Doctor Who Magazine #606

The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine is out today and boasts lots of exclusive, behind-the-scenes stuff about the recent TV series.

I've written an article featured on the cover, "What If...?" exploring the near misses and never-were of the Fourth Doctor's era. It dovetails with the piece I wrote for the 50 Years of the Fourth Doctor special published in May, and was in part prompted by the panel about alternative history I was on at the Gallifrey convention earlier this year, which led to be revisiting the classic If It Had Happened Otherwise...

The new DWM also has news of something I've been involved in: six boxes of papers belonging to the late David Whitaker - first story editor of and prolific writer for Doctor Who - have been donated by his niece Melanie to the Borthwick Institute for Archives at the University of York. The Borthwick Institute website boasts more details and a catalogue of the David Whitaker archive. I've also written a piece on the papers in this collection relating to Doctor Who for DWM's Print the Legend special, currently in shops.

The Borthwick Institute is a very good fit for these papers because it already holds similar collections, including an archive relating to David's great friend producer Ernest Maxin. I visited the archive while researching my biography of David, as Maxin had kept two of his unproduced screenplays (see Maxin, box 14). I'm grateful to Gary Brannan at the institute for all his help.