For this, I spoke to actors William Roache and Anne Cunningham, who appeared in the dry-run of Episode 1 before going on to star in the series, as well as John Tomlinson from Corripedia, former Corrie archivist Daran Little who wrote The Road to Coronation Street (2010), Katherine Balmer from Shutterstock which posted the images and fan Lewis Pringle who spotted their significance.
There were two things I didn't have space to get into in the article. First, Shutterstock captioned these images "telesnaps". But "tele-snaps", with a hyphen, were the brand name of the service offered by John Cura, who took photographs of TV programmes as they aired to provide cast and crew with a permanent record of productions otherwise lost to the ether. These images of the dry-run were produced in-house by Granada Television, not by Cura, so they're technically not tele-snaps.
Normally, us historians of TV refer to images of this sort not by Cura are referred to as off-air images. But these dry-runs weren't broadcast so the images aren't "off-air", but taken from internal monitors in the Granada building. So: what should we call them? Daran Little called them "screen grabs", which I've not been able to better as yet.
Secondly, the first image in the sequence is a title card saying "Coronation Street" in what appears to be the TV set. That suggests that the dry run was missing the iconic opening shots of real-life Archie Street in Salford, which John Tomlinson thinks was filmed later. He says the dry run probably lacked the famous theme music, too, quoting an interview with composer Eric Spear: "They’d left the music to the last minute," Eric Spear said in 1965. To inspire him, the director took Spear to Archie Street, in the rain. "Suddenly the sun broke through the clouds and the director said, 'That's the music I want'." [Source]
Presumably, in response to the dry run, the producers felt that a filmed sequence was needed to help convince viewers that this was a real street and not just a TV studio, with the music setting the bitter-sweet tone. That helped make the programme more convincing and compelling as soon as it started.
It’s being published by Level Best Books to raise money for autism charities in the US and UK. What The World Needs Now will be published on 30 June in the US and 7 July in the UK, and is available to preorder on Kindle at Amazon:
I’ll share the title of my story and more details in due course. Blurb for the book as follows:
What the World Needs Now is a book of brand new mystery short stories written by leading crime writers from around the world, inspired by the music of Burt Bacharach, to raise funds for autism charities in the US and UK.
Burt Bacharach is popular music’s closest equivalent to Agatha Christie, a hugely successful and innovative composer whose work is loved by millions across the world and continues to influence countless songwriters to this day.
Edgar and Diamond Dagger award-winning author Martin Edwards has put together a collection of hugely entertaining new mystery stories, each taking a title (and often much more than that) from a Bacharach song as the starting point. The result is a fascinating anthology that will appeal to mystery lovers everywhere.
Charles Todd, Mark Billingham, Ragnar Jonasson, and Abir Mukherjee are among the bestselling contributors to a book that is not only unique but dedicated to a truly worthwhile cause.
All proceeds from What The World Needs Now will be donated by the publishers to autism charities in the US and UK.
Martin posted last month that other writers include Sarah Hilary, Rhian Waller and me.
It’s been a delight to get to know Martin — and go for lunches — as I’m a big fan of his work. I’ve previously posted about his epic The Life of Crime and he is consultant on the British Library Crime Classics, including the following ones I have wittered about:
I've also contributed the first of a new series, "Who Connections" (pp. 30-33), this initial one inspired by a the chance discovery of an extraordinary connection between Stooky Bill - the puppet seen in The Giggle (2023) - and a character from a Doctor Who story more than 40 years before. There is also mention of Star Trek and EastEnders.
In December, I wrote a piece for the Telegraph on episode 7 of the same story on its 60th anniversary. An age ago, when the last discoveries of lost Doctor Who were made, I wrote a blog post about why finding missing episodes is such a thing.
See the Film is Fabulous website for more details about the new discovery, and to donate to their valiant work. They have also posted an interview with Peter Purves about the find. It is rather moving to see Peter's delight.
I also enjoyed the special episode of the Doctor Who Missing Episodes Podcast about these finds. You might also like the special episodes from Dalek 63•88, one on The Nightmare Returns and one on Devil's Planet.
Oh, and these newly discovered episodes include the first appearance of Bret Vyon as played by Nicholas Courtney. Later this year, thanks to Big Finish, Bret Vyon lives.
The beautiful cover artwork by Emma Howitt illustrates another of the stories in this issue: Van Nolan’s novelette “County Colours”. It’s a packed issue, comprising 70,000 words of stories, articles and reviews. Bargain!
You can subscribe to Interzone via Patreon or buy issue #304 of Interzone for €5.00.
I am thrilled to make it into these august pages at long last, having first submitted a story to Interzone in 1998, and to be among such distinguished company. Thanks so much to editor Gareth Jelley.
My story involves Harry Sullivan (Christopher Naylor) and Eleanor Crooks (Naomi Cross) meeting the Second Doctor (Michael Troughton) just in time to take arms against a troublesome sea.
It was lovely to return to the Companion Chronicles range, having written a whole bunch of them back in the day, and to be reunited - though I didn't know until I downloaded the story just now - with sound designer Richard Fox, who has always performed such wonders. As I say in the interview at the end, what a thrill to be support act to the brilliant Barbara Hambly.
The striking cover art, above, is by Oliver Chenery.
Frontios Row Seat (pp. 48-49)
Today, Jenny Colgan is a best-selling author - but as a child, she won a competition to see Doctor Who being made.
Windy City Showdown (pp. 98-101)
In November 1984, writer Terrance Dicks and producer John Nathan-Turner has a "blazing row" at a Doctor Who convention in Chicago. Why had their relationship soured?
For the latter, I spoke to Stephen Dicks, Gary Russell, Steven Warren Hill, Emma Abraham, John Lavalie, Kathryn Sullivan, Rob Warnock and Richard Marson. The feature boasts some amazing images from the convention taken by Mary Loye.
We also cover my non-fiction work including Bernice Summerfield - The Inside Story, and biographies David Whitaker in an Exciting Adventure with Television and the forthcoming Written by Terrance Dicks.
pp. 12-15 "I name you, Sea Devils"
Palaeontologist Dr Dave Hone, who was scientific advisor on The War Between the Land and the Sea, tells me how he came up with Latin names for three distinct classes of Sea-Silurian.
(I previously interviewed Dave about what he thought of Invasion of the Dinosaurs for The Essential Doctor Who: Invasions of Earth (2016).)
pp. 32-37 "Doctor Where [2025]"
Exactly where and when do the Doctor's adventures take place? I look for clues we can use to set the TARDIS co-ordinates...
Other guides to writing, such as Screenplay by Syd Field, approach this kind of thing like we’re building a house. You work out the frame of your story, put up the scaffolding and then fill in the gaps.
The danger of that, I think, is that it often becomes a kind of prescribed blueprint, the way screenplays must be constructed. You end up with vast estates of near-identical houses, all achingly by-the-numbers. Sometimes, I watch the first few minutes of a movie, or even the trailer, and know exactly how the thing will play out.
Le Guin is on to this:
“Plot is so much discussed in literature and writing courses, and action is so highly valued, that I want to put in a counterweight opinion. A story that has nothing but action and plot is a pretty poor affair; and some great stories have neither. To my mind, plot is merely one way of telling a story, by connecting the happenings tightly, usually through causal chains. Plot is a marvellous device.
But it’s not superior to story, and not even necessary to it. As for action, indeed a story must move, something must happen: but the action can be nothing more than a letter sent that doesn’t arrive, a thought unspoken, the passage of a summer day. Unceasing violent action is usually a sign that in fact no story is being told.” (p. 83)
She comes at things from the opposite direction. Rather than start with the structure then fill in the gaps, her focus is on what you put in each sentence. Start with ensuring you have the right tools and know how to use them. To switch analogies, the effect of the book is like sharpening one’s knives before starting to cook.
The chapters cover the sound of your writing spoken aloud, punctuation and grammar, sentence length, the use of repetition, adjectives and adverbs, using verbs to express person and tense, point of view, indirect narration and what she calls “crowding and leaping” — when to provide lots of detail and where to skip through it.
Each chapter contains examples, either from works of classic (ie out-of-copyright) literature or stuff specially written by le Guin. This stuff is illuminating and fun.
For example, le Guin quotes the opening paragraphs of the first three chapters of Bleak House by Charles Dickens (1852). The first two are in what she calls the “involved authorial voice” — she objects to the term “omniscient” narrator as judgmental (p. 57) — and then it switches to first person, past tense, from the POV of Esther Summerson. Le Guin comments afterwards:
“Bleak House is a powerful novel, and some of its dramatic power may come from this highly artificial alternation and contrast of voices. But the transition from Dickens to Esther is always a jolt. And the twenty-year-old girl sometimes begins to sound awfully like the middle-aged novelist, which is implausible (though rather a relief, because Esther is given to tiresome fits of self-depreciation, and Dickens isn’t). Dickens was well aware of the dangers of his narrative strategy; the narrating author never overlaps with the observer-narrator, never enters Esther’s mind, never even sees her. The two narratives remain separate. The plot unites them but they never touch. It is an odd device.” (p. 75)
This stuff about different kinds of narrator has been really useful in clarifying my thoughts about what Terrance Dicks was doing as he novelised Doctor Who stories. Le Guin details several different kinds of narrator, with the same scene related in each different mode so we can see the effect. She differentiates between first person, limited third person (ie in the head of one character), involved author, detached author, and observer-narrator (both first and third person).
For example:
“Detached Author (‘Fly on the Wall’, ‘Camera Eye’, Objective Narrator’)
There is no viewpoint character. The narrator is not one of the characters and can say of the characters only what a totally neutral observer (an intelligent fly on the wall) might infer of them from behaviour and speech. The author never enters a character’s mind. People and places may be exactly described, but values and judgements can only be implied indirectly. A popular voice around 1900 and in ‘minimalist’ and ‘brand-name’ fiction, it is the least overtly, most covertly manipulative of the points of view.” (pp. 58-59).
I can see why this mode would suit “brand-name” fiction. If you’re writing a novelisation of a TV show or film, the source takes that point of view anyway — because the viewer is effectively the fly on the wall, and all pertinent information must be relayed by what we see or characters say. Even if you write an original Doctor Who novel — or Star Trek or Star Wars — you’re still often in that mode. Make it read like something we’re watching, and it will feel more authentic.
If you want a novel to feel more novelistic, you do something else. In the very first Doctor Who novelisation, Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks (1964), writer David Whitaker used first person, relaying events originally seen on screen through the perspective of one of the lead characters. On screen, a lot of the mood is created by visual design, effects and music. On the page, the tone is set by a narrator sharing his feelings.
In 1990, when editor Peter Darvill Evans established a range of original Doctor Who novels aimed at adult readers, he wanted “stories too broad and deep for the small screen” — a claim printed on the backs of the books. One way he achieved this richness was to insist that books were written from multiple points of view, strictly marshalled.
As per the guidelines sent out to prospective authors, each distinct section of a chapter was to be told in limited third person, the events as seen and understood by one character. If the writer wanted to change perspective, they needed to start a new section. They were also not to relay information from the perspective of the Doctor, so that he’d remain alien and mysterious.
I’ve seen some correspondence from editor Peter Darvill-Evans to Terrance Dicks, insisting on this approach for the novel that became Timewyrm: Exodus (1991). After 64 novelisations of TV Doctor Who stories, Terrance had developed a very different method for writing Doctor Who — but not as detached author.
He’ll tell us, for example, that the Doctor brooding at the start of Doctor Who and the Pyramids of Mars (1976) is not his usual, cheery disposition. That’s not the Doctor’s point of view, or that of companion Sarah; it is Terrance as author. He tells us where Sarah picked up her knowledge of ancient Egypt, or what the letters in TARDIS stand for. He’s an involved author, putting out sign-posts to guide the reader.
Within the same section, Terrance might change POV or jump in space and time, but it’s never confusing — we know exactly where we are. Le Guin gives an example of another writer doing the same thing. In To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (1927), we move back and forth between the perspectives of Mrs Ramsay and her husband. Le Guins provides a long example, then says:
“Notice how Woolf makes the transitions effortlessly but perfectly clearly. … The paragraph indent is the signal for the switch back to Mrs Ramsay. What are the next switches and how are they signalled?” (p. 80)
That’s not to suggest that Terrance Dicks was consciously following the example of Virginia Woolf; it’s just that she, via le Guin, opened up for me what he was doing. Note also that le Guin doesn’t simply tell us what’s being done. She prompts us to read the example again and puzzle out its workings for ourselves.
Each chapter includes writing exercises aimed at writing groups of at least six people to prompt discussion and reflection. The point is not to prescribe a method of writing but to suggest things to think about and try.
In that sense, this book reminded me of “Politics and the English language”, the essay by George Orwell about conveying meaning in a plain style to maximise the chances of being understood, which I found so useful when I worked in the press office of a government department, and which I think still influences a lot of what I write. Orwell lays out a series of rules, then tells us to break them if needed.
In the same way, Steering the Craft is a practical and pragmatic guide for writers, and has really helped me this week on something I’m writing as yet unannounced. It meant a switch of perspective, too. Oh, I realised, as the problem I’d been wrestling with suddenly resolved, I’m the one being steered.
See also:
How You Watch Who (pp. 46-50)
Simulcasts on iPlayer and spoilers on social media have changed the way we watch and engage with Doctor Who - but how? Simon Guerrier investigates...
For this, I spoke to several different fans: 26 year-old Erica Tucker (watching since Rose in 2005); Sam Ripley, Luc Fawcett, Alfie Giffen and Charlie Gaskin from Warwick University's Who Soc; his great eminence Jeremy Bentham; and 9 year-old Olivia who has been watching since The Church on Ruby Road in 2023.
Jeremy boggled my mind by telling me that there are only four episodes of Doctor Who he's not seen - ones he missed on original transmission that are now among the 97 episodes currently missing from the archive. I list what those four are in the article.
But since then I've spoken to someone who has seen every episode of Doctor Who. Yes, I am arranging for the preservation / scanning of their brain...
The editor thought better of my original title, "We can dance again."
ETA, the piece was also published in the print version of the Daily Telegraph on 24 January under the title "My open letter to the makers of the new Blake's 7 reboot" (Review, pp. 8-9.
In 2008-09, I was partly involved in a previous effort to reboot Blake's 7, and wrote The Dust Run and The Trial, a two-part audio story that starred Carrie Dobro and Benedict Cumberbatch.
Since then, I've written and script-edited a number of Blake's 7 audio plays for Big Finish, featuring cast members from the original TV series. Here is the full list:
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| We could be heroes. Or villains. |
The Heartless Sea involves UNIT’s Harry Sullivan (Chris Naylor) and Naomi Cross (Eleanor Crooks) meeting the Second Doctor (Michael Troughton). Blurb as follows:
“As Harry and Naomi investigate the apparently haunted Warehouse 9, they come across someone who they didn’t expect to meet – the Doctor! But one who hasn’t met them yet… and soon after they find themselves dealing with the wrath of the most furious sea there has ever been.”
In the piece for Vortex (“The Good Companions”, pp. 18-19), I explain a bit of the background to the story and how it came about. There are also interviews with producer Dominic G Martin and my fellow writer Barbara Hambly, whose story The Kraken of Hagwell features on the same release (bargain!).
Next month, Big Finish is also releasing Bret Vyon Lives!, the second set of three stories involving the Space Security Service. I produced the series and wrote one of the stories in this second set.
Oh, and p. 76 of Doctor Who Magazine #625, which I’ve just received, mentions that I’ve written the third of three new stories for David Bradley’s First Doctor, following Knights of the Round TARDIS by LR Hay (out now) and Return to Marinus by Jonathan Morris (out this month). My one is out in May 2027, says the Big Finish website.
For this, on 26 June 2023 (which was 25 years to the day since they were recording their first audio production, Oh No It Isn't!) they convened Lisa Bowerman, Paul Cornell, James Goss, Gary Russell Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery, plus - to represent younger fans - er, me.
I bought the tee-shirt especially.
The online version went live on Sunday under the title "The story of Doctor Who’s first-ever, and profoundly daft, Christmas special" (£).
Nine days ago, I had another piece in the same paper on writer Malcolm Hulke and the Sea Devils.
Among the many treats, it boasts two things by me:
pp. 34-37 "The Private Life of Terrance Dicks"
Many of the classic UNIT stories were overseen by a writer and script editor who drew extensively on his own experience of National Service.
pp. 76-79 "Chasing Cars"
UNIT was mobile right from the start, with a fleet of vehicles at its disposal. But which models of vehicle, exactly?
"Last Sunday, as the whole world watched on tenterhooks, an ordinary man made an impassioned speech to a fish..."
(Yes, I then go on to explain that Salt is not actually a fish.)
ETA: The piece was also published in the print version of the Sunday Telegraph under the title "The Left-wing writer who radicalised Doctor Who", 14 December 2025, pp. 14-15.
The feature by Kenny Smith includes an interview with me and fellow writers David Llewellyn and James Kettle.
Space Security Service - Bret Vyon Lives! is released in February 2026 but available to pre-order now.
