Ben and Polly in Doctor Who

My new Doctor Who story The Yes Men is out now, starring Frazer Hines as the Second Doctor and companion Jamie McCrimmon, Anneke Wills as Polly and introducing Elliot Chapman as Ben Jackson (a role originally played by the late Michael Craze).

As a vital part of the writing process (or was it prevarication, who can tell?) I watched all the existing Ben and Polly TV episodes and listened to the soundtracks of the rest. On the off-chance it's of interest, here are my thoughts...

The War Machines

The Doctor's new companions

What a delight this story is. There's a special thrill in Doctor Who fighting the internet in 1966 - when the very idea of a computer attached to a phone line was an outlandish, scary concept.

It's also striking to see the First Doctor strolling about in the London of the (then) present day. In the three years that Doctor Who had been running when this story was first broadcast, the TARDIS had landed in the present before - the Doctor lives there in the very first episode and sends his granddaughter to the local school, and later we briefly glimpse the present day in Planet of Giants, The Chase, The Daleks' Master Plan and The Massacre.

But The War Machines, right at the end of the series' third year, and nearly 150 episodes in, is the first adventure fully set in the present and with the Doctor able to interact with people there, and it creates a template for a lot of Doctor Who to come. Russell T Davies' first scripts for "new" Doctor Who in 2005 used the same idea - monsters invade contemporary London and make use of its newest landmarks, while a real-life news presenter comments on events to add a sense that it might actually be happening.

There's something thrilling about the Doctor interrupting a press conference, arguing with MPs and giving the army their orders (indirectly). It's fun seeing him in a nightclub - something I expect the new series would be more wary of now (they certainly wouldn't do the Jimmy Savile joke). I adore Hartnell's daft performance as he's rung up by the evil computer and it tries to scramble his brain. But is it so ridiculous? Something similar happens in the "hard" SF thriller Snowcrash, with a computer recoding people's brains.

Poor companion Dodo is hypnotised and then written out of the series without very much ceremony midway through the story. It's a brutal exit - she and the Doctor don't even say goodbye. The production team seem far more interested in new creations Ben and Polly. Ben's sulky and cross and his dialogue is riddled with glottal stops. Polly's a secretary who likes clubbing and nice clothes, and is as cheery as Ben can be down. He thinks she's posh - and calls her "Duchess". Their class and attitude makes a nice contrast.

In fact, it could have been the start of a different series: the Doctor disappearing in his police box at the end, leaving Ben and Polly to have trendy, sci-fi adventures in contemporary London. Sir Charles Summer (played by William Mervyn, whose son Michael Pickwoad is the production designer on Doctor Who today) would have sent them on special assignments that the usual authorities couldn't get involved in.

Or maybe that's what they got up to when they returned to London after their travels with the Doctor. What about it, Big Finish?

The Smugglers

I'm only sleeping

This is the first story of the fourth series, and that introductory scene in the TARDIS, explaining the concept anew is lovely. It speaks of a production team making a fresh start: the companions contemporary and real whatever strange adventures they might face.

Polly is posh and says "Jolly well", "super" and "fantastic" - it's clear why Ben calls her Duchess. But she's resourceful, contriving her and Ben's escape in episode 2 by using the local people's superstitions and pretending to be a witch. It's fun that just because she wears trousers everyone assumes she's a boy: it neatly avoids any chance of the cliche that she'll be a damsel in distress.

Ben is a clear contrast, all "And we're away, mate," "yobbo", and "'ang on". And he's the one knocked unconscious and made helpless. They use Ben to make Polly more proactive and independent.

It's not the most exciting story but there's plenty to enjoy. It clearly owes a lot to Winston Graham's Poldark books, and I wonder how modern Doctor Who might riff on the latest incarnation of Poldark as played by Aidan Turner. There would have to be a monster. In fact, compare it to the linked The Curse of the Black Spot (2011), which explains what happened to the Captain Avery whose treasure everyone is seeking in this story.

I don't know the Poldark books but wonder if (or hope) the character of Jamaica is based on someone in them, so that the uncomfortable racist cliche is a reference back to the source material rather than something the production team introduced themselves. Because the attitudes to race in the programme at the time are complex, as we see in the next story.

The Tenth Planet

Krang the Cyberman

Polly compares the TARDIS wardrobe to Carnaby Street. We already know (from Marco Polo) that it can supply practical clothes for wherever they might end up in time and space, but now it - and the series - have a sense of contemporary style.

Again, 1960s Doctor Who has a broad canvas even when on Earth. Having been to China and South America, France, Italy and the Middle East, we're now at the South Pole. Compare that to how the show of this time rarely visits the UK. It makes later Doctor Who look almost parochial.

Setting the story in 1986 rather than the far future makes it more real - though Ben doesn't think it's that close, speaking of 1986 as being "still at sea". There's an effort to make this near future international, with different countries and races on screen. Star Trek was doing something similar - but wouldn't be seen in the UK for years. So was it something in the air, a general vision that the future would be more and contentedly mixed? It seems to be linking the confidence and swagger of the space programme with progressive social ideas.

As we discuss in our documentary, Race Against Time (an extra on the DVD of The Mutants):

"Doctor Who's fourth year clearly made an effort to employ more black and Asian actors. The babbling, superstitious pirate, Jamaica, might be a terrible stereotype in 1966's The Smugglers, but that's not true of the next story, The Tenth Planet. 

Set in the far-off future of 1986, the cast of The Tenth Planet included the respected Bermudan actor Earl Cameron as astronaut Glyn Williams. The script specified Williams as Welsh; director Derek Martinus didn't change the script to accommodate his choice of actor, recognising that the astronaut could be both black and Welsh.

(A point I got from the inspiring chapter on the subject in Gary Gillatt's Doctor Who: From A to Z (1998).)

Ben recognises "CO" as Commanding Officer and describes himself as "Able Seaman Ben Jackson, Royal Navy". Though he's in the merchant navy, that made me wonder about his military experience. We don't know Ben's age, but the actor who played him, Michael Craze, was young enough not to have done national service.

Then note in episode 2 Ben's horror at having to kill a Cyberman, insisting that he was forced to do it. There's also his horror at General Cutler's bloodlust. It doesn't seem likely that Ben has killed before. Would the death of the Cyberman haunt him?

The Doctor seems to have met the Cybermen before. Is there an untold story for Big Finish to explore, or is it simply that he remembers (some of) the events of The Five Doctors (1983)?

In episode 3, Polly offers to make coffee. She's less practical and proactive in this story than in The Smugglers, but uses making coffee to get information from the crew. When asked if she's scared, she replies "I am rather." Note: she's resourceful, brave and inventive, but that doesn't mean she's fearless or "strong".

Ben carries a penknife (he just calls it a knife). He's knocked out - as he was in The Smugglers - and again Polly tends him. He refers to Cybermen as "geezers", and says of Polly, "Take it easy love".

A big problem with the story is that events largely happen despite the Doctor and his companions being there. That's in part due to the necessary rewriting around William Hartnell's absence from episode 3. But I think the writers were more interested in their original ideas: the Cybermen, the Arctic base, the state of the world in the near future. Plus there was no script editor to rein them in (since he was one of the co-writers).

And, oh, the loss of episode 4, where the last minutes play out with little dialogue and only atmospheric sound. How strange and eerie were these final moments of the First Doctor?

The Power of the Daleks

In a Dalek's sights

I've talked before about the brilliance of Ben and Polly doubting that this new bloke can really be the Doctor, and that his identity is confirmed by the most unlikely source: a Dalek. In fact, there's a contrast between the companions: Polly believes it's the Doctor, Ben doesn't.

Watching these stories altogether, and getting the context, a new thought occurs to me: that the famous and oft-repeated shot of a Dalek's eye view of the Doctor is an echo of The War Machines, when the First Doctor grips his lapels and doesn't flinch as a robot menaces towards him. Is this consciously making a contrast between the two incarnations?

The story is all about people being people they're not: the Doctor, the Daleks, the base's leaders. Ben and Polly - who we've known for a relatively short while - are the only ones to be who they claim. They're our fixed points in this story.

There's a rare snippet of information about Ben and Polly's lives before they met the Doctor: we learn that Ben grew up opposite a brewery.

In episode 2, Ben says, "Of course the real Doctor was always going on about the Daleks" - but when? The last time they were spoken of was at the beginning of The War Machines, when he mentioned them to Dodo and then remembered she'd not met them either. Ben and Polly weren't there. Each story has run directly into the next one, so there's been no gaps in which to have that conversation.

Ben's dialogue is still very distinctive: he says "Nuts!", "Me ol' china" and "Are you off your 'ead mate?" I double-underlined the Doctor's dialogue:

I know the misery [the Daleks] cause, the destruction. But there's something else more terrible. Something I can only half remember.

Later, his memories of meeting Marco Polo are a bit mixed up, too, as if that adventure happened to someone else. That's a big influence on my script for The Yes Men.

In episode 3, just as Polly instinctively believes the Doctor is who he says he is, she also trusts Quinn without any particular evidence.

As well as the recorder, the Doctor carries a magnifying glass. That's surely a link to Sherlock Holmes, making the Doctor more of an investigator, an active participant.

And there's the first use of catchphrases: "When I say run, run like a rabbit." Episode 4 introduces "I'd like a hat like that."

In episode 5, Polly describes Ben as "a real man", in contrast to Kebble. The suggestion is that Ben can handle himself in a fight, though what evidence has Polly seen of that?

The Highlanders

Meeting Jamie

This is a great story for Polly, where's she independent and resourceful, chiding Highlander Kirsty in episode 1: "There must be something we can do... Crying's no good." In episode 2, she continues: "Didn't the women of your age do anything but cry?"

Polly can also be mean, telling Kirsty, "You're just a stupid peasant". Though perhaps that's her frustration at their predicament, or a way of getting Kirsty to be more helpful.

But Polly has a cruel streak, clearly relishing it as she blackmails Ffinch and calls him "Algy dear."

The Doctor's disguise in episode 1 is another new trademark for this Doctor.

Ben describes Inverness as a "right rat hole".

Jamie is a piper - but do we ever hear him play the bagpipes? At the end of the story, the Doctor says he'll take Jamie with him in the TARDIS if Jamie teaches him to play the bagpipes, but again that's never picked up on in the TV show. (I's something that's gone into The Yes Men.)

Jamie believes in bloodletting. It's, "the only way of curing the sick."

The Doctor with a gun

It seems especially odd in episode 2 to see (in the screengrabs from the missing episodes photographed by John Cura) this incarnation of the Doctor wielding a gun and at such close quarters. Though he does admit, "I'm not very expert with these things," it's a reminder that the "rules" we think of about this incarnation - and of Doctor Who more generally - have not been established.

In episode 4, Ben at last gets a chance to be resourceful, using a Houdini trick he knows to flex his muscles and escape. (The Third Doctor does the same thing in Planet of the Spiders, citing Houdini as a friend, so perhaps there's a story to be told about Ben learning the trick from the man himself.)

Jamie doesn't escape with his friends, he stays behind in Scotland to help the Doctor and the others across the glen and back to the TARDIS. The story was rewritten at the last minute so that Jamie joins the TARDIS, but I find myself wondering how it originally went. Did he escape with Kirsty? When he leaves the Doctor and returns to Scotland in The War Games (1969), is there any chance he'll catch up with her?

The Underwater Menace

Zzzz

Episode 1, scene 2 has the Doctor and his friends discuss where they might go next. Polly and Ben don't seem to be enjoying their adventures: Polly wants to go home to London and Ben is still bothered by his encounter with the Daleks. The Doctor hopes to see prehistoric monsters (again, perhaps there's a story in that.)

Note the short journey times in the TARDIS - since The War Machines, they leave one adventure behind them and are then straight into the next one, with little time to chat let alone have other adventures in between (which is bad news for Big Finish).

In episode 1, Ben calls Polly "love", and says, "You speak foreign". Jamie speaks Gallic. Polly of the Doctor, already recognising the tropes: "I've never seen him go for food like this. It's usually hats."

The story is set sometime after 1968 and the general consensus is that it's 1970, because the next story is set in 2070. Again, it's a near future setting, a touch of reality in what's otherwise a peculiar fantasy. There's no attempt to explain Zaroff's suicidal plot other than him being a mad scientist.

In fact, for all script editor Gerry Davis had recruited ophthalmologist Dr Kit Pedler as a scientific adviser on Doctor Who for this run of stories, surely The War Machines, The Tenth Planet and this one show an inherent technophobia, with science something dehumanising and to be feared.

There's another disguise for the Doctor in episode 2. In episode 3 the Doctor describes himself as "A man. Almost 5' 9", black coat, baggy trousers and a bowtie."

When Zaroff falls ill, Polly is again (instinctively) trusting, as is the Doctor. It's Jamie who thinks (correctly) that Zaroff is faking.

In episode 4, Ben calls the Doctor (jokingly) a "berk" and says, "He ain't normal, is he?" But note his dismissal at the end: "Zaroff, 'oo cares about him?" He was haunted by having to kill a Cybermen, so has he changed as a result of his subsequent experience, especially with the Daleks? Or is he simply prioritising, and is more worried about Jamie and Polly?

Jamie calls Ben "Benjamin" and feels safe inside the TARDIS - a set up for a gag as the Doctor loses control. The Doctor says he's never previously wanted to take the TARDIS anywhere in particular, but the strong suggestion here is that he can control the ship. (As we learn, they're only sent off course because of the Gravitron.)

The Moonbase

Groovy space gear

The first episode of this is a keenly felt loss. How I'd love to see the Doctor and his friends in spacesuits bounding across the surface of the Moon.

Ben knows there are 200 million miles from Mars to the Moon (in fact, the distance changes as both bodies orbit the Sun at different rates, but the average distance is about 240 million miles, so he's pretty much correct). He also seems to know about radiation - in episode 3 he says the temperature inside the Gravitron's thermonuclear powerpack "is about 4 million degrees."

Ben teases Polly for being a nurse - though she's looked after him twice when he's been knocked unconscious.

In episode 2, Polly recognises the Cybermen even though they look different - again, she's instinctive. In episode 3, the Cybermen recognise the Doctor despite his change in appearance (they might remember him from forthcoming stories The Wheel in Space and/or The Invasion, which take place before the events of this story).

The Doctor says he took some kind of medical degree in Glasgow under Lister in 1888. He certainly knows how to use a pathology lab. Does that mean he knows Madame Vastra? It's 1888 when we meet her in A Good Man Goes to War (2011), so perhaps it's the Second Doctor who rescues her.

It's fun when Hobson talks about the Cybermen: rarely for Doctor Who (at least until it came back in 2005), do events of previous stories become part of Earth history. They are quickly forgotten.

Note also that it's another multicultural, multiracial future. How outlandish would it have looked at the time that everyone in space is wearing tee-shirts? Speaking of which, this is the story where Jamie wears a polo-neck for the first time - which he'll continue to do for much of his time in the series. Is that, then, futuristic clothing?

The Doctor's conversation with himself in episode 3 is interesting: it seems as if we're hearing his inner thoughts, which is another breach of what we'd now think of as a "rule" of Doctor Who.

In the 1990s, a clip of the Doctor asking Polly to make coffee while he tries to puzzle out the mystery was used on documentaries to illustrate the sexism in the series. Yet in context I don't think that's fair. For one thing, both Ben and Polly are trying to be useful. Ben is asked to tidy up, which he clearly thinks is demeaning, and then gets in everyone's way. Polly is happy to help, and her coffee is what leads the Doctor to his revelation about how the Moonbase crew are being infected. Her positive attitude leads to the solution.

What's more Polly is again the one to come up with a way to stop the Cybermen, taking Jamie's suggestion of "holy water" and suggesting nail varnish remover instead. It's nicely worked out between the three companions. Polly isn't sure it will work and says, "I'm gonna try an experiment" - so Ben calls her "Professor". He's the one that knows nail varnish remover is made of acetone (Polly doesn't know that). He's the one who reworks the fire extinguishers for the "Polly cocktail" they're making. At least in the animation of the missing episode on the DVD, it's Polly who takes out the Cybermen.

But something's about to change. On the making-of documentary on the DVD, Frazer Hines (who plays Jamie) says The Moonbase was the final story not to have been written directly for him, that up till this point in the series he was largely taking lines from Ben and Polly or being left unconscious. He says things changed with the next story - but, as we'll see, I think that was at the cost of Ben and Polly

Actors Michael Craze and Anneke Wills only had six weeks left on their contracts at this point, which were not renewed. The same production team who created Ben and Polly and wrote such dynamic, fun stuff for them seem to have decided not to keep them on, and it's as if they then lose interest.

The Macra Terror

Waaah!

There's some fun stuff early on as Polly goes for a shampoo and Jamie resists but is flattered by the attention. We learn Ben has been in the Mediterranean - another rare bit of detail about his life before The War Machines. The three companions wear uniforms, and Polly says Jamie looks "super".

Ben is hypnotised so that he looks forward to work, the suggestion being that he usually drags his feet, and a reminder of the gloomy soul we met in his first story. In fact, I think he's changed a lot since then.

Polly is horrified by Ben's betrayal, and there's some interesting conflict about how much he's been taken over: he redeems himself by offering to let Polly escape from the Macra, then denies he did so to his masters. Later, the Doctor picks up on that: "I always knew you were a tough customer." It's a reminder of what Polly said in The Power of the Daleks about Ben being a "real man", though that's not something we often see.

Jamie refers to his friends as a "lassie and an old man". Just as the Doctor had a defining speech in The Moonbase about evil needing to be fought, here he declares that "bad laws were meant to be broken." It's a new dynamism: the Doctor as an active participant hero.

Polly becomes a miner, working with the men, but when the Macra attack she's a lot more screamy than she's ever been before. I suppose there's an argument that that's a fair response to the continuing stress of all she's been through since meeting the Doctor. But I think she's written here as a more generic and less interesting character.

There's fun in episode 4 when Jamie is required to do a "gay and cheerful dance" - again which we can't see because the episode is missing. At the end of the story a dance festival will be held every year in the Doctor's memory - and he gets a majorette's hat. He and his friends dance their way out and away to the TARDIS, which would be fun to see. It's nice to finish a story with them enjoying themselves for a change.

The Faceless Ones

Bye bye!

This story does not follow on directly from the end of the last one - the only Ben and Polly story not to do so, so the only one with a clear gap into which Big Finish or anyone else might insert new stories. Note, too, that Polly's hair has really grown since The Macra Terror, suggesting a lot of time has passed.

It's great that episode 1 exists to watch after so many missing episodes, and what sights it offers. The location filming at Gatwick is properly thrilling - bold and contemporary and real. It still feels relevant - taking the ordinariness of cheap flights and making it weird and scary.

Polly is so upset about the dead man they discover (despite all the death she's witnessed on her adventures) that Jamie hugs her. Is that out of character, or a symptom of her exhaustion?

The Doctor again has his magnifying glass, and his shuffling, bow-legged walk is so comic - and distinctive. It's not an original thought, but how much do we miss from these stories by not being able to see what he's doing?

Just as Ben was hypnotised in the last story, Polly is hypnotised in this one. No one mentions that fact (perhaps because The Macra Terror was for them a long time ago).

Jamie says "kiddin' on", "lassie" and "greet". He steals Samantha's ticket by kissing her. On the plane at the end of episode 4, he runs off to be sick - and that's consistent with his earlier fear of planes as "flying beasties". But we soon learn he's being smart, using the "sickness" to hide and so find out what's really going on. Again, he's intelligent if ignorant. Yet whereas he spotted Zaroff faking his illness, here he's surprised by the double of his friend Crossland.

Samantha Briggs refers to the brainwashed Polly as a "stuck-up thing", and it seems especially unfair that that isn't corrected - this being effectively Polly's last episode (because she and Ben only appear briefly at the end of episode 6, in pre-recorded scenes). Would Polly and Samantha have got on? I crave more adventures with Samantha as a companion, and love her response on seeing the real Pinto: "Flippin 'eck!"

She rocks it -
Sherlock's mum in episode 4

I wouldn't mind Wanda Ventham's Jean Rock as a companion, either. Perhaps there's a spin-off series of strange alien murder mysteries for Rock and Briggs to solve.

Though we don't see Ben and Polly for most of the rest of the story, they're often mentioned - and the Doctor insists in episode 4 (without any evidence) that they're still alive. It's odd to think of those episodes being recorded, and Patrick Troughton insisting that we'll see his friends again while knowing they've already left the series.

It shows how well established Jamie is that when he appears as a Chameleon in episode 6 and has lost his Scottish accent, it is really creepy.

Blade shoots Chameleon Janice, and there's a notable lack of judgment from the Doctor about all the humans and Chameleons killed in this story. Also, does Blade's original stay behind for the bargain to work?

And then we're back to Gatwick, where Ben and Polly realise that it's the same day on which they met the Doctor in The War Machines.

Just as with Jackie Lane as Dodo, Michael Craze and Anneke Wills left the series midway through a story, but it's nice that this time there's a prerecorded sequence so they can goodbye at the end. It still feels a bit abrupt and brutal - they've been missing for four episodes and then we just have time to wave them off.

Polly wants to stay in London "a bit", rather than leave the TARDIS. Ben says of being back home that, "it's good to feel normal" - chiming with what he said about the Doctor in The Underwater Menace. The Doctor rather makes the decision for them, saying they're lucky to get back to their own world.

Which is odd since he's the reason they left their world in the first place, and because the strong suggestion in The Underwater Menace is that he can control the TARDIS if he wants to. So is he lying so that they don't feel bad about leaving him?

The Doctor tells Polly to look after Ben, and off they go. What became of them? (A long time ago, I tried to address how Polly might have struggled to return to ordinary life in a short story.)

Meanwhile, the Doctor and Jamie are plunged straight into their next adventure. There are few gaps between the stories for the next year...

Pubs in space

M'colleague Dr Marek Kukula and I were asked by Ballantine's to describe what it might be like in an extraterrestrial pub - or space bar.

Read our answer alongside those of Ben Davis (director of photography on Guardians of the Galaxy), Jamie Bamber (Apollo in Battlestar Gallactica), Lucy McRae (body architect and artist) and Studio Swine (designers Azusa Murakami and Alexander Groves).

Illustration by Marie Bergeron.

50 years of Thunderbirds

Out in shops now is a special 116-page magazine celebrating 50 years of Thunderbirds. There are profiles of all the original episodes and the two films, plus interviews with cast and crew - including an interview with the late Gerry Anderson being published for the first time.

I worked on a few bits of the magazine, speaking to artists Graham Bleathman, Steve Kyte and Andrew Skilleter about their comics work, replica puppet maker Vaughan Herriott and replica model maker David Sissons.

Blake's 7: Remnants

Out today is Remnants, a special episode of Blake's 7 what I wrote, starring Paul Darrow as Avon and Sally Knyvette as Jenna. The blurb goes like this:

"'They’re dead. Blake, Cally, Gan, Vila... All gone.’

After a disastrous mission to the planet Laresh, most of the crew has been wiped out. Avon and Jenna are the sole survivors, reunited aboard the Liberator.

But what happens next? With their plans in tatters, do Blake’s Two stay together… or go their separate ways and seek refuge in a galaxy pitted against them?"

 Excitingly, the release is part of the announcement of loads more Blake's 7 coming next year.

Mr Holmes

The new issue of medical journal the Lancet Psychiatry boasts my review of the film Mr Holmes starring Ian McKellen as an aged and decaying Sherlock. It's a follow-up to my piece on the Museum of London's recent Sherlock Holmes exhibition.

Also of interest in the new issue is a review by Deborah L Cabaniss, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University, of the Pixar movie Inside Out:

"This stunning and popular movie should be required viewing for anyone in the mental health field."

More days and evenings out

The publicity machine for The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who does not sleep. I'll be at some more events over coming weeks:

• Sunday 23 August - I'll be part of the Dalek invasion at Aston Manor Road Transport Museum, in Aldridge near Walsall

• Wednesday 26 August - me, Dr Marek Kukula and Samira Ahmed will be part of the "late" at the Science Museum in London

• Saturday 19 September - me and Marek will be at Big Finish Day in Slough

• Wednesday 23 September - I'm the guest of the British Science Fiction Association in London, and will my interviewed by former university tutor, Professor Edward James.

• Friday 25 September - Marek and I will be at the Radio Times Festival at Hampton Court. The bill for that day also includes Peter Capaldi, Steven Moffat and Brian Minchin, and Russell T Davies. No pressure.

The Music of Doctor Who

In shops today is a splendid new special edition of Doctor Who Magazine, devoted to the music of Doctor Who.

It boasts comprehensive features on the various theme tunes, the composers of the incidental music, songs and library recordings used in the show, and the music the show has inspired. There are lots of photographs of synthesisers.

I've written a short piece talking to three fans inspired by Doctor Who to compose their own music, and here are the four videos listed in my article.

1. Allegra Rosenberg performs "Say Hello (A Doctor/TARDIS Trock song)":



2. Amanda Palmer marks Doctor Who's 50th anniversary by performing "Say Hello" with help from her husband Neil Gaiman (who wrote the episode that inspired the song) and Arthur Darvill (who played Rory in that episode):



3. Scott Ampleford's latest score (and narration) for the Doctor Puppet series:



4. Stephen Willis's latest production with the Doctor Who Fan Orchestra:

Science Museum late, 26 August

Me, m'colleague Dr Marek Kukula and our chum Samira Ahmed will be at the Science Museum late event on 26 August, which is free and rather good. As the blurb says:

Attention, big kids - join us at the Science Museum this Wednesday 26 August and step back into the wondrous world of childhood. Explore the scientific secrets of Doctor Who, uncover the meaning behind types of play and learn how the food your mum eats affects your tastes.

Come and enjoy our famous bubble show or make your very own mutant teddy at one of our interactive workshops. Plus, don't miss regular attractions including live music, the Punk Science comedy show and the best silent disco in town.

At Nine Worlds

Mostly for my own convenience, here is my schedule for the Nine Worlds convention from tomorrow, all in County C&D:

Friday, 11:45 - 13:00
Doctor Who - The Doctor Changed Your Life: how did that happen?
What influence, large or trivial, has Doctor Who had on your life? Has it changed how you see the world; ignited new interests; made you unwisely stick with chemistry all the way through high school because you really wanted to be Liz Shaw when you were seventeen? What has your experience been of the fandom? What does being a fan of Doctor Who mean to you?
Panel: Simon Guerrier (mod), Amy, Sarah Groenewegen, Hamish Steele

Friday, 18:45 - 20:00
Doctor Who - Science! Why does it matter?
Doctor Who has often been described as a science-fantasy show rather than a science fiction one, but there's been many an attempt to get some proper science in there. Does getting the science right matter? Can we forgive the moon being a giant space dragon egg? Why doesn’t the Doctor call himself a scientist these days? Has the science, or lack of, in Doctor Who inspired or disappointed you?
Panel: Duncan Lawie (mod), Abigail Brady, Simon Guerrier, Marek Kukula

(At the same time, the Dr will be in Connaught A with the panel Historical Heroines: the women from history that we admire.)

Sunday, 10:00-11:15
The Books of Doctor Who: just how many are there anyway?
Over the past fifty years there've been a truly terrifying number of Doctor Who books published. From the Target novelisations of the classic series stories to the New Adventures of the nineties, the record-breaking Eighth Doctor Adventures, and the tie-ins of the New Series. What great stories can be found in Doctor Who books? How have the books influenced your views of Doctor Who?
Panel: Simon Guerrier (mod), Adam Christopher, Paul Cornell, Sarah Groenewegen

(At the same time, the Dr will be in County B on the panel Story Translation and Archaeological Museums: changing environments, changing audiences.)

Sunday, 11:45 - 13:00
Is History a Science? - the view from Doctor Who
In their book, The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who, authors Simon Guerrier and Marek Kukula, Public Astronomer at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, address this question, looking at how history functions in the world of Doctor Who. In conversation with Tony Keen, they will explore these issues further.
Panel: Simon Guerrier, Tony Keen, Marek Kukula

Front Row

Last night, I was an interviewed guest on Radio 4's Front Row, talking about TV and films influenced by the nuclear bomb - it being 70 years this week since bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Last night's Front Row is available on BBC iPlayer, and my bit starts at 10:56.

(The Radio 3 Sunday Feature documentary I produced, HG and the H-Bomb, is also still available on iPlayer.)

At Conway Hall

I had a lovely time at Conway Hall on Wednesday night, where m'colleague Dr Marek Kukula and I were grilled by Samira Ahmed on the ethics and science of Doctor Who.

You can listen to the talk - minus the five clips I chose to illustrate stuff - as a Conway Hall podcast: London Thinks - The Science and Ethics of Doctor Who.

More events related to the book still to come. I'll be at Aston Manor Road Transport Museum on 23 August.

Hansard from before there was Parliament

Cobbett's Parliamentary
History, vol. 1 (1806)

Hansard is the official report of parliamentary debates in the House of Commons and the House of Lords (I work a bit as a reporter in the Lords). So it's a bit surprising to learn that the first speech reported in its history dates from before there was even a Parliament. To explain this odd fact, we need to understand a bit about how Hansard began.

For a long time, it was against the law to publish the votes and proceedings of Parliament. That was seen as a threat to parliamentary privilege. MPs might be less likely to speak openly in debates if their words were to be shared outside the Chamber.

However, there were those prepared to risk prison to publish anyway – because they thought it would be profitable and/or because they thought it was right to hold Parliament to account. As early as 1675, there were full transcripts of debates.

Some publishers went to prison, but while individual publications were stopped others continued undaunted. Four times in the 1700s the ban was reaffirmed in law. Publishers wriggled round these strictures by printing reports months after debates had taken place or while Parliament was no longer sitting, or by inventing satirical reports from imaginary Parliaments. Even with real debates, what reporting there was could be selective and inaccurate – which didn't help win over MPs.

Finally, in 1771, after a campaign by the radical MP John Wilkes, permission was given for the publication of verbatim – word for word – reports. Such reports became a regular feature in newspapers.

William Cobbett,
National Portrait Gallery

In 1802, William Cobbett began to publish Parliamentary Debates, which compiled these accounts from different newspapers. In 1809, Cobbett employed a new printer, Thomas Curson Hansard, who took over the publication from 1812. Hansard made many improvements to the speed and accuracy of his reports, such as employing reporters directly rather than copying reports from elsewhere. In 1829, his name appeared on the reports – which is why they're known as Hansard today. Last week, Hansard published its 3,000th bound volume of debates.

But before handing his publication to Hansard, Cobbett had seen another opportunity: to collect reports of Parliament from the more distant past. This he did over 36 volumes in – to use its full title – Cobbett's Parliamentary History of England. From the Norman Conquest, in 1066, to the year, 1803. From which last-mentioned epoch it is continued downwards in the work entitled “Cobbett's Parliamentary Debates”. Since the history and the debates make up one continuous work, Hansard reaches back to 1066, before there was a Parliament.

Cobbett tells us in his own preface that he compiled his history from,

“the Records, the Rolls of Parliament, the Parliamentary or Constitutional History, and from the most reputable English Historians.”

Despite these exemplary sources, he also bemoans having had to work his way through an,

“immense load of useless matter, quite unauthentic, and very little connected with the real Proceedings of Parliament”,

which included battles, sieges and even the entire contents of pamphlets. His history is, then, a distillation of earlier reports, concentrating on what was said, by whom, where and when.

Though the title of his history claims that it begins with the Norman conquest, the first date given is 1072, where he tells us that,

“William I, at the instigation of the pope, summoned a national synod, to determine the dispute betwixt the sees of Canterbury and York about supremacy.”

We're told this happened at Windsor, but not what was said or how the matter was resolved.

Henry I
National Portrait Gallery

The next account, from 1106, is the first reported speech in Hansard. Speaking in London, William's son Henry I makes the case why he should be king and not his older brother Robert. But how accurate can that report be? Cobbett tells us the source for this account is the Benedictine monk Matthew Paris (c. 1200-59), whose Historia Anglorum – a history of England from 1070 to 1253 – is thought to have been written between 1250 and 1255, or 150 years after King Henry gave his speech.

Note that Cobbett doesn't tell us what clinched Henry's claim to the throne over that of his older brother. The English barons and the church had complained of bullying behaviour under the previous king, William II. To gain their support, Henry agreed to sign the Charter of Liberties or Coronation Charter – the first time that a king stated that his powers were subject to the law.

Admittedly, those promises were largely ignored by Henry and his descendants for the next 100 years, but it set a precedent for events to follow. Henry's great grandson, King John, also found himself forced to agree concessions to the nobles, and in 1215 he placed his seal on Magna Carta – the great charter.

Historians argue about the significance of Magna Carta, but one thing it established was a Great Council, with representatives from the counties, cities and church, that would take charge of taxation and could – if it had to – stand against the king for the benefit of the country. There had been councils of nobles before, but always subject to the king.

Having agreed to Magna Carta, John then ignored it – and the barons turned to the French Prince Louis for help. There was war – with castles besieged at Dover, Windsor and Rochester. For a brief while, it looked like the barons might win and Louis become king of England.

But John died in 1216. The barons thought they would have more control over John's nine year-old son, Henry, than over French Prince Louis. Henry III was crowned king on the condition he agreed to the great charter. He reigned until 1272, during which time his council first became known as “Parliament” – meaning “to speak”.

In addition, a rebellion in 1265 by Henry's brother-in-law Simon de Montefort led to what's often referred to as the “father or Parliaments”. For the first time, it wasn't the king who decided who sat in Parliament. Instead,

“from each county four prudent and law-worthy knights”,

were chosen by election. The right to vote was given to men who owned land with an income worth 40 shillings or more per year. For the first time, people in the country – if not a huge number of them – had some say in how it was run.

It didn't last, but we can see in that father of Parliaments – as well as in Cobbett's accounts from the reigns of Henry III and Edward I – the beginnings of Parliament as we know it today. In Cobbett's account of 13 January 1223, we have the first recorded speech of a non-royal person in Hansard, from the king's councillor William Briwere. We can see decisions being made by agreement not decree, and – as in 1279 – that the church dared not speak against decisions made by Parliament. We can see the king using Parliament to give his decisions – such as his verdict on Llewellyn – extra weight and authority. We see government referring to precedent, basing their actions on how things have been done before.

So these earliest entries from Hansard give us a sense of the changing terms of power, the early, faltering steps towards the Parliament we know today.

I'm in the Guardian

Spotted by the Dr, me and Dr Marek Kukula feature in The Guide in this morning's Guardian newspaper.

Samira Ahmed will grill us about the science and ethics of Doctor Who (and the chapter of our book devoted to the Time War) on Wednesday night at Conway Hall at 7.30 pm. Tickets from

http://conwayhall.org.uk/event/london-thinks-the-ethical-secrets-of-doctor-who/

HG Wells and the H-Bomb

This Sunday at 6.45 pm, Radio 3 will broadcast the new documentary I've produced with brother Tom, HG and the H-Bomb. It's a pick of July's radio and telly, according to those nice people at BBC History Magazine. Blurb as follows:

HG and the H-Bomb
Sunday Feature

Samira Ahmed unearths the extraordinary role of HG Wells in the creation of the nuclear bomb 70 years ago - and how a simple, devastating idea led to the world we know today.

In his 1914 novel The World Set Free, Wells imagined bombs that destroy civilisation and lead to a new world order. But his "atomic bombs" - a name he conceived - are grenades that keep on exploding.

How did this idea become a reality? Samira discovers the strange conjunction of science-fiction and fact that spawned the bomb as Wells mixed with key scientists and politicians such as Lenin and Churchill. Churchill claimed Wells was solely responsible for the use of aeroplanes and tanks in the First World War. Thanks to Wells, Churchill was also ahead of many in writing about the military potential of nuclear weapons - as he did in his 1924 article for the Pall Mall Gazette, "Shall We All Commit Suicide?"

In London's Russell Square, Samira retraces the steps of Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard who conceived the neutron chain reaction. Amid the bustle and noise of the capital in 1933, he suddenly realised how to exploit the potential of nuclear energy and - because he'd read Wells - the devastating impact it would have.

But what could he do? How easy is it to keep a secret in the scientific community, with war looming? Once a dangerous, world-changing idea exists, is it possible to contain it?

To find out, Samira speaks to nuclear physicist Dr Elizabeth Cunningham; Graham Farmelo, author of Churchill's Bomb; Professor Lisa Jardine; Andrew Nahum, chief curator of "Churchill's Scientists" at the Science Museum, London; and Michael Sherborne, author of HG Wells - Another Kind of Life.

Readings by Toby Hadoke
Presenter Samira Ahmed
Producers Simon and Thomas Guerrier
A Whistledown Production for BBC Radio 3.

Black holes and explosions

Two new things! First, the latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine is out today. As well as interviews with Ingrid Oliver and David Warner, it includes my chat with chief special effects blower upper Danny Hargreaves.

I was inspired by this short clip on the BBC's official Doctor Who site of Danny blowing up the head of a Cyberman for the serious, scholarly purpose of supporting British Science Week. We talk physics and chemistry and the Kandyman.

Also, those luminous lovelies at Big Finish have put up cast details and released Tom Webster's gorgeous cover for my new Doctor Who adventure, The Black Hole - which is out in November. Despite the best efforts of Rufus Hound's especially distracting moustache, people have noticed his hat. Whatever can it mean?

Yuri Gagarin's autograph

The Dr asked me to write something for the blog she runs exploring the archives of the Croydon Airport Society. She chose a booklet, "Soviet Man in Space" that she thought was my sort of thing. And it is - especially when its cover boasts the autograph of Yuri Gagarin, the first person in space.

Read my post, Croydon Airport Calling: Soviet Man in Space.

Unrelatedly, I was recently interviewed by Will Barber for The Consulting Detective site about The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who.

Time and Space

A couple of very good books read recently.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North is near-on impossible to put down. It's about a bloke called Harry August who, when he dies, lives his life over again - but remembering everything that happened before. He can change small things - such as going into different professions or marrying different people - but the big stuff like the Second World War or his mum dying young from cancer is rather set in stone. And Harry's not alone, either - there's a whole network or "oroborans", looking out for each other and passing messages to one another forward and backward in time. Including a message from the future that the end is coming, and increasingly quickly...

It's one of those books that starts with a brilliant, ridiculous idea and plays it out perfectly logically, but then adds ever more thrilling developments. To say more would only spoil it, but gosh it is good.

An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield is packed full of fascinating detail about the counter-intuitive nature of working in Earth orbit. For example, there's this moment in November 1995, when Hadfield was on a space shuttle that docked with the Russian Mir space station. It was an extremely complicated bit of orbital mechanics, but they docked successfully - and three seconds early.

"Only we couldn't get the hatch open. On the other side, they were kicking it with all their might. But the Russian engineers had taped, strapped and sealed our docking module's hatch just a little too enthusiastically, with multiple layers. So we did the true space-age thing: we broke into Mir using a Swiss Army knife. Never leave the planet without one."

Chris Hadfield, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth (2015 [2013]), p. 191.

But the book aims to find life lessons from Hadfield's experience that we can all benefit from, so there's lots of home-spun advice about why it's good to sweat the small stuff and to be prepared. An example is Hadfield learning "Rocket Man" on the guitar on the off-chance that he met Elton John (which he did) and was invited to play something with him (which he wasn't).

I found Hadfield's drive and goal-orientation a bit wearying, but he's an extremely amiable, likable guy - and quick to recount his own failures and mistakes, such as that time one of his colleagues got a face-full of his nail clippings. He's also got a very accessible style, coolly acknowledging the weirdness and danger and randomness of his day job. And it's hard to not like the guy responsible for the first ever music video recorded in space.

Marek says "no"

Here's Dr Marek Kukula - my co-author on The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who - on Doctor Who: The Fan Show answering questions about science, and saying no to Steven Moffat.

The smell of the Daleks

M'colleague Dr Marek Kukula and I have written a couple of blog posts to spread the word about The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who. Here's two of them:

• "What do Daleks smell like?" for Sci-fi Now Magazine
• "Where is planet Vulcan?" for the Royal Observatory Greenwich blog

Remember, there are a bunch of events next week to launch the book, and here's me talking to the Starburst Bookworm podcast (series 3, episode 19 if you are catching up from the future) and to Croydon Radio.

ETA here's another blog post:

• "The science of crashed spaceships" for the Royal Observatory Greenwich blog

Doctor Who and the Black Hole

Ben, Polly, Jamie and the Doctor

Big Finish have announced a series of four "early adventures" for the Second Doctor - two of 'em scribbled by me...

"The series opens in September with The Yes Men by Simon Guerrier, in which the Doctor, Jamie, Polly and Ben arrive on New Houston, an Earth colony in the Fourth Sector, which the Doctor previously saved from an alien invasion. He wishes to pay his respects to his late friend Meg Carvossa, but something is not quite right with New Houston’s subservient robots...

'Everyone loved Simon’s script,' says producer David Richardson. 'It’s a clever, dark thriller in the style of The Enemy of the World that really plays to the strengths of all the regular characters. And we had all of the characters there - not only Frazer as the Doctor and Ben, but also Anneke Wills reprising the role of Polly, and Elliot Chapman making his debut as Ben Jackson. Elliot has big shoes to fill, but he does a smashing job - these three actors really do sound exactly like that early TARDIS team.'

...

November’s release is The Black Hole by Simon Guerrier, and the line-up shifts to the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria (Deborah Watling). On a research station near a black hole, time keeps standing still. Investigating the phenomenon, the Doctor discovers a power far greater than any of the monsters that challenge him on his travels... Guest stars for this story are David Warner, who serves as narrator, Rufus Hound and Janet Dibley."

The other stories in the series are The Forsaken by Justin Richards (October) and The Isos Network by Nicholas Briggs (December).

There will be a Graceless IV

Gosh. Those fine fellows at Big Finish want me to write more of my science-fiction series Graceless, so I am busy scribbling.

As the announcement says:

"Ciara Janson and Laura Doddington are heading back into studio later this year, following the greenlighting of Graceless - Series 4 for a 2016 release. We spoke to series creator and writer Simon as he begins to work on this new set:

"Ha ha! I am thrilled to get to write more adventures for Abby and Zara (though when we last heard from from them they weren't called that any more). But how to bring them back from that rather definitive ending? Well, the answer we've come up with makes me giddy with delight... I can't wait! Get on with writing it, me."

Graceless - Series 4 is available for pre-order ahead of its release in September 2016 at a discounted price on both CD and Download. All three previous Graceless releases are still available, as are the three Doctor Who stories which saw the origins of the series: Doctor Who - The Judgement of Isskar, Doctor Who - The Destroyer of Delights, and Doctor Who - The Chaos Pool."

Events for The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who

I'll be at some events to publicise my new book, The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who.

• 4 June, 6 pm
  I'll be signing the book at Forbidden Planet in London, alongside by co-author Marek Kukula and short story writers Jenny Colgan, Jonathan Morris and Andrew Smith.
• 5 June, 7 pm
  Marek and I will be giving a talk at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, accompanied by a Dalek.
• 6 June, 7.30 pm
  I and the Dr will speak at the Northwich Lit Fest on "Doctor Who and the Egyptians".

There'll be more events to come, which I'll post here as they're confirmed. And I've done some interviewed too. I was a guest on the Handsome Timmy D Express last week. 

V for Vengeance

A few hundred yards from where I live, in a gap between the terraced houses there's a children's playground. It's a regular haunt of the Lord of Chaos, and I'd vaguely wondered if the gap between the houses might have been the result of a bomb in the Second World War.

Recently, the Dr's researches on something else meant she stumbled on the fact that yes, that gap was the result of a V-2 rocket. In fact, our part of South London was especially badly hit by the Nazi vengeance weapons, the direct result of British Intelligence sacrificing my neighbourhood to save central London. They did this by convincing the Nazis that their bombs fell far north of the capital so the aim needed correcting.

I think of the people who lived in the streets around me now, and those who lived in the house where I'm typing this, in a room with a view of a garden that still contains a brick shelter. 70 years ago on VE Day, on the street where my son's playground now is, they hanged an effigy of Hitler. I can't blame them.

Of course, the V-2 later took people to the Moon - as I was surprised to find NASA discussing quite openly when I visited Cape Canaveral in 2009.

"Our guide was nicely open about the origins of American rocketry, showing us a rare example of a V2 engine while explaining what rockets like that had done to south London. He himself raised the dubious morality in pardoning the former Nazi Werhner von Braun; again, this wasn’t the kind of corporate history I’d quite expected. NASA seemed keen to challenge their own history, to ask the difficult questions."

Me, "Geek Heaven", 10 November 2009.

Today, the Dr took the Lord of Chaos to the RAF Museum at Colindale, and thought to snap me these pictures.

The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who

My new book will be out on 4 June, and this 'ere is the press release:

The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who
By Simon Guerrier and Dr Marek Kukula
4 June 2015

Doctor Who stories are many things: thrilling adventures, historical dramas, and science fiction tales. But how much of the science is real? And how much is fiction?

Weaving together authoratitive scientific discussion with a series of new adventures by acclaimed Doctor Who writers including Jenny T Colgan, George Mann and Jacqueline Rayner, Simon Guerrier and Dr Marek Kukula explore the possibilities of time travel, life on other planets, artificial intelligence, parallel universes and more. From the dawn of astronomy and the discovery of gravity to the moon landings and string theory, the authors show how science has inspired Doctor Who, and how, on occasion, life has mirrored art, such as the 1989 discovery of 'ice-canoes' on Triton which were featured in the 1973 episode The Planet of the Daleks.

For example, did you know...

• The creation of the Cybermen in The Tenth Planet in 1966 was prompted by two American neuroscientists who argued that astronauts' bodies should be adapted to suit the conditions of space.
• The failure of Beagle 2 to land on Mars on Christmas Day 2003 influenced the loss of Guinevere One at the start of The Christmas Invasion.
• The many parallel universes that feature in Doctor Who, from Inferno to Rise of the Cybermen, are inspired by a reaction to the Schrodinger's Cat theory: that a new universe is created for each different outcome.
• The startling resemblance between Amelia Pond and the Twelfth Doctor and two characters from The Fires of Pompeii isn't simply due to the actors returning to the series: it might be grounded in science as well.
• Time Lords aren't the only beings able to regenerate - when the turritopsis dohrnii jellyfish gets ill, old, or faces danger, it can return to its childhood state as a polyp.

Full blurb and details at the Ebury website. Oh, and here's the back cover with a nice quote from Leela.

The Founding Fathers and The Locked Room

Those luminous persons at Big Finish have announced the contents of The First Doctor box-set out in June, what has some scribbling by me:

"Big Finish are delighted to name the four new stories being released in June in the Doctor Who - The First Doctor Companion Chronicles Box Set:

The Sleeping Blood by Martin Day

When the Doctor falls ill, Susan is forced to leave the safety of the TARDIS behind. Exploring a disused research centre in search of medical supplies, she becomes embroiled in the deadly plans of a terrorist holding an entire world to ransom – and the soldier sent to stop him.

The Unwinding World by Ian Potter

Office life is tough, the commute is a grind, nothing works quite as well as you’d like. Vicki seems to remember things being better once, before the little flat. It’s time she put some excitement back in her life. It’s just a shame the Doctor can’t help.

The Founding Fathers by Simon Guerrier

The TARDIS lands in Leicester Square in the summer of 1762. When the Doctor, Steven and Vicki find themselves locked out of the TARDIS, only one man can possibly help them. But the American, Benjamin Franklin, has problems of his own…

The Locked Room by Simon Guerrier

Steven Taylor left the Doctor and the TARDIS to become king of an alien world. But it’s now many years since he gave up the throne and went to live in a cell in the mountains, out of sight of his people. He’s not escaping his past – quite the opposite, in fact. As his granddaughter, Sida, is about to discover…

Doctor Who - The First Doctor Companion Chronicles Box Set is released in June on CD and Download, and until July 1st is at a pre-order price of £20 on CD and £15 on Download. It’s part of the epic and much-loved Doctor Who - The Companion Chronicles range from Big Finish, which can be Subscribed to for savings across buying the titles separately.

Bar the first four stories, all the Companion Chronicles are available on both CD and Download, and exclusive to the Big Finish site, a CD purchase will provide access to a Download in your account too!"

The Art of Doctor Who

Out this week in shops is the The Art of Doctor Who - the latest sumptuous special edition from Doctor Who Magazine, "celebrating six decades of design and illustration inspired by the series."

It's a beautiful, comprehensive thing, and I'm thrilled to have a couple of pieces in it.

For a short feature on Doctor Who animation, I got to speak to Steve Maher, who was responsible for the look of The Scream of the Shalka and The Infinite Quest, and the two animated episodes of The Invasion.

For a longer (but it could easily have been book length!) feature on Doctor Who comics since 2000, I got to speak to Lee Sullivan, Mike Collins, John Ross, Nick Roche, Pia Guerra, Adrian Salmon, Elena Casagrande and Alice X Zhang, as well as former DWM editor Clayton Hickman and current Titan Comics editor Andrew James. (There's also sage wisdom from Martin Geraghty, but he spoke to my comrades, not me.)

But I think my favourite bit is, without me asking, an episode of AAAGH! making it into the mag, with what I think might be Nervil and Mrs Tinkle's first appearance in DWM. 

Doctor Who and the very Hungry Snake

Out in shops today is Doctor Who Adventures #363, which features another daft comic strip by me - "The Very Hungry Snake".

"The Very Hungry Snake" - Doctor Who Adventures #363
Written by Simon Guerrier, art by John Ross,
colour by Alan Craddock

As ever, I'm delighted by the magnificent artwork by the magnificent John Ross - notching up his 1612th consecutive page of artwork for the comic strip since DWA began in April 2006. What an extraordinary achievement.

"That's a typical piece of fan nonsense..."

In shops now - The Essential Doctor Who: Master. Includes my interviews with Terrance Dicks, Richard Franklin and Katy Manning. I asked Terrance and Katy, on the basis of Missy, if the Master has always fancied the Doctor…

Full details at the official Doctor Who Magazine website.

Irregularity signing, Forbidden Planet this Saturday

JOIN JURASSIC LONDON AT FORBIDDEN PLANET FOR THE BEST IN CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY – taking place the London Megastore on Saturday 7th March from 1- 2pm!

During the Age of Reason, the world’s greatest minds named, measured and catalogued the world around them.

They brought order and discipline to the universe. Except where they didn’t. Irregularity collects fourteen original stories from extraordinary literary voices, each featuring someone — or something — that refused to obey the dictates of reason: Darwin’s other voyage, the secret names of spiders, the assassination of Isaac Newton and an utterly impossible book.

• Tiffani Angus • Rose Biggin • Richard Dunn • Simon Guerrier • Nick Harkaway • Roger Luckhurst • Adam Roberts • Claire North • Gary Northfield • Henrietta Rose-Innes • James Smythe • M. Suddain • E.J. Swift • Sophie Waring

Come and meet the authors of this marvellous collection, have a chat, grab yourself a signed and enjoy the company – this won’t be formal event, just a chance to find some fabulous fiction!

• Irregularity signing - event details on Facebook
• Irregularity signing - event details on Forbidden Planet's website

Bananas

The new issue of Doctor Who Adventures features a four-page comic strip written by me. In "Five A Day", the 12th Doctor and Clara battle giant bananas on the alien world Luna Schlosser*. Even by my usual standards, it is silly.

As ever, the art is by John Ross with colour by Alan Craddock, and the editor was Moray Laing. Issue #362 of DWA is in shops now.

* Luna Schlosser is, of course, also the name of Diane Keaton's character in the magnificent Sleeper (1973). It's just possible I was, ahem, inspired by one particular scene.

Four non-fiction books

"The people interested in the history of comic books are not the same as the people interested in the history of the polygraph. (And very few people in either group are also interested in the history of feminism.)"

Jill Lepore, The Secret History of Wonder Woman (2014), pp. 295-6.

The Secret History of Wonder Woman is extraordinary: a compelling, strange secret history of alternative sexuality and modern times. William Moulton Marston - under the pseudonym Charles Moulton - based the superhero he created on his wife and their girlfriend - the latter the niece of Margaret Sanger, the campaigner who popularised the term "birth control". There are reasons why Wonder Woman proclaims "Suffering Sapho!" and that she's so often tied up in chains...

Marston, who invented a "lie detector" based on a test of systolic blood pressure, which later led to the polygraph, was shrouded in falsehoods - about his private life, about who in his household wrote what, about his qualifications as a psychologist. There's lots on how his threesome contrived to build a myth around him, and how for all he extolled the versions of men submitting to dominant women, he rather had it the other way round.

The epilogue is especially interesting, placing the feminist reclamation of Wonder Woman in the early 1970s amid what else what happening in the feminist movement at the time. The examples Lepore cites of "trashing" seem like a modern phenomena.

I also remain haunted weeks after finishing Do No Harm, a memoir by brain surgeon Henry Marsh. Marsh recounts a number of different cases where he has got it right or wrong - the latter always with horrific consequences. Really this is a catalogue of the terrible awfulness that life brings to us, and of human efforts to get through it. Marsh is painfully honest about his own fears and weakness, but what haunts me are his perfect turns of phrase: that all surgeons are carry with them cemeteries of the patients they have wronged; that, when facing the angry parents of a young patient, love is selfish; that doctors forget patients and patients forget doctors if everything goes well, and it's only the tragedies that linger...

Marsh's anger at the management and cut-backs, and the effect he can see them having on people's lives, echoed Nick Davies' Hack Attack, his account of the hacking scandal that he originally broke in the Guardian. At the end, he rants against a system that has removed accountability from our political systems, where even the most terrible personal tragedy has become a commodity. Like Marsh, Davies is forthcoming about his own failings - how he missed connections or said the wrong things or jeopardised his whole case. He's also good in making his account of Leveson so much about human character.

And now I am 35 pages into H is for Hawk, which is currently collecting literary prizes all over town. It turns out to echo much of these other books - how we handle tragedy and injustice and anger, how we're losing the old world in exchange for something as yet unknown. I'm not quite sure what it's about yet - so far a memoir of loss, some personal history and falconry, and the works of TH White (I am also rereading The Once and Future King) - but there's this striking moment on the process of grief, gleaned from too many books.

"I read that after denial comes grief. Or anger. Or guilt. I remember worrying about which stage I was at. I wanted to taxonomise the process, order it, make it sensible. But there was no sense, and I didn't recognise any of these emotions at all."

Helen Macdonald, H is for Hawk (2014), p. 17.

Modern Man at the BFI

Modern Man, the short film I wrote, will play at the BFI on 21 February as part of the 8th BFI Future Film Festival. It's included in the short fiction selection in NFT1 at 1 pm.

The Future Film Festival promises to "provide opportunities to connect with the film industry, kick-start your career and develop new and existing skills with inspirational screenings, masterclasses, Q&As and workshops." So it's a bit gutting that I can't go due to other commitments. Bah.

Modern Man is the third film I've written to get screened at the BFI: Wizard played as part of the LOCO London Comedy Film Festival last year, and The Plotters was shortlisted for the Virgin Media Shorts Award 2012.

Sherlock Holmes and immortality

You can read my piece for the Lancet Psychiatry on the Museum of London's Sherlock Holmes exhibition (running until 12 April), which really explores the nature of Holmes fandom more generally.

I'm also thrilled to see that the BBC website has a clip from the newly discovered 1916 film of Sherlock Holmes starring William Gillette. The clip includes the moment that Holmes meets his nemesis, Professor Moriarty, with them saying "Bonjour" to one another - this version of the film was discovered in France.

Especially thrillingly, while the intertitles narrating the film refer to "Sherlock Holmes" (see, for example, at 01:09 in the clip), Moriarty either speaks with an accent - or a typo: