tumult
with John Wiles, the new producer.
Well, Maureen has only got one story with John Wells, doesn't
she?
Yeah, Maureen does.
Well, yeah, I know, but verity is effectively gone by the end of
the chase, effectively.
Oh, really?
Yes.
And so there's a couple more stories, but then it's really the
departure of Maureen and then the departure of Peter Purvis.
And so by the time you hit the war machines, as we see in the
story, Bill is just adrift, he's got no one around him who loves
him or caters to him because obviously Michael Craz and Anika, they
came in.
And, you know, this was someone they didn't know, they hadn't
worked with, they were keen to make their own way.
And so there's just less tolerance of his foibles.
Yeah, I mean, Anika doesn't like Bill.
And she will still say things about him being difficult to work
with.
She's the source of the story where, isn't she where Bill has a
driver and they've, they all go into a pub for lunch or dinner.
And the driver, and the driver's left outside the car and
Anarchist says, oh, he should come in too and he's, and Bill says
no, he's only the driver.
Yeah, yeah.
And, you know, like, it's hard to unpick the truth of that.
Yeah, she obviously had a bad experience of Bill.
It was kind of sweet to see her at the party.
And given that, it's remarkable, in fact, what's remarkable about
the story is that Warris and Verity managed to win Bill Round so
comprehensively.
I think it's also because at the end of the day, he wasn't getting
any other work.
Yeah.
Two, there's that.
That's true, but they obviously made the effort.
They were visionaries and they knew that they could deliver
something and they brought him on board with their vision.
They took the time with him, which is what someone in his position
needed.
Whereas, you know, and there's no fault to be laid here, when
people like Michael and Anika and John Wiles came in, they didn't
take the time clearly to understand him and try to get him on
board with what they were doing.
For Warris and for Verity.
That was their big break effectively.
They had the opportunity to take it further.
They took the opportunity and made something wonderful out of it
whereas the other people were inheriting something.
They weren't making it.
It wasn't a new thing.
They needed Bill Hartnall and they knew why they needed him
whereas I don't think anyone understood that in the later years.
And you know, time had moved on.
The show had moved on.
Maybe it had moved on beyond Bill Hartnell.
We could have had John Wiles as a sort of fantastic pandemic
villain.
Yeah.
Exactly.
You don't needed one scene.
We could have had the scene where he suggested to Bill that they
go out onto the surface of the moon and, you know, the air was
blue within minutes, apparently.
I think it's the right length.
I mean, you could have made it 15 or 20 minutes longer and
included a bit more in O'Brien and included a bit of John Wildes
and it does everything it needs to do.
It turns it more into a docudrama. very long.
And that comes back to the question.
It wasn't made for us.
I know, it was constantly challenging.
Well, yeah, but it wasn't because it's, you know, it's very
expensive.
When they when they sold it.
When they sold it, they didn't they said it wasn't made for us, but
as soon as they started making it.
But isn't that the brilliant tightrope that it walks, is that it
is meant to be a mass entertainment program and it absolutely
tells you the story in a digestible and entertaining way and gives
you any insight into the people who actually made Doctor Who
something special in what it was.
But it also is a love letter to the fans.
And to pull off that balancing act is something incredible.
And that's why people like Wiles and Wizika and O'Brien don't make
it in there because they have to pair it down.
And I think that it actually manages to hit that balance perfectly
well.
But they play to the fans perfectly by all those convention and
interviews.
Yes. anecdotes, which have been learned by rote, you know, no EMs
bug eyed monsters. you know, all that sort of stuff.
They are all utilised to tell the broader audience what it was
about.
Well, Lime Grove, they're complaining about Lime Grove, Studio D, 4
cuts per episode.
Yes, all of that.
Or the fact that all of that stuff manages to make it in there is
extraordinary.
And Mark Gates is having fun with that line about no BM is where
he says no brains in jars because Doctor Who will do that, not
once, but twice.
But what's interesting?
And verity was always, you know, told the anecdote about, you know
Sidney Newman holder into his office about the fact that, what did
I say?
No robots, no bug-eyed monsters and all that sort of stuff and she
gives the same in this.
She gives the same defence of it, you know, they're not bug-eyed
monsters.
A civilisation that's had a nuclear war and they've had to retreat
into these shells and blah, blah, blah, blah.
And it is actually, again, why Doctor Who is so great is because
they're not just monsters.
They're not just robots.
There's another layer of depth to them.
And I think that's what this helps to underline.
And Mark turns that moment into a character beat for verity for
creating verity as a character.
And not just the fact that she stands up to Sydney and, you know
she tells him what's what.
It's when she's leaving.
She turns around to him after she's just been hauled over the
coals and says, by the way, I want to repeat. no one saw it.
And that's a parting shot.
And so you think she's not cowed by this at all.
She also stands up to him about the title sequence as well, which
he thinks is too scary and she says, no, it's brilliant.
And the music.
Yeah, yeah.
Because there are, you know, because they are what was
frightening.
That was what was frightening.
People were scared by the music.
Like when it 1st came out.
It's weird and strange.
It sort of demarcates this weird 25 minutes of TV.
Yes, from what's around it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
My big disappointment, if you're talking about cuts to the floor
all of that analogue tape up and down the corridors, I really
would have liked that extra 12 seconds of Delia Derbyshire
Hodgson.
She is extraordinary and there isn't an electronic musician in the
UK.
Even craft folk knew who she was.
She's really important.
And there was more of, I think, a comparison between her and
verity as, you know, forthright fashionable young women making
their way in the BBC that could have been made.
It's a shame it was left on the cutting room floor.
Making their way or forcing their way.
Yeah.
I want to talk about my favourite scene, which is Verity's
departure, where we go from the surface of the planet Vortis where
they're inexplicably having the party because who cares?
And we go into the TARDIS for her to talk about why she's
leaving.
And there are moments in this where I tear up, obviously
originally when Matt Smith appeared and saluted him, even though
he is so, so terribly green screened in.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But again, he's not really there.
You know, he's not, but anyway, I'll talk about this later.
But it's, I think that that's a companion departure scene and it's
it takes place on the Tartar set.
And so she's telling Doctor Who that she's not going to stay with
him any longer.
And I think it's so beautifully done. she kisses him and goes
doesn't she?
Yeah, it's proper lump in your throat, material.
And it's a decent departure you've seen as opposed to, I just met
someone.
I'm gonna go get married now.
Oh, it would have been brilliant if they push Verity out in our
lock.
They just lock the doors and tell her she has to get on with her
life. get on this trampoline bounce away.
And of course, the other one is Matt's final appearance.
Yeah, that was kind of nice.
I mean, that I mean, I liked it.
It's good, but I don't know whether it was necessary.
No, absolutely necessary.
I absolutely loved it.
I think it is the perfect concluding moment.
It's Bill Hartnall realising that despite the fact that he's been
on this wonderful journey, he's effectively been forced out of the
role, he has set up something which will run and run and this will
be his legacy.
It's the legacy that he never had and he's found it.
And it's also the doctor's chance to go in there and salute him
for making it possible as well.
Yes, it's it's actually not the 11th doctor.
It actually Matt Smith.
Yeah, if I can put it that way.
Okay, I'm thinking it's the doctor, you know, it's like the doctor
has Bill Hartnell to thank for his existence in a way.
And the look on Matt's face.
I mean, Matt never doesn't deliver, but the look is so affecting.
It's such kind of fondness and almost saluting him.
It's beautiful.
The only issue I have with it is it just nails it to the Matt
Smith era as opposed to nailing it to eternity if it was, you have
to have someone there to be the doctor.
Do you not think it's nailing at the end of the nursery?
So that's fine too. to the 50th.
Yeah.
But seeing out of context from the 50th anniversary is just like
why is why this guy?
Yeah, why is somebody else?
Yeah, where's Shooty?
I suppose, yes. exactly.
And I suppose that's why I, that's my only subtle problem with it
is it actually comes down to that fact.
It makes it less timeless.
The fact that it nails it to the 50th.
And in fact, if you're going to nail it to the 50th, you're almost
better at having Peter Capaldi standing there as the future, as...
No, I have to disagree with that.
Well, I think the contrast between William Hartnell is the 1st
doctor and Matt Smith is the youngest ever doctor leading it
forward 50 years later is something useful.
Yep.
It's the only bit of magic. in it.
And I suppose it can afford, we can afford a little bit.
Mark Gatis is a bit literal, I think.
He wouldn't, I think, have written the scene that we imagined at
the beginning where the doctor gets into the Tartar and sort of
disappears at the end.
He just wouldn't do that, but this was enough magic.
Talking about Mark Gatis, again, we sort of mentioned towards the
beginning of this, that this is the best thing he's ever done for
Doctor Who.
And I wonder whether it's partly because, you know, he's writing
this as a fan in the way that you can't really write the actual
program as a fan without making it terrible.
He's writing from what he knows.
He's writing waiters.
But I'm actually wondering also too whether his Doctor Who
episodes are not actually what he really wants to do in the
episodes.
It's kind of a bit of a compromise with the showrunner of the
day.
This is just a natural thing that happens.
And so there's always that conflict, that bit of, it means they
don't quite sit as nicely as this does, which is his baby.
The one thing that I love about it, and this is just a small thing
is the way it does end with the clip from the actual clip of Hart
from Dalek Invasion of Earth, which for any fan of our age, who
was experiencing the 5 doctors for the 1st time.
Yes, tying the 50th into the 20th.
But it does.
It oddly ties the 50th into the original, but also into the 20th
because of that because that for many of us.
I mean, unless you lived in Britain with, you know, the fire faces
repeat.
This is the only bit of Hartnell that we ever saw in our fan youth
was this fragment, which starts the 5 doctors, and it's forever
associated with an anniversary, and it's almost more in the 5
doctors than it is in Dalek Invasion of Earth, if you know what I
mean.
And I think that's a lovely way to finish it off rather than
finding another speech is to just use that speech again.
I mean, let's not kid ourselves than if the massacre part 4
existed, that wouldn't have been the speech that was used.
Yeah, I think that's a magnificent speech and I think it is a
slight shame. that this production sees Bill unable to deliver
that speech, where he really, really nails it.
It's so good. about the massacre.
Arguably.
I thought I thought he is.
I mean, he's not stumbling because that is actually the one of the
inaccuracies.
He doesn't stumble over speech.
Nearly as much, but I think he does stumble over it a bit, doesn't
he?
He says, in the massacre.
He says Madison.
Yes, okay.
But that's consistent with that's consistent.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, new listener, that's all we have time for.
Till now, we'll be vacuuming just a couple of days to see how the
eighth doctor has been getting on in the night of the doctor.
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts
and you can keep up with us at flight through entirety on Facebook
at FTE podcast on Twitter, and on our website
flightthroughentirety.com, where you'll find links to our other
podcasts, Bondfinger, Jody Intetera, maximum power, and untitled
Star Trek project.
Until next time, remember, it all started out as a mild curiosity
in a junkyard, and now it's turned out to be quite a great spirit
of adventure, don't you think?
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Bye bye.
Bye.
Oh, still sobbing.
Bye.
That was Flight through Entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley, Peter
Griffiths, Greg Miller, Simon Moore, and Richard Stone.
Theme arrangements by Cameron Lamb.
These episode on the set of the Reign of Terror was recorded on
the 10th of July 2022 and released on the 20th of November.
Keep an eye on your podcatcher this week as Flight through
Entirety celebrates Doctor Who's 50th and 59th anniversaries with
4 new episodes over the next 7 days.
See you back here on Tuesday.
Do we wanna talk more?
I don't know.
Yeah I don't mind.
We can drop about that.
Yeah, okay, drop it back.
I think David Bradley is...
I think David Bradley absolutely nails it.
As we've discussed earlier about the, you know, that bit from that
interview post-10th planet when he's doing the pantomime or
whatever and the gruffness and the and the and the seriousness
there, he really gets that.
He manages to get an entire performance out of effectively, one
bit of film, footage that exists of heart and all.
My favourite sequences of him is when Sydney's telling him that
the time is up and he's going to be moved on and then the
subsequent sequence with his wife in front of the fire.
I mean, it's just so... don't want to go.
I don't want to go.
Yeah.
It's really beautiful.
Okay, I'm name dropping all over the place in this episode.
That is your function.
But I've worked with David Bradley.
I worked him on with him on the Granada series Reckless, and he is
such, yeah, he was.
He played Robson Green's father.
And he is such a warm and lovely man.
And the fact that he brings that gruffness to Bill Hartnell is a
proper performance.
I mean, he's he's 17 years older than Bill Hartnall in the role
which is quite amazing when you think about it.
Simon, you and I are 5 years younger than William Hartnall when
he's cast in the role.
I mean, you just can't really get your head around that.
And he's also about 5 feet taller than William Martin.
But he does such a great job of capturing the essence, not only of
the doctor, but of the man.
And that's that's a difficult thing to do in a role.
I also find it a very respectful performance.
He's very keen to portray Bill in all of his shades and not to be
disrespectful or to make it into a humourous thing as happened
when next he played the part on TV when he was super sexist and a
bit dim in my view.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, we'll talk eventually about what's going on there.
But it was a, he was a good choice to play the 1st doctor in twice
upon a time.
Yeah, and twice upon a time is lampooning the doctor for better or
for worse, whereas, you know, this doesn't lampoon William Hart.
No, it's possibly a difference in the writer.
Yes, at least of that.
Yeah.
Mark Gatas has a heavy connection to both.
In recent years is he was in another show called The Strain where
he's basically fighting vampires, so I just like to imagine it as
William Hartnell Vampire Hunter.
But he sort of works in, like, he's in Broadchurch and it's in
Broadchurch, rather like Richard Herndell in that like 7 episode.
Knebrocks.
Yeah.
You've got you've got a kind of an audition piece.
You came in too quick with that name.
Yeah, so you don't want to wait for them to bring round the
Mangand.
What were you saying?
think I said it.
What do we think?
I'm good Okay. good discussion Yeah.
It's just beautiful.
Oh, sorry, can I just have one more line?
You can edit this out.
This for me still remains the real 50th anniversary special.
This is the external facing 50th anniversary special.
The five-ish doctors is the internal 50th anniversary, special, and
then they do this other thing as well.
And it's all tied up with when you originally watched it.
So I watched this with a group of fans and to a one, we were misty
eyed at the end of it because this is just, this is our story.
This is the story of the program we love.
It's the story of the program that we grew up with, and we're
watching in real time how it, how it became that thing.
It's quite incredible.
Yeah, that was good.
Yeah, you're upset that I'm saying.
Do you not like Day of the Doctor?
I think day of the doctor is fantastic.
I think it's a bit ordinary.
Do you?
It's a really good idea.
Yeah, yeah.
But this is the 50th anniversary for me.
Yes.