The Doctors:The Peter Davison Years – Behind the Scenes

Director: Keith Barnfather

Starring: Nicholas Briggs, Robert Dick, Aaron Gregson, Francis Price, Stephen Gallagher, Barbara Clegg, Peter Grimwade, Graeme Harper, Margot Hayhoe, Dick Mills 

Country: UK

Running Time: 316 Min 

Year: 2022

BBFC Certificate: E

Presented by Nicolas Briggs and Robert Dick, welcome to this double-disc concentration of Whovian knowledge. This Reeltime Pictures production opens with interviews from Stephen Gallagher (Writer), Barbara Clegg (Writer), and Peter Grimwade (Writer/Director). Disc two contains a further chunk of enlightenment from Graeme Harper (Director), Margot Hayhoe (Production Manager), and finally, Dick Mills (Special Sound)illuminates us with his auditory tales.

The voice of the Daleks, Nicolas Briggs opens the interviews by chatting with Stephen Gallagher in an exceptionally woody hotel in Nottingham. Here Stephen gives an in-depth interview, providing an insight into his family life. As an only child, he was an early reader, progressing on to study at Hull University. This was a path that guided him towards Doctor Who greatness.

His career advice is to try to get into a cutting room, from there you can go in any direction. This is exactly how he started before moving on to Granada Television. He stayed there for the next five years and jumped from BBC Radio 4 onto Doctor Who. From this point onwards he was officially a professional writer. 

Stephen’s work includes Warriors Gate, a piece of work, he feels came out exactly as expected. He is also responsible for E-Space which was to become The Void and Terminus. He further expands our knowledge of this classic series, letting us know that he wrote for Tom Baker and Peter Davison. He talks of his time with Tom with great respect for Tom’s abilities. He discusses how Tom could make a cheese sandwich seem the most terrifying thing in the universe. Stephen covers the writing of his books; Chimera, Follower, Valley of Lights, Oktober, Down River, and The Boat House. The conversation meanders onto the differences between writing and directing. Stephen concludes that he has spent his life being driven by a sense of dissatisfaction, but all in all, he is happy with his lot.

Barbara Clegg navigates through the next section of disc one aided by Doctor Who fans Aaron Gregson and Francis Price backed up by her trusty box of memories. Barbara always wanted to go into acting, however, she made sure that she went to Oxford as a backup plan. The three pick their way through Barbara’s memorabilia collection and Barbara discusses much of her career outside Doctor Who. 

When Barbara comes to talk about her time with Peter Davison she is complimentary. She is however not so complimentary about everyone that she worked with. She is also keen to make it clear that she prefers the old style of Doctor Who over newer series. This section of the interviews is further supported by appearances from David Richardson and Marc Platt with readings by Alistair Lock. The interview comes to a close with Barbara letting us know that at eighty-two she is content, her main wish being that her children enjoy life.

Nicolas Briggs conducts the final interview on this disc with Peter Grimwade at his fascinating home. Peter is delighted to discuss his new book Robot (Published in 1987)and the reasons a writer should not abandon control of his story to the director. This is important as it is unlikely that a director can see a story in the same way as the writer. To produce a satisfactory outcome, Peter explains that stage direction can sometimes be required by the writer. Peter goes on to recount his amusing tales of directional misunderstandings. 

Nicolas is interested to know where Peter works while he is writing and he is only too happy to show him, proudly showing off his word processor. We are now in his writing den where Peter extols the virtues of his word processor for its ease of use when refining scripts. Peter wraps up the interview by explaining that he would like to be remembered for the stories that he has written. More than anything he enjoys signing books for people who have particularly appreciated them.

Pressing forward into the deepest recesses of disc two, we get the chance to meet director Graeme Harper. He is happy to explain that he did indeed set out to make a difference. He uses the style of other directors that he admires and molds them into his way of doing things. At twenty-one he applied to the BBC, and got a job as a runner, from there he moved into making television programmes. Graeme talks about his time on The Caves of Androzani, the adventure marking Peter Davison’s final appearance as The Doctor. He says it was well written, and that he was given a gift. Which was further boosted by the brilliant cast he was given to work with. He discusses the lack of budget and time on Doctor Who. However, he states that if the technicians are on board and enthused by energy, great achievements are possible.

The pair move on to discuss Revelation of the Daleks which was the final serial of the 22nd season of Doctor Who and was broadcast in 1985. Graeme thinks this story is a particularly complicated one and needs to be watched several times to be understood. Graeme worked with both Peter Davison and Colin Baker, speaking fondly of both he thinks they were great fun to work with.

He has always wanted to make films, he talks about The Dark Dimension, for which he helped cast the crew and major roles. This was supposed to be a thirteenth anniversary Doctor Who to be released for video only. At last, he was going to make the film that he always wanted to make. For reasons unknown, this show was slowly and quietly given the elbow and stopped. He has his own opinions as to what happened, but it is by no means clear what caused the film’s demise. Nicolas Briggs asks, “How do you see the future for yourself”? Graeme replies “Movies”, Graeme is still keen to make his movie. At the time of this interview, he was once more involved with the production of a film. 

Moving on, Graeme tells the story of the first time he worked with Peter Davison on set. He managed to blind Peter with sand, severely depleting his brownie points stash. Graeme explains that he has been involved with many different forms of entertainment, including East Enders. He finishes by informing us, that if he could do action thrillers all the time, with a little bit of comedy, he would be very happy as he’s still full of plenty of energy.

In the penultimate interview Robert Dick chats with Margot Hayhoe, she is delighted to discuss Doctor Who and her time outside the series. She began by trailing Lovett Bickford as assistant floor manager on The War Machines with William Hartnell. One of her jobs was to make sure no one sat in William’s seat, As assistant floor manager Margot had to make sure all the props were available in the right place at the right time and all the furniture was in the right position. On location, the assistant floor manager was even asked to stop traffic. People in London would become irritated that films were being made while they were trying to get to work, however, if they went to a small village people were much more welcoming. She worked with Patrick Troughton, he was her favourite Doctor as he was a charming and genuine person. She was involved with filming during the transition from black and white to colour. This meant that the varied aspects and methods of filming had to be taken into account and considered differently.

Among Margot’s stories is the tale of a motorcycle rider becoming unseated whilst his bike continued on its own. It took out the film crew, whilst on its rampage, however, the first thing they checked was if the camera was undamaged. Along with many other tales, she talks with great fondness about her time working on The Day of the Triffids. Many of the scenes had to be in empty streets and the team had to keep Central London clear. Much to the amusement of some and the displeasure of other members of the general public.

Margot further discusses filming Doctor Who, including the making of Logopolis, mentioning she was on set for Tom Baker’s last lines. She worked with Jon Pertwee too, describing him as flamboyant and funny but wanted to play Doctor Who seriously. Margot finishes off the interview by explaining that morale became poor at the BBC. She managed to see her figures and jumped at the chance of early retirement and in so doing she concluded her time working on Doctor Who.

To finish this fine selection of interviews, Nicolas Briggs talks to Dick Mills, apparently the person with the most credits on Doctor Who. We go right back to the beginning and find out that Dick was born in 1936 and hails from Kent. He saw an advert for technical assistants at the BBC. The first department Dick joined was The London Recording Unit on the radio side of the BBC. Then he noticed a request for help at Maida Vale Radiophonic Workshop. They were doing Quatermass and the Pit when Dick arrived at the workshop. He had managed to join this new department only a few months after its creation, so no one was sure what the future would bring.

The Doctor Who signature tune came about at this time, Ron Grainer wrote the tune and immediately left for a holiday in Portugal. The Radiophonic Workshop was left to put the signature tune together with pre-recorded sounds. They did a marvellous job, producing one of the most iconic theme tunes of all time. Dick moved more into visual and sound integration and he was asked if he would like to work on Doctor Who. 

Dick continues the conversation with tales of his time working on the show. Including the mysterious Option Seven Button, which he used to improve the sound quality of his special effects. We find out that the Radiophonic Workshop ran into trouble at its peak. Dick explains that when synthesisers and computers came in, people at home started creating their own tapes and sending them to the BBC. These recordings would get used by the BBC, Dick felt the quality of music in Doctor Who suffered at this point.

This final interview concludes the double-disc set as we find out what Dick will be doing during retirement. Being an avid fish keeper, he has written about eighteen fish-keeping books and will continue to develop this interest. For further entertainment, he runs a website for The National Fish Keeping Body and is kept busy video editing for the site. Life is good, he has five grandchildren and enjoys holidaying and visiting family. Dick wraps things up by expressing his fondness for the BBC and his time on Doctor Who.

This latest double disc whopper is for the Doctor Who aficionado wishing to delve deeply into every aspect of the Whoniverse. These Interviews were recorded quite a few years ago and are an important library of information that should be saved for prosperity. The two discs are jammed with a rich selection of interviews covering a wide range of areas within the production of Doctor Who. Collected and stored in one place to provide a serious nostalgia overload.

The Doctors: The Peter Davison Years – Behind the Scenes is available from July 2022 on DVD. Released by Reeltime Pictures, it’s nicely produced with fine picture and sound quality, made especially for the discerning fanatic.