Who Birthday: Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams is arguably the most famous writer to have ever been associated with Doctor Who thanks to the massive success of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. His time on the show was relatively brief, spanning just a couple of years, but he nonetheless made an indelible mark on the history of Doctor Who.

Adams studied English Literature at St John’s College, Cambridge in the early seventies, where he was eventually accepted into the famous Cambridge Footlights at the second attempt in 1973. He contributed to a number of comedy revue shows and after leaving university formed a writing relationship with Monty Python’s Graham Chapman. Though this led to him making occasional contributions to Python the relationship ultimately was unsuccessful with the majority of their projects never seeing the light of day. This led to a lengthy fallow period for Adams with only occasional contributions to various BBC radio shows.

Things changed for Adams when the BBC commissioned the first radio series of his most famous work The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. The series first aired in 1978 and following it’s success he was given a position as a radio producer for the BBC. He stayed for just six months before he was offered the script editing job on Doctor Who. The second series of the radio show was broadcast in 1980 and the first novels in the five-part ‘trilogy’ were also published in 1979 and 1980 respectively.

Adams was first commissioned to write for Doctor Who after submitting the then unmade original script of Hitchhikers to the makers of the show. A fan of the show from childhood, he was asked to write the second part of the 1978 ‘Key to Time’ series. The Pirate Planet is unmistakably Adams, filled with his own unique sense of humour and featuring a number of larger than life characters, it also recycles a number of lines from his Hitchhikers script, which at that stage he was unaware would ever be produced.

On the back of the success of his script and his clear love for the show he was recommended by outgoing script editor Anthony Read as a potential successor, despite his relative inexperience. After such a long period of inactivity Adams jumped at the chance of regular work and he accepted the role of script editor for season 17. Very quickly after accepting the position however, Hitchhikers became an incredible success and Adams found himself trying to combine his Doctor Who duties with writing radio, novel and the TV versions of his own creation. Given Adams’ famously chaotic and at times seemingly reluctant approach to writing it isn’t surprising that he felt only able to stay with Doctor Who for one series. Despite the pressure he suddenly found himself under little elements of Adams’ style are evident throughout the five completed episodes of his tenure. Undoubtedly his greatest contribution to the show though came when script problems forced him to pen the second serial of the season himself. City of Death is a remarkable piece of writing, often topping polls of the best Doctor Who serials ever and reportedly shown to the new shows creators by Russell T. Davies as an example of how he wanted the series to move forward. The script is full of wit and charm and the dialogue is almost endlessly quotable. While it benefits from a location shoot in Paris and a fine cast on top form it is Adam’s script which is the star performer. Sadly Adams’ final contribution to Doctor Who, Shada was never completed due to strikes at the BBC, but the sections that were made indicate another wonderful piece of work.

As well as his work on the wonderful Hitchhikers Guide series which would make Adams a millionaire he also produced the fantastic The Meaning of Liff book alongside John Lloyd (the book was recently the subject of a lovely radio4 show on its 30th anniversary) and The Dirk Gently novels, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, which again exhibited Adams’ talent for recycling by using elements of his Shada script. The Dirk Gently stories have also subsequently been turned into both radio and television series by the BBC. Sadly Adams died tragically early in 2001 aged just 49 robbing us of one of British comedies greatest writers. It’s testament to his huge talent that he is still held in such high esteem by both his contemporaries and the public at large. Today would have been his 61st birthday.

Additional birthday mentions should go to John Barrowman, Alex Kingston and director Graeme Harper. So many birthdays today, so little time to write!

 

 

 

Who Birthday: Gerry Davis

As script editor between 1966-67 the contribution that Gerry Davis made to Doctor Who shouldn’t be understated. Beginning with the final episode of the William Hartnell serial The Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Eve and lasting until the third episode of the Patrick Troughton serial The Evil of the Daleks, his tenure in the role covered arguably the biggest change in the shows history, with the first recasting of the main actor and his contribution to this decision alone makes him a key figure in creating the formula for the show, which has allowed it to last into its 50th year.

Davis was born in 1930 and spent much of the early part of his writing career in Canada and Italy, whilst also contributing an episode of Coronation Street in 1960. However, his big break came in 1965 when he was asked to take on the role of a script editor at the BBC, being given the position on Doctor Who the following year. It was a turbulent time in the shows history, with a lead actor in failing health, viewing figures starting to dip and his predecessor as script editor and the previous producer resigning in frustration over production difficulties. Davis’ first major contribution to the show came when he was forced into some hasty re-writes of the script for The Celestial Toymaker, originally a Brian Hayles script that had undergone various different changes from both Donald Tosh, Davis’ predecessor and former producer John Wiles. Davis’ changes included a change in emphasis to the story, away from the Doctor and towards the companions and was brought about chiefly to save money after the previous serial had overspent, a common problem for the series over the years.

However, Davis’ influence over the show wouldn’t really be felt until later in the third season, when the shows commissioned by the previous producer and script editor had played out and he could fully stamp his own vision on the show. Both he and new producer Innes Lloyd were against the idea of writing any more historical adventures. They had originally considered dropping the Donald Cotton script for The Gunfighters, but eventually relented and the show was made. It would go on to record the lowest ratings of any Doctor Who serial to date (don’t let that put you off, it’s great, watch it!) and only strengthened their resolve to create more science based stories. This change in emphasis was signified just two stories later with the Ian Stuart Black penned serial The War Machines. It represented the new men’s desire to bring Doctor Who to more contemporary settings and was also the first story to be influenced by the show’s new scientific adviser, Kit Peddler, who Davis had appointed as part of his desire to give the show a more genuine scientific base.

The biggest shift in the show would clearly be at the beginning of the following season when producer Lloyd managed to persuade BBC that it was time for Hartnell to leave the show. His health was continuing to deteriorate and although he had enjoyed a far greater working relationship with Lloyd and Davis than with their predecessors it was still felt that a change was required. Hartnell’s final story was The Tenth Planet, co-written by Pedler and Davis himself. It was Davis’ idea that the Doctor should be able to die and return with a new body (the term regeneration was yet to be used), an idea that ultimately secured the short-term future of the show. The necessity of such an idea was thrown into sharp focus, when Davis had to hastily re-write episode 3 of the serial as Hartnell fell ill with bronchitis.

The Tenth Planet also saw the creation of one of the most popular and famous monsters in the show’s history, the cybermen. In partnership with Peddler, Davis fleshed out his scientific advisor’s original idea, producing one of the most iconic creations in Doctor Who, monsters that continue to entertain and scare in equal measure since the show was rebooted. The Cybermen would appear once more during Davis’ tenure, in the Peddler story The Moonbase, gaining the highest viewing figures of any Troughton serial.

Davis continued in his role for all but the final four episodes of Troughton’s first season as the Doctor. Overseeing an improvement in both viewing figures and audience appreciation ratings. The move towards more scientifically based stories continued although the series did include one pure historical, The Highlanders, ironically almost entirely written by Davis, after original writer Elwyn Jones had been unable to complete the project. His vision of a Doctor Who with a stronger science fiction element and more contemporary and future set stories would be carried on and developed for the rest of the sixties by concurrent producers and script editors. When Innes Lloyd left his role as producer, Davis was offered the chance to replace him, but instead made the decision to concentrate on his writing career, also leaving his role with Doctor Who mid-way through the final serial of season four, The Evil of the Daleks.

Davis continued his writing partnership with Peddler, including contributing the first serial of season five of Doctor Who, the iconic Tomb of the Cybermen. With Peddler, he would go on to create the BBC sci-fi drama Doomwatch, which also included regular Who contributors Terence Dudley, Louis Marks and Brian Hayles amongst it’s writers. Davis made a brief return to Who in 1975, producing the original scripts for the Tom Baker story Revenge of the Cybermen, though it was largely re-written by Robert Holmes.

In 1989 Davis was reported to have made an unsuccessful attempt alongside Terry Nation to gain the rights for Doctor Who with the plan to produce a new series of the show predominantly aimed at the American market. Davis sadly died in 1991 (he would have been 83 today) before he could see Doctor Who revived on screen and the cybermen he helped create return to terrorise a new generation of young Who fans, but his name on the credits is just a small indication of the huge contribution he made to not only the show’s history, but it’s enduring appeal.