Who's Views interview about David Whitaker

Here's a deep dive interview on YouTube with me about how David Whitaker's years of experience working on variety shows and sitcoms informed how he helped develop the format of Doctor Who. JT at Who's Views has a whole load of interviews and other fun stuff coming up through November.

I've also done a long text interview with Will at the Consulting Detective site. And you can buy my book, David Whitaker in an Exciting Adventure with Television.

Doctor Who Magazine #596

The super new issue of Doctor Who and the Star Beast Magazine is out tomorrow and is largely devoted to the imminent new episodes of TV Doctor Who, which is all jolly exciting.

I've a handful of things in the new issue. As well as featuring (for the third time) as one of the beauties on page 3 (see below), there's also a news item about my forthcoming book David Whitaker in an Exciting Adventure with Television and the launch for it to be held at the Portico Library on 9 November.

On pages 38 and 39, there's "Effective Management", my interview with VFX editor Matt Nathan - the latest of a regular series in which I pester members of the crew. On page 48, there's the first of a new regular feature by me, "Stasis Cube", devoted to a frozen instant in time (in old money, a "photograph") which is bigger on the inside. It's inspired by the series of blog posts I did 10 years ago, starting with an arresting image from the first episode of Doctor Who.

Finally, on page 82, there's the latest "Sufficient Data" infographic, illustrated by Roger Langridge and this time devoted to the number of original instalments of comic strip per incarnation of the Doctor published in DWM over the past 44 years. My post on how I worked out the last "Sufficient Data" seemed to go down well, so here's some more faff about this one.

Deputy editor Peter Ware suggested something related to DWM comic strips to tie in with coverage of The Star Beast. After a bit of thinking, I shared a picture of the "tree maps" we'd used as chapter title pages in our infographics book Whographica, with boxes of different sizes corresponding to the relative number of pages each chapter had.

My idea was to lay a framework of boxes-of-relative-size over a single, full-page illustration of all the Doctors, so that each Doctor appeared in their respective box. I had in mind something like the cover to the first Secret Wars - see my attempt to explain this, right - with lots of characters in one image, and perspective making some bigger than others. 

This seemed a big ask of the poor artist, so I also suggested that some of the less well represented Doctors might be in silhouette, or in some cases we could use pre-existing artwork from respective eras, blown up in a Pop Art / Roy Lichtenstein way - a David Gibbons Fourth Doctor, a John Ridgway Seventh Doctor, etc. The decision was made to produce one big bit of artwork crowded with 15 Doctors.

With that basic idea approved, I then had to decide exactly what I was measuring.

Editor Marcus Hearn asked for the focus to be on strips from DWM. That was a relief given the volume of comic strips produced by other people. But even this "simple" data set included complications. For example, the first instalment of Ninth Doctor strip Monstrous Beauty wasn't published in a regular issue of DWM but an accompanying supplement. I thought we should include it because it came as part of the package that came with issue #556, so was part of the whole. Marcus went further and asked me to include associated publications. I dug through boxes of old issues working out what this would comprise, and made a list of original comic strips featured in DWM Special Editions, Yearbooks, Storybooks and the 2006 Annual.

DWM has sometimes reprinted comic strips and it didn't seem fair to include the same strip more than once. I initially suggested that they had to be "new to DWM", which meant including in our count some strips first published in Incredible Hulk Presents (Hunger from the Ends of Time! in DWM #157 and #158) and TV Comic (Flower Power in #307). But that surely meant we also had to include all the strips reprinted in Doctor Who Classic Comics, which would have sizeably skewed the figures. We decided to exclude all reprints.

I initially thought I'd count pages of comic strip per Doctor. This proved something of a headache. The very first issue of DWM, then called Doctor Who Weekly, is a good case in point:

• The first episode of main comic strip The Iron Legion comprises five pages
• The Doctor doesn't appear on the first page, so should we count this as four or five pages?
• Do we count the single-panel comic-strip appearances of the Doctor to introduce back-up strips War of the Worlds and The Return of the Doctor? In deciding this, does it matter that these are "new" pieces of artwork rather than reprinted from the main strip?
• Do we include the inside front and back cover, with its full-colour illustrations in comic-strip format, complete with panel boxes, to which readers were invited to add their transfers, creating their own strips? The Doctor features in artwork on both pages. 
• Do we include the comic-strip illustration accompanying the letter from the Doctor?

Depending on the answers to the above questions, the Fourth Doctor appears in four, five, six, seven, eight, nine or ten pages of comic strip in this single issue. (Plus there's a photograph of him with a comic-strip style speech bubble.)

If we count pages in which the Doctor appears, things are also complicated by some plot lines where what looks like the Doctor turns out not to be - for example, with the "Nick Briggs" incarnation in Wormwood (DWM #262-#265). There are also strips where events depicted are a dream, such as in The Land of Happy Endings (DWM #337).

Comics material in back issues of DWM also included Lee Sullivan's half-page comic strips advertising Big Finish releases, produced in the same style as his work for the regular DWM strip. If we included those, then why not the comic-style illustrations of text stories or  reviews? Given the DWW/DWM regular comic strip can be funny and satirical, was there also a case for including the Quinn and Howett / Nix View / Jamie Lenman / Lew Stringer joke strips? Should I also include pages of comic strip published by DWM/Panini as extra material in collected editions - such as artwork showing the newly regenerated Ninth Doctor featured in the book version of The Flood?

The thing is, there's a useful precedent here. There's a canon of Doctor Who TV episodes, though they can considerably vary in length, and we know which mini-episodes and sketches don't count, however much they might feature the right actors in character tied into the lore. The Five Doctors is an episode and Time Crash isn't. On the same basis as producing infographics on episode numbers, I focused on numbers of instalments of DWM strip.

Even then, I puzzled over how to include Evening's Empire. The first instalment of this was published in DWM #180, then the rest of it failed to appear until published in compendium form some years later. The compendium version used the same artwork from the first instalment but amended some captions and dialogue - so did that make them "original" rather than reprints, meaning they should be counted twice?

Do the collected editions of Evening's Empire and of The Age of Chaos count as one instalment each, or do I count them by the number of episodes/chapters they comprise? Dividing them up was surely counting the format for publication as originally intended rather than how these stories were actually published. 

Since we were including Yearbooks and Storybooks published by DWM/Panini, should I also have included the comic strip from Doctor Who Adventures - but only during the period it was published by Panini?

We haggled over this to come up with a discrete set of data from which we could produce a set of different-sized boxes without requiring too many footnotes, which are always a problem to squeeze in to a single-page infographic. We handed this all to Roger Langridge, and he's made it look amazing.

WHO Corner to Corner | Peter Anghelides & Simon Guerrier

M'colleague Peter Anghelides and I were the guests of the WHO Corner to Corner podcast, hosts Geoff and Paul grilling us on our recent book Doctor Who - The Daily Doctor and everything else we've been up to. It includes stuff on the Blake's 7 range of audio plays that Peter produces (and I've worked on), my forthcoming books Whotopia, David Whitaker in an Exciting Adventure with Television and my deep dive into 1964 Doctor Who story The Edge of Destruction for the Black Archive.

Black Archive #67 The Edge of Destruction

Another new book by me, and the perfect accompaniment to my biography of David Whitaker, this is a deep dive into 1964 Doctor Who story The Edge of Destruction. 

• Buy The Black Archive #67 The Edge of Destruction

While so much of the early history of Doctor Who is documented in great detail, the BBC's Written Archives Centre holds no production file for this odd little two-part serial. Inspired by a trip to the Large Hadron Collider last year (yes, really), I've tried to establish exactly what we know for certain about the making of this story. Was it really written over a weekend? How would it have been different if - as originally planned - these episodes ended Doctor Who for good? And why does the TARDIS have roundels?

Blurbs as follows:

‘Really, there’s no more time for these absurd theories.’

Doctor Who can go anywhere in time and space, and visit any alien planet or historical figure it pleases – that’s rather the point of the show, after all. But in only the third serial, the production team decided to set a story entirely inside the TARDIS, with no other cast than the regulars.

Simon Guerrier has ten theories relating to this most unexpected of early stories, and one about the readers of this Black Archive…

Pages: 108
ISBN: 9781913456450
Author: Simon Guerrier
Publication Date: October 2023

This is my second title for the Black Archive range; in 2017 I also wrote #11 The Evil of The Daleks.

David Whitaker in an Exciting Adventure with Television - preorder now

Hooray! You can now pre-order ny new book David Whitaker in an Exciting Adventure with Television - a 180,000-word biography of the first story editor of Doctor Who, and much more besides. It's published on 6 November. 

There are two exciting editions of the book. You can order the paperback directly from publisher Ten Acre Films and it will be available from all good bookshops.

There's also an a fetching, bright pink hardback exclusively from The Who Shop.  

Both gorgeous covers are by that genius Stuart Manning.

I'll be launching this David Whitaker book at the Portico Library in Manchester on the evening of 9 November. ETA I'll be signing at The Who Ship in London from 1-3 pm on Saturday, 11 November.

Blurb for the book as follows:

To celebrate 60 years of Doctor Who, discover the extraordinary, little-known life of one of its chief architects, David Whitaker. As the show’s first story editor, he helped to establish the compelling blend of adventure, imagination and quirky humour that made – and continues to make – the series a hit. 

David commissioned the first Dalek story, and fought for it to be made when his bosses didn’t like it. Regeneration, the TARDIS being alive, the idea of Doctor Who expanding to become a multimedia phenomenon in comics, books and films… David Whitaker was all over it. Yet very little was known about this key figure in Doctor Who history – until now. Why did he fall out with Irving Berlin? Was he really engaged to Yootha Joyce? And how did an assignment to Moscow badly affect his career? 

Doctor Who Magazine #595

The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine boasts an interview with Bonnie Langford, the actress who played companion Mel in 1986, 1987, 1993 and 2022 - and who will be back on screen in Doctor Who next year. As always, interviewer Benjamin Cook peppers a fun chat with new facts and revealing insight, and it's a joy to eavesdrop.

Accompanying this, there's a feature by Laurel Hart in praise of Mel. Plus there's the regular "Sufficient Data" infographic by me and Ben Morris, this time detailing Mel's myriad screams.

A few people have asked about methodology and what these things actually involve. So...

Much as I wish it had all been my idea, editor Marcus Hearn proposed an infographic based on Mel's screams to tie in with the rest of the issue, and suggested I look at waveforms and decibels. After some time trying to dig into that myself, I called in the technical genius of Nimbos who ran a spectral analysis of Mel's first three screams from the closing moments of Part Nine of The Trial of a Time Lord.

In the graph above, the vertical Y axis shows frequency in Hertz and the colour represents volume in decibels. The first scream, circled on the left, begins at about 3,000 Hz and then drops to about 2,000 Hz - roughly moving from a C note to a B. More or less the same thing happens in the second scream, circled to the right of the first scream and in the centre of the image. A third scream, circled to the right of this, seems to be a partial repeat of the second scream, presumably to extend it and added in the edit.

Below this, also circled on the right of the graph, is the start of the closing theme. At 988 Hz, this is a B, so Bonnie pitched her screams an octave above this, starting at C and then descending to B to segue neatly into the theme music, as per the instruction from director Chris Clough.

In each scream, the volume peaks at about -28 dB, though obviously volume is dependent on the setting of your speakers. But how loud a scream sounds to us can also be affected by context, and note how much other sound - or orange - there is going on at the same time: incidental music, explosions, and yet the screams are distinct.

When we compare screams from episodes, the context can be different - for example, without incidental music or explosions. That means a scream might sound very different, and yet turns out to be at a similar pitch and volume. Other factors that might affect what we're measuring include how sound was originally recorded, how that's been adjusted for the Blu-ray releases we worked from, and how the sound may be compressed or otherwise affected in undertaking this kind of analysis.

Accepting the potential margins of error, we at least had a starting point for comparison with other episodes. This, for example, is the spectrum for Mel's screams while trapped in the Rani's bubble trap in Part Two of Time and the Rani:

It comprises more but shorter screams, and the context of music and sound effects is different, so this graph is very different from the last one. Yet the screams (outlined in the green box) are all at about 2,200 Hz, and many feature the same kind of pitch shift from C to B as we saw before. The context is different in these two episodes but Mel's screams are very similar.

In fact, across her tenure in Doctor Who, Mel's screams are impressively consistent. Unfortunately for me, that means the data is not sufficiently varied to make for an interesting infographic.

While Nimbos worked diligently on this spectral analysis, I watched every one of Mel's episodes, skipping forward to the scenes in which she appeared to note the time and duration of all screams. This raised some issues over the precise criteria for defining a scream. Screams often occur right at the end of an episode and so are included in the recap at the start of the next episode - should those be counted once or twice? There are occasions when Mel cries out warnings or shouts things like "Nooo!" - but do those count as screams? There are also instances when, because of music, sound effects or other activity on screen, I couldn't be certain if Mel was screaming or not. I could identify the start and end of some screams to the accuracy of a tenth of a second but others are clouded by surrounding noise and I needed a consistent approach - ultimately deciding to round up each scream to the nearest full second.

These factors then had to be relayed in the infographic, in as few words as possible.

Having gone through the episodes twice to ensure the data was right, I then had to come up with a way to present the result visually in an engaging way, led by a new and striking illustration. It's difficult to do this until you have the data in front of you and a sense of its scale, range, peaks and troughs. 

I usually sketch some rough ideas before settling on something to include with my written-up brief for the illustrator, so that queries or objections can be raised before it gets laid out. Sometimes this takes a while - and the solution then springs to mind as I'm doing the washing up. But the way to convey this particular data set presented itself during my watch-through and I mocked up the following:

As Ben Morris worked on that, it became evident that showing both time of screams and duration made things too cluttered. That meant further revising the data set to trim down the text presented. Then assistant editor Peter Ware had to point out, with heroic tact, that I'd cut one small bit we needed. Eek!

The result seems to have gone down well. If you like this sort of thing, there's a new "Sufficient Data" infographic every four weeks in DWM. You can still buy Whographica, a book of Doctor Who infographics, by me, Steve O'Brien and Ben Morris. Steve and I also wrote a book of infographics about Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Oh, and you might like to read my own interview with Bonnie Langford for DWM in 2014.

Technology news for Infotec

 

Since April, I've been working as a journalist for technology news site Infotec.news, focused on the public sector and local government. Here are some interviews I've conducted recently:

HUG by LAUGH — the science of teddy bears for people living with dementia
A simple idea to help people living with dementia is backed by sophisticated research and technology. We spoke to managing director Dr Jac Fennell and research director Professor Cathy Treadaway at HUG by LAUGH about compassionate design and the health benefits of a good hug…

Niall Adams from cemetery and crematorium software company PlotBox
PlotBox software streamlines cemetery and crematorium management so that bereavement services can devote more time to the families who need it most. Solutions Consultant Niall Adams explains how technology can take some of the pain out of death.

Jo Lovell Director of Inclusive Communities at Cwmpas on tackling digital exclusion in Wales
It’s estimated that 180,000 people aged 16 and over in Wales, some 7% of the country, are digitally excluded. Jo Lovell at Cwmpas tells Infotec how that’s being addressed…

Rachel Van Riel and Ask For A Book
Libraries across the UK are currently piloting a new service where readers get personal book recommendations. Some ingenious, user-focused tech makes this practical for time-limited library staff. But it also depends on expert human curation, drawing on decades of experience in how people choose what to read.

AR app ‘Dorothy’ helps people living with dementia
Dr Samir Shah and Ben Williams are from the team behind the innovative, intuitive ‘Dorothy’ app that is already transforming lives, enabling those living with dementia to be more independent and supporting those who care for them.

Chris Mewse from Parish Online
Almost 3,000 town, parish and community councils now subscribe to Parish Online’s mapping technology service. It’s one of a number of initiatives from Basingstoke-based company Geoxphere. I spoke to managing director and co-owner Chris Mewse about how spatial mapping saves local councils time and money. 

Finish Big interview

Last week, I was grilled by Mark and Joe from Finish Big about a whole bunch of audio plays I've worked on for production company Big Finish - the adventures of Bernice Summerfield, the sci-fi series I created Graceless and my work on the Doctor Who Companion Chronicles. 

Now you can watch a confused old man trying to remember things and articulate some kind of cogent thought.

David Whitaker book launch - 9 November

Hooray! We'll be launching my new book David Whitaker in an Exciting Adventure with Television at the Portico Library in Manchester on the evening of 9 November 2023.

• Book tickets from Eventbrite for the launch of David Whitaker in an Exciting Adventure with Television

Full blurb as follows:

To celebrate 60 years of Doctor Who, discover the extraordinary, little-known life of one of its chief architects: David Whitaker. As the show’s first story editor, he helped to establish the compelling blend of adventure, imagination and quirky humour that made — and continues to make — Doctor Who a hit. David commissioned the first Dalek story, and fought for it to be made when his bosses didn’t like it. Regeneration, the TARDIS being alive, the idea of Doctor Who expanding to become a multimedia phenomenon in comics, books and films… David Whitaker was all over it. 

Yet very little was known about this key figure in Doctor Who history — until now. Why did he fall out with Irving Berlin? Was he really engaged to Yootha Joyce? And how did an assignment to Moscow badly affect his career? Simon Guerrier, author of a new biography of David Whitaker, will be interviewed by Carol Ann Whitehead.  Books will be on sale.

Biographies:

Simon Guerrier has written countless Doctor Who books, comics and audio plays. He’s also the author of Sherlock Holmes — The Great War and had produced a number of documentaries for BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4. 

Carol Ann Whitehead is a trustee of the Portico Library, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts; Deputy Chair of the Chartered Management Institute Women’s Board; and a Chartered Companion. She heads the Zebra Partnership, a boutique publishing, events and campaigns agency. 

Ten Acre Films publishes a range of high-quality books on the history of TV, including, most recently, Biddy Baxter: The Woman Who Made Blue Peter and Pull to Open – 1962-1963: The Inside Story of How the BBC Created and Launched Doctor Who.

Doctor Who Magazine #594

The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine is the last under the editorship of Marcus Hearn, who has been so supportive of my efforts over the years. In fact, his (and others') work in the 1990s uncovering the early days of Doctor Who was a big influence on lots of what I do now, and Marcus has been really supportive of my various deep dives into obscure and leftfield bits of history. He commissioned a piece I pitched about Solzhenitsyn and The Ambassadors of Death, and another on the significance of The Face of Evil being the only Doctor Who story to mention 'eugenics' in dialogue (at least it was when I wrote the feature).

This new issue features the latest instalments of two regular features devised by Marcus and written by me. In All Decs on Hand (my best headline in an age), I interview assistant set decorate Verity Scott and set decorator's assistant Lois Drage. In Sufficient Data, Roger Langridge illustrates my take on the last of the reader's poll winners - this time, the winning stories of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Doctors respectively.

These features will continue under the new editor and we've also been discussing some new things. More of that to come...

By coincidence, I got home to find this new DWM waiting for me after a long drive, in which me and the children were entertained by David Tennant's reading of How to Train Your Dragon (2003) by Cressida Cowell, which was different enough from the films to keep my guessing and is full of fun twists and adventure. It's also fun to hear Tennant's skills as a storytelling with multiple characters and accents, and I quietly thrilled to him referring several times to the 'The Green Death'. But what really struck me - and Lady Vader - is the absence of female characters. A book about young Vikings from another age.

Doctor Who Magazine #593

The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine boasts three new things from me.

First, in 'Snakes Alive!' (pp. 22- 25), I spoke to writer-director Pete McTighe and actors Janet Fielding and Sarah Sutton about making The Passenger, the mini-episode of Doctor Who released on YouTube just last week to promote the forthcoming Blu-ray set of the 1983 series.

Then, in 'Texting at Work' (pp. 38-39), I spoke to Sophie Cowdrey and Aled Griffiths, graphics assistants on the forthcoming new series of Doctor Who. (I previously spoke to Sophie for DWM's 2020 Yearbook and worked with her on The Women Who Lived in 2018.)

Finally, 'Sufficient Data' (p. 82) is another infographic by Roger Langridge and me, this time devoted to what readers voted as the best of the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors' best stories.

There's also a plug for Whotopia: The Ultimate Guide to the Whoniverse, the great big volume published by BBC Books in November, written by Jonathan Morris with assistance from Una McCormack and me. It's one of five books I've got out later this year, which is why I'm a bit quiet on this blog at the moment.

But I'm speaking as part of the 60 Years of Doctor Who extravaganza at this weekend's Blue Dot festival this Sunday. Eep. 

Box Tunnel Survivors' Group #20

I've been interviewed about my 2010 Being Human novel The Road by Michael from the Box Tunnel Survivors' Group podcast. 

• Box Tunnel Survivors Group on Podbean
• Box Tunnel Survivors Group on Spotify
• Box Tunnel Survivors Group on Amazon Music

That book was the result of me posting here in January 2009 after seeing a preview of the first full episode of Being Human at a BFI screening, and being fascinated by the changes made to the format since the broadcast pilot. The link I tweeted to this post was spotted by Steve Tribe at BBC Books just as plans were afoot to do novels. I didn't know any of that until two months later when Steve got in touch.

On 5 May 2009, we met with series creator Toby Whithouse and producer Rob Pursey, who gave us lots of helpful guidance, including the thing they thought worked really well for Being Human. Each episode, they said, should focus on a new character who comes into the orbit of the housemates. That became the hook for the ideas me, James Goss and Mark Michalowski pitched over the next few weeks.

Then, on 19 August, James and I were in Bristol for a set visit, and lurked in one corner of the hospital ward while Mitchell (Aiden Turner) presented Lucy (Lindsay Marshall) with a fish. Wr got to poke around the housemates' house (both the real location in Totterdown and the interior sets inside a huge warehouse). That trip was ably managed by Derek Ritchie, who went on to be a producer on Doctor Who. 

How exciting it was, working with James and Mark on those novels, threading plot elements between us, kept in line by Steve Tribe and editorial colossus Nicholas Payne.

I'd forgotten until Michael reminded me on the podcast that I went to the preview screening for the first episode of season 2 of Being Human, at the Curzon cinema in Mayfair. That was a wild night, the place packed with excited fans. A couple of weeks later Steve Tribe was back in touch about the possibility of new Being Human audio books. It never happened, sadly, but I found the three ideas I sent in, one for each of the regular cast:

• Mitchell: Higher Powers — an old friend of Mitchell’s turns up and thinks his friends a bad influence
• George: The Cure — George helps a couple of elderly Russian immigrants, one of whom has been attacked by a werewolf. It turns out they are monster hunters.
• Annie: Guardian Angel — Annie tries to help a ‘friend’ who always made life difficult when Annie was alive.

Doctor Who Magazine #592

The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine is out today. In "Quick Draw", I spoke to storyboard artist John Erasmus about his working relationship with director Mark Tonderai. John produced storyboards for the Doctor Who episodes directed by Mark - The Ghost Monument and Rosa in 2018, and the forthcoming festive episode.

In just 800 words, there wasn't space to include all the fun stuff John has worked on, though we did talk about Wednesday and Foundation (which I love), and the Amazonas Comics project John set up with Yousaf Ali Khan to connect communities in the Amazon rainforest with to schools in the UK.

The new DWM also features another "Sufficient Data" infographic. With my long-time collaborator Ben Morris taking some take away, this one has been illustrated by Roger Langridge - the first time we've worked together, though I've admired his stuff for years.

Pieces of Eighth - Letting Go

In February, Kenny Smith interviewed me about my Doctor Who short story 'Letting Go', and you can now listen to that chat on the latest episode of the Pieces of Eighth podcast.

• Doctor Who - Pieces of Eighth: 'Letting Go' on Spotify
• Doctor Who - Pieces of Eighth: 'Letting Go' on Apple podcasts

'Letting Go' written by Simon Guerrier and read by India Fisher, is included on Doctor Who: Short Trips Volume 02, released in February 2011.

Blurb: "Charley learns a lot about the Doctor when she visits the family of a dead hero."

See also:

• Short Trips recollections - on the Doctor Who short stories I wrote
• Some notes on writing Doctor Who short stories

The Daily Doctor

Details have been announced for the book I've written with Peter Anghelides, Doctor Who: The Daily Doctor, to be published in August. Blurb as follows:

The Daily Doctor is a page-a-day guide to living your best Time Lord life. As days turn to weeks turn to months, stay serene with your daily dose of the inspirational plans, pronouncements and principles that bring order this crazy and chaotic universe.

From what it means to be human, when it's best to run and the best approach to filling your pockets, this book contains nothing less than the tao of Doctor Who - 365¼ hot tips on life and how to live it!

Publisher: Ebury Publishing 

ISBN: 9781785947988 

Number of pages: 464 

Weight: 500 g 

Dimensions: 222 x 138 x 40 mm

Whotopia

BBC Books has announced Whotopia - The Ultimate Guide to the Whoniverse will be published on 16 November. It's written by Jonathan Morris with assistance from Una McCormack and me.

Blurb as follows:

Published to coincide with three feature-length anniversary specials, the ultimate official celebration of 60 years of Doctor Who, featuring heroes, monsters, spaceships, planets and more... all as you've never seen before. Welcome to the Whoniverse. First stop- everywhere. 

Six decades may only be a handful of heartbeats to a Time Lord, but for Doctor Who it's the adventure of several lifetimes. Evolving over 60 years, the world's longest-running sci-fi TV show has gifted us a universe of menacing monsters and unforgettable heroes. You might even call it a 'Whotopia'. 

Now you can roam free through the Doctor's dimension as never before in this special commemorative book for Doctor Who's diamond anniversary. Join all the Doctors as each tells their own story. Learn about their legions of legendary allies - and hear from the monsters' own mouths about what makes them tick. Find danger on alien worlds and threats here on Earth in all eras. And explore the gadgets, robots, spaceships, computers and mind-blowing creations that crowd the never-ending corridors of Whotopia. 

Crammed with exciting new images and in full colour throughout, Whotopia- The Ultimate Guide to the Whoniverse is the essential celebration of 60 years of Doctor Who.

Publisher: Ebury Publishing 

ISBN: 9781785948299 

Number of pages: 324 

Weight: 750 g 

Dimensions: 293 x 219 x 40 mm

Doctor Who Magazine #591

I've a couple of things in the new issue of Doctor Who Magazine out today.

In "Location, Location, Location", assistant location manager Alex Moore tells me all about his job on the new series - which isn't all bins and car parks.

(I've been chatting to Alex anyway as his excellent article on the late director Frank Cox, published in the new issue of TARDIS (vol 7 no 5), has been very useful for my forthcoming book on The Edge of Destruction.)

I've also written the "Sufficient Data" infographic illustrated by Ben Morris looking at the winners of the readers' poll into best Fifth and Sixth Doctor stories.

And the back cover is a big ad for Daleks! Genesis of Terror which is out today. Rob Ritchie has produced the most amazing video trailer.

Daleks! Genesis of Terror

The terrific trailer for Daleks! Genesis of Terror is out now.

• Listen to the trailer for Daleks! Genesis of Terror
• Download the trailer for Daleks! Genesis of Terror

The new CD and download release is something very special - though I suppose I would say that, as producer. It features Tom Baker and a full cast performing Terry Nation's original draft of the first episode of Genesis of the Daleks, once voted the best Doctor Who story of all time by readers of Doctor Who Magazine.

I've found it fascinating to work on and hope you'll enjoy it when it's out later this month.

• Buy Daleks! Genesis of Terror from Big Finish

Blurb as follows...

In a paved garden outside time, the Doctor is presented with an awful prophecy: the conquest of all time by the Daleks. To prevent this terrible fate, the Time Lords have decided on a radical course — to weaponise time themselves, and destroy the Daleks before they were ever created. And they want the Doctor to carry out this extraordinary task!

Soon, he and his companions Sarah and Harry are on the battle-ravaged planet Skaro, where a war has been raging for centuries. The war is now waged by teenagers using the last surviving weapons. Everything is desperate. But the Kaled’s chief scientist has a new weapon that he thinks might just change everything…

Disc 1:

Full cast version of Terry Nation's first draft of episode one of Genesis of the Daleks, with Nicholas Briggs providing the stage directions, plus readings by individual cast members of the storylines for the other episodes.

Disc 2:

BBC broadcaster and journalist Samira Ahmed interviews Philip Hinchcliffe.

Cast:

• Tom Baker (The Doctor)
• Sadie Miller (Sarah Jane Smith)
• Christopher Naylor (Harry Sullivan)
• Peter Bankolé (Time Lord / General Grainer)
• Samuel Clemens (Nyder)
• Alasdair Hankinson (Ravon / Kaled Leader)
• Terry Molloy (Davros)
• James Phoon (Kaled Boy / Operator)

Crew:

• Narrated by Nicholas Briggs
• Featured Guests: Philip Hinchcliffe and Samira Ahmed
• Senior Producer: John Ainsworth
• Additional dialogue by Simon Guerrier
• Theme arranged by David Darlington
• Cover Art by Ryan Aplin
• Director: Samuel Clemens
• Executive Producers Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs
• Music by Nicholas Briggs
• Producer: Simon Guerrier
• Sound Design by Jaspreet Singh
• Written by Terry Nation

Doctor Who Magazine #590

The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine features my interview with Devante Fleming, one of the floor runners currently working on Doctor Who. There's also an infographic by me and illustrated by Ben Morris showing the winners of the reader poll for best Third and Fourth Doctor stories.

Stuart Manning has also written a feature on the first and very different draft script of fan-favourite The Ark in Space, which is being released on audio in June - produced by me. It includes an interview with Jonathan Morris, who adapted the script to work in your ears.

Robert Brown has also interviewed former BBC publicist Jacqui Stonebridge about the early days of Doctor Who - a nice surprise for me as I've seen Jacqui's name on lots of old paperwork recently. And I'm dead envious of my mate Mark Wright getting to interview Dave Gibbons.

David Whitaker at 95

David Whitaker
in Australia, early 1970s

On 18 April 1928, 95 years ago today, David Arthur Whitaker was born in Knebworth.

In 1963, David became the first story editor of the new science-fiction series Doctor Who, and oversaw of 53 consecutive episodes. 

(Two of those weren't broadcast: the unbroadcast pilot was rewritten and re-rerecorded as the broadcast An Unearthly Child, and the two episodes Crisis and The Urge to Live were, after they'd been recorded, edited down into a single episode. I'm not counting the re-recording of The Dead Planet in this total because, so far as we know, the production team worked from the same script so it didn't need David's attention.)

(Also, David didn't receive credit on The Edge of Destruction or The Brink of Disaster because he was the credited writer on those. There's no story editor credited on The Powerful Enemy or Desperate Measures, either, and he may well have written these while still employed as story editor. But paperwork suggested his editorial duties concluded with the episode before that, Flashpoint, so that's where I'm stopping this count. Phew.)

David is also the credited writer on 40 episodes of Doctor Who - more than anyone else in the 1960s, the fourth most prolific TV writer of old-skool Doctor Who (after Robert Holmes on 64, Terry Nation on 56 and Malcolm Hulke on 45 if we count his co-written episodes as 0.5).

Of the 97 missing episodes of Doctor Who, David Whitaker was the credited writer on 18. (John Lucarotti was credited on 11, some co-written, Brian Hayles on 9, Ian Stuart Black on 8.)

David also wrote two of the first three Doctor Who novelisations, co-wrote two of the first three Dalek annuals, co-wrote the first Doctor Who related stage play, polished one of the two Dr. Who movies and probably wrote the bulk of the long running Daleks comic strip.

It's the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who this year, so where was David Whitaker on this day in 1963, his 35th birthday? Well, he was in (or just about to go to) New York in an effort to sell a musical he'd written, Model Girl, with composer George Posford.

Excerpt of letter from David Whitaker
to June Barry, 30 April 1963

Going round the various showbiz houses to schlep his play, he was introduced as, "David Whitaker who drinks sherry."

He returned to the UK around 14 May, presenting his fiancee June Barry with an antique phone, a gift for the flat they were in the process of agreeing to rent after their forthcoming wedding on 8 June.

June Barry in the
Daily Mirror, 3 August 1963

Yes, that's the same top (and same flat) as seen in a 1965 photo shoot of June and David conducted for TV World - the Birmingham-region version of TV Times.

David Whitaker and June Barry
at home, c. May 1965

Daily Mirror, 3 July 1963

(Doreen Spooner, the Daily Mirror's 'camera girl', who took the photo of June with the phone, had the previous month made front-page news with this extraordinary scoop, sneakily shot from the door of a pub toilet.)

David died in 1980 aged just 51. He was still working on Doctor Who. This form recently came to light, proof (at last!) that he'd been working on a novelisation of his 1967 TV serial The Evil of the Daleks.

I wrote a book about The Evil of the Daleks. Later this year, I've got a book out about another of David's Doctor Who stories, The Edge of Destruction.

You can learn more about David Whitaker in the documentary I worked on with splendid Chris Chapman and Toby Hadoke, on the Season 2 box-set released last year.

And I'm currently writing a ginormous biography, David Whitaker in an Exciting Adventure with Television, to be published by Ten Acre Films later this year. I'll end with this lovely note from David to a young Doctor Who fan in 1964...

Letter from David Whitaker
to Doctor Who fan Ian