Member-only story
Regenerating Doctor Who?
My archival interviews with, 7th Doctor Sylvester McCoy, Producer John Nathan-Turner and Director Graeme Harper
Thirty years ago, the Doctor was going through a very dark time… It seemed that it was not the Daleks, the Cybermen nor the Master who proved to be the Doctor’s nemesis, but Jonathan Powell, aka ‘The Controller’ (of BBC1). The Doctor attempted to escape their fate through the big screen with the 1996 movie, starring Paul McGann. Then all went quiet…
It was 28 years ago, in 1998, that I conducted the following interviews with three key players who had witnessed the show’s demise, and also provided a glimmer of hope that it may one day return. Little did I know back then, that it would not happen until Julie Gardner, Head of Drama at BBC Wales, joined forces with Russell T Davies to reboot Doctor Who… in 2005.
That was a hiatus of 16 years, meaning that a whole generation of British children had been denied the experience of growing up with ‘their Doctor’ to provide hope and inspiration.
Now, during another hiatus, after cutting ties with Disney, and with rife speculation surrounding the impending reboot, it seems an ideal opportunity to re-publish these historic interviews, which were previously printed on paper in The 5 Times issue 16. So…
