Review: Doctor Who: Talkback, Volume Two: The Seventies edited by Stephen James Walker

Trade paperback, 225 pages
Published 2006 (contents: 1977-2006)
Acquired August 2008
Read November 2016

Talkback: The Unofficial and Unauthorised Doctor Who Interview Book, Volume Two: The Seventies
edited by Stephen James Walker

There are definitely interviews here with some old standbys: Terrance Dicks (script editor, 1968-74), Jon Pertwee (Doctor Who, 1970-74), Barry Letts (producer, 1970-74), Tom Baker (Doctor Who, 1974-81), and Philip Hinchcliffe (producer, 1974-77). Each interview, however, manages to be informative and interesting: I enjoyed reading about Pertwee's appearance on This Is Your Life, for example, and the Tom Baker one is somehow able to have anecdotes I hadn't heard before.

But it's also good to hear from folks who weren't/aren't often interviewed, especially the trio of late 1970s script editors: Robert Holmes (1974-78), Anthony Read (1978-79), and Douglas Adams (1979-80). Holmes has gone on to be quite lauded as both a script editor and a writer, but he died in 1986, meaning few interviews with him exist. Anthony Read I can't recall ever reading anything about at all before. And obviously Douglas Adams is quite famous, but this interview was done back in 1978, before any story he'd script-edited had even gone out, and before Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy had gone further than a few episodes on the radio. All three provide great insight into the day-to-day script-writing of their era, which tended to lurch from crisis to crisis but produce excellence regardless. (Holmes, especially, was always rewriting failed scripts and producing greatness as a result.)

I was also surprisingly interested by the interviews with Pennant Roberts (who directed several serials from 1977 to 1985) and Peter Logan (visual effects on various serials from 1977 to 1982). Roberts's provides a detailed look into the making of The Sun Makers and The Pirate Planet in particular, explaining how he makes the production choices he makes, while Logan's is a detailed dissection of the effects of Destiny of the Daleks. One learns where to find a Plutonian dystopia in Bristol, why the flying spanner in Pirate Planet looks rubbish but couldn't look otherwise, and how Dalek props were loaned out to basically anyone between episodes and ended up in terrible shape as a result. The Roberts interview, especially, is a candid look into the decisions that result in what you see on screen. I don't rate Roberts very highly as a director, but he was clearly a thoughtful guy.

A solid collection of interesting anecdotes. Who knew that Jon Pertwee encouraged the creation of a rival Doctor Who fan club because he felt the official one too focused on Patrick Troughton? Or that Tom Baker personally paid for the postage of the Doctor Who Fan Club when the BBC refused to do so anymore!