Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Scott Handcock Interview - Big Finish, TV & Targets

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Scott Handcock Interview - Big Finish, TV & Targets · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:33
  Hamster with a Blump Pen knife for doing quicker Welcome back
• 0:37
  to a Hamster with a Blump Pen Knife, the Doctor Who Commentary
• 0:41
  podcast. But I am not doing a commentary
• 0:43
  podcast today. I am extremely happy to
• 0:46
  introduce a man whose work I have been listening to, watching
• 0:52
  and now reading for. I don't want to terrify him, but
• 0:55
  quite some time. Mr. Scott Hancock.
• 0:59
  Hello Scott. Hello.
• 1:00
  How are you doing today? Very well it it feels like
• 1:04
  participating in your own eulogy in a way, just.
• 1:08
  Wait till it goes out. Yeah, that's it.
• 1:10
  That'll be the death of it. No, Scott, I've got a a load of
• 1:15
  tough questions to ask about your career and you already look
• 1:18
  terrified at answering them. It's coming to remember it.
• 1:21
  It's, it's, I don't think I've been doing this for as long as I
• 1:25
  have. And it's the slow realisation
• 1:29
  that I've now been working in the industry for half my life
• 1:35
  and I still feel like I'm in my 20s and I'm not.
• 1:40
  Are you? Not OK.
• 1:41
  All right. You could have fooled me.
• 1:42
  What's the secret? I think just not having time to
• 1:47
  have a personal life, clearly just yeah.
• 1:51
  Well, look, Audios is, I think where you started with Doctor
• 1:57
  Who. Correct me if I'm wrong.
• 2:00
  So let's go right back to the start of the journey and tell
• 2:03
  me, what was your very first brush with Doctor Who
• 2:05
  professionally? Well, I think we can agree it
• 2:08
  was 2006, which a couple of things kind of overlap.
• 2:16
  So in 2006, I started as a runner on Doctor Who
• 2:20
  Confidential. So that was series 3 of the
• 2:22
  television series. So I just landed in Cardiff in
• 2:25
  November 2006 with David Framer and Daleks, which was amazing.
• 2:31
  But actually you've just reminded me that I'd I'd done a
• 2:34
  Bernie Summerfield script for Big Finish must the Oracle of
• 2:40
  Delphi. That's it.
• 2:44
  And that was, yeah, that, I mean, that would have been
• 2:48
  theoretically before that because obviously it came out
• 2:51
  around was it, was it, Someone will correct me, but I think it
• 2:54
  was maybe September or it was definitely autumn 2006.
• 3:01
  I've done a couple of Dark Shadows around then as well.
• 3:03
  But I think Bernie Summerfield came first because there was a
• 3:07
  point in 2004. I actually, I remember this
• 3:10
  because I moved house recently and I found the letters and I
• 3:12
  think I posted them on Instagram.
• 3:17
  I found a very sweet rejection letter from Ian Farrington from
• 3:21
  when they opened up the Doctor Who slush pile.
• 3:23
  Because myself and the lovely friend of mine, Dan Hogarth, who
• 3:27
  used to do a lot of Big Finish acting, we worked together on a
• 3:30
  few treatments and you know, pitched them to Big Finish.
• 3:34
  I think, I think we did 3 together and maybe a couple
• 3:38
  individually. And one of my individual ones
• 3:40
  was called the, yeah, it was called the Shades of Pluto.
• 3:44
  It was a Doctor Who story with Socrates and everything like
• 3:46
  that. And Gary Russell turned around
• 3:50
  and went, oh, like the idea for this, but not really for Doctor
• 3:53
  Who. And then Simon Guria was working
• 3:56
  on the Bernie Summerfield range. And I think Gary discussed it
• 3:59
  with Simon, who came to me and went, well, let's do this as a
• 4:02
  Benny. And so, yeah, that would have
• 4:05
  been my first sort of brush with the universe.
• 4:11
  So my first question to you on the back of that, because I
• 4:14
  didn't know you were a runner in Series 3 of Doctor, what on
• 4:17
  earth was that like? Well, it was Doctor Who
• 4:22
  confidential. So it's sort of it's, it's that
• 4:26
  you're sort of working behind the scenes of the behind the
• 4:29
  scenes. And I mean, he was mad joining
• 4:32
  that time. I, I should say, I sort of
• 4:34
  joined when they were doing, there was a big Christmas
• 4:37
  special the Doctor Confidential called Music and Monsters, which
• 4:40
  focused on the first of those sort of you, you, you call it
• 4:45
  the prom now. But they did a musical sort of
• 4:48
  concert at the Wales Millennium Centre.
• 4:51
  And for some reason the Christmas special for
• 4:54
  Confidential was being edited in London.
• 4:56
  So they needed someone to literally just ferry their tapes
• 5:00
  back and forth and I was basically just a mule for Digi
• 5:05
  Beta tapes for four weeks. It was a four week contract.
• 5:08
  I'd moved to Cardiff again, Gary Russell had been a big finish
• 5:13
  and he moved to BBC Wales and when they said look, we need
• 5:15
  someone to just step in, he knew I just graduated.
• 5:19
  I didn't have anything substantial going on in
• 5:22
  Birmingham. So he just said look, I've got a
• 5:24
  spare room crash there. You know, it could lead to
• 5:27
  something. And I think, I think I've lived
• 5:32
  my life in terms of improv, always going yes and rather than
• 5:35
  no, but so I'll always go, yeah, I'll do that.
• 5:37
  And then, you know, it's worked out quite well over the years.
• 5:40
  But yeah, I, I think while I was there, I get quite bored.
• 5:44
  So I was just going, what else can I do?
• 5:45
  What else can I do? And then over those four weeks
• 5:48
  they, they seem to realise I could do a bit more and so
• 5:52
  extended me and I, I ended up on Confidential, I think for
• 5:55
  another two years and then moved on to Sarah Jane Ventures and
• 6:00
  everything like that. But it was mad at that time
• 6:02
  because even that little office and department doing
• 6:06
  confidential were also doing totally Doctor Who, the infinite
• 6:12
  quest animation, tortured, Declassified.
• 6:16
  You know, there was that whole industry of not just Doctor Who
• 6:19
  and the spin offs, but even the spin offs behind the scenes
• 6:22
  shows and their spin offs and everything like that.
• 6:24
  So it was. You learned a lot very quickly.
• 6:28
  I I mean series 3 and fours got allowed not 2 bad years.
• 6:33
  Is it to be working on Doctor Who Confidential?
• 6:35
  It was very exciting, but it was.
• 6:39
  Well, what happened that Big Finish then?
• 6:40
  So obviously you did that first script.
• 6:42
  Now, I always imagine, because I know I know Gary fairly well, I
• 6:46
  don't always imagine the two of you actually work together
• 6:49
  creatively a lot. But then if he was out of Big
• 6:52
  Finish and you were sort of starting, then what happened
• 6:57
  next? Oh, in terms of in terms of Big
• 7:01
  Finish, yeah. What I did was Gary, Gary still
• 7:09
  took on a few Big Finish projects that he was invested
• 7:14
  and interested in. So, you know, he'd always been
• 7:17
  very, you know, a huge advocate for the Gallifrey series.
• 7:21
  And so while he was doing his work at BBC Wales, he had
• 7:24
  special dispensation to keep doing Gallifrey with Big Finish.
• 7:28
  And he would sort of, he sort of trained me up.
• 7:34
  He said, look, if you if you've got an interest in audio, I
• 7:37
  could have a hand drawing up schedules, maybe script editing,
• 7:41
  stuff like that. So while we were in Cardiff, it
• 7:44
  was quite useful because we could meet up and overlap and
• 7:46
  chat and do all of that. And I'd go to studio.
• 7:50
  I think Iris wild time as well. That's how I first met Katie,
• 7:54
  Katie Manning. But he was directing those and
• 7:58
  said, look, come along, you can help out, you know, just run the
• 8:01
  studio. So I actually spent a few years
• 8:04
  on and off watching him in studio and how he, you know, ran
• 8:08
  a green room, how he ran studio days, how he directed actors,
• 8:15
  you know, how he cast everything like that.
• 8:17
  He he'd asked me to help out, issuing contracts to agents and
• 8:20
  everything. So I got quite a really, you
• 8:22
  know, good foundation in how a production operated at Big
• 8:27
  Finish. And then it was around 2012 when
• 8:36
  the, the, the first thing I, I sort of did and, and sort of was
• 8:39
  mine, a Big Finish was a, a Bernie Summerfield sort of
• 8:46
  anniversary special, but also it was a charity special.
• 8:49
  We were raising money for charity called Invest in Me,
• 8:54
  which was a charity very close to Jacqueline Rayner's heart.
• 8:58
  And obviously she has very strong links to Benny.
• 9:01
  And it was lovely actually, because it, it just meant I got
• 9:05
  to reach out to lots of writers and sound designers and
• 9:07
  composers and actors and say, look, we're doing this, do you
• 9:10
  want to be involved? And then it became a sort of
• 9:12
  jigsaw puzzle of going right, which directors are going to
• 9:15
  come in, which scenes are they going to do and which actors do
• 9:18
  I need and all of that. And then I think I wrote this
• 9:21
  very loose framework with just Lisa Bauman and and Nicholas
• 9:26
  Briggs to just sort of unify this mad story.
• 9:31
  And yeah, that that was sort of my first big project.
• 9:35
  And around the same time, I, I, we, we'd done a Bernie
• 9:40
  Summerfield episode called Shades of Grey, which, yeah,
• 9:50
  yeah, everyone calls it a backdoor pilot for Dorian, but
• 9:52
  it kind of wasn't. I mean, the, the The Confessions
• 9:57
  of Dorian Gray series, which I'm sure we might talk about later,
• 10:01
  had been floating in my head. But again, Gary's the Bernice
• 10:05
  Ranger just went well, you know, he, he was producer of it and he
• 10:09
  sort of went well. I, I love that idea for a
• 10:11
  series. Is there something we could do
• 10:12
  with Benny, not as a back door pilot, but just in his own
• 10:15
  right. So I pitched something and look,
• 10:20
  looking back, it's not my favorite thing.
• 10:22
  The potential was there, though, right immediately for Dorian.
• 10:26
  Yeah, but it was nice to do something couched in the the
• 10:29
  Beni world as well, because there was Lisa there and Aisha
• 10:33
  Antoine and David Ames and people I knew.
• 10:36
  So it felt quite comfortable. And Alex Vlahos as well.
• 10:39
  It was sort of first time working with him properly.
• 10:43
  And yeah, so it's interesting that one actually, I, I was my
• 10:47
  first, I directed, even though it came out after the second box
• 10:53
  set where I technically had my first directing.
• 10:57
  It's all very wibbly wobbly, all of that.
• 10:59
  But yeah, that's sort of how the Big Finish journey then
• 11:02
  propelled into producing and directing.
• 11:05
  I'm going to be a little bit sycophantic now, so forgive me,
• 11:08
  all right, but. I mean, I'm glad no one could
• 11:11
  see my face. I've got the proof out there
• 11:12
  because I have a website called Doco Reviews where I reviewed
• 11:15
  the basically every single Big Finish release that was coming
• 11:18
  out for from the beginning to like about 3 years ago.
• 11:23
  There's just too many now. I can't keep up anymore.
• 11:25
  I can't three years ago. I can't keep up.
• 11:28
  Honestly, I need a second mortgage and I always considered
• 11:33
  seeing your name this app as the director of a piece as like a
• 11:38
  dog sound like I knew it was going to be a great story.
• 11:41
  Kind of you. Thank.
• 11:43
  You and then that sort of moved into I knew the ranges that you
• 11:47
  were like the War master range, like Dorian Grey, Torchwood, you
• 11:53
  know, the stuff that you were doing there.
• 11:55
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I just knew, OK, right.
• 11:57
  If I'm not impressed anywhere else, I'm going to love those
• 11:59
  things because you know you're good.
• 12:03
  Oh well, thank you. So OK, that's that's all the
• 12:06
  compliments over with now. I can relax What?
• 12:10
  Comes what comes to actually bringing an entire spin off
• 12:14
  range into being like, that's so big undertaking.
• 12:18
  Oh, what? What, what?
• 12:21
  Which one syllables there? Yeah, what, which ones are we?
• 12:24
  Sort of. Well.
• 12:25
  I mean from conception to execution, Dorian was entirely
• 12:30
  yours, wasn't it? Yes, Dorian, I sort of had the
• 12:34
  idea around 2010 and I found again going through documents, I
• 12:44
  found an interesting document. I weirdly pitched the series to
• 12:52
  Cosmic Hobo, who are now Battle Gap because they were doing the
• 12:55
  scarifies at the time. And I went, oh, this could be an
• 12:57
  interesting thing. And I pitched 3 hour long
• 13:01
  stories to them in that sort of format, one of which was called
• 13:05
  the Confessions of Dorian Grey, I think.
• 13:08
  I think we released that story in as an audio book in the The
• 13:12
  Lost Confessions. But then there was another one I
• 13:16
  think we called The Adventures of Dorian Grey.
• 13:18
  And then there was another one, I can't remember, but it was
• 13:21
  sort of three very distinct hour long things.
• 13:24
  And then it just sort of SAT and floated.
• 13:26
  And then I think I just pitched it to Big Finish and went, look,
• 13:30
  I can make it really cheaply. I sort of undercut myself
• 13:35
  horrifically and just went, I just want to make this.
• 13:38
  We can do, you know, we'll make the most of our time in studio.
• 13:43
  We'll find somewhere in Cardiff nice and cheap.
• 13:46
  It was, Yeah, it was. It was an interesting studio.
• 13:50
  How quickly did they shake your hands?
• 13:53
  Not very quickly. At all.
• 13:54
  Because, you know, it's a business venture and but that's
• 13:58
  one of the reasons we went download only because there was
• 14:02
  no guarantee. Obviously there'd be demand for
• 14:05
  a physical product and obviously this was what, 15 years ago.
• 14:12
  So yeah, it was sort of it was a Safeway for them to test the
• 14:21
  waters and see if there was an audience.
• 14:22
  And what was remarkable was it found an audience very quickly
• 14:26
  and it found an audience of non Doctor Who fans, which actually
• 14:29
  looking back, it was sort of one of the first ranges or original
• 14:35
  ranges. Certainly that wasn't connected
• 14:37
  to Doctor Who because obviously there was stuff like Saffron
• 14:39
  Steel and Tomorrow People, but it's sort of, I think made Big
• 14:43
  Finish go, oh, we can do more original things and maybe we
• 14:47
  could branch out into Shakespeare here and there or,
• 14:50
  you know, different bits. I remember approaching Dorian
• 14:55
  and I was like, why? You know, I'm the typical Doctor
• 14:59
  Who fan, OK. And I was approaching it, going,
• 15:02
  what on earth do I want to listen to that?
• 15:04
  I thought, no, no, Scott Hancock's if I was right, I'm
• 15:07
  going to do it. I'm going to, I'm going to
• 15:08
  listen to 1 Man, It was so good. Alex was so great in that role.
• 15:13
  And it was like Doctor Who in that it could be set in
• 15:16
  different times and things like that.
• 15:18
  So there was there was creative freedom within the format, but
• 15:21
  it was tonally so unlike Doctor Who.
• 15:24
  And that was the ultimate refreshment, I think at the
• 15:27
  time. It was also nice to do something
• 15:30
  that was sort of within people's, I suppose, price
• 15:33
  bracket in that, you know, each episode was 299, which was the
• 15:37
  equivalent of a cup of coffee. So, you know, it was sort of pro
• 15:41
  rata with how much a double disc would cost.
• 15:43
  But it meant people weren't committed if they, you know,
• 15:46
  they could test particular episodes out if they did or
• 15:49
  didn't like it. Yeah, no, I'm, I'm sort of quite
• 15:54
  glad it worked. And it ran and ran, didn't it?
• 15:57
  I mean, how many, how many series did that run to in the
• 15:59
  end? We did five, yeah, we did 5 full
• 16:03
  series up until 2016, at which point I think Alex and I both
• 16:07
  went. I remember we were recording
• 16:10
  Series 4 and we were in the little core child at the Moat
• 16:14
  Studios and we both sort of looked at each other and went, I
• 16:17
  think we're done. And so we agreed the next one
• 16:20
  would be our last hurrah. And then we've come back a
• 16:24
  couple of times because of COVID or an anniversary or if we can
• 16:29
  find a reason to do something. We're never against it, but
• 16:35
  yeah, we don't want to just come back and feel like we're
• 16:38
  churning it out again. So we still talk about that, you
• 16:42
  know, I think there's lots of creatives in God's everywhere,
• 16:46
  you know, where people are creative, but don't come to that
• 16:49
  conclusion. So Bravos, who?
• 16:51
  So although I wanted more so how dare you?
• 16:54
  Well. Alex and I still talk about it
• 16:56
  and occasionally I would just sort of go, oh, you know, be
• 16:59
  lovely to work together again. You think of other things you
• 17:01
  can do and occasionally you'll just have a little Colonel of an
• 17:07
  idea and go, oh God, if OK, would you be up for more Dorian
• 17:12
  if you know? We did, which is why we did the
• 17:16
  anniversary story and the audio books and the War Master story
• 17:20
  with Dorian. And I can't lie, there's an idea
• 17:23
  in my head at the moment which I'm just going can I find a
• 17:28
  reason to do it? Well, get it written.
• 17:30
  Yes, please. It's also, you know, down to Big
• 17:34
  Finish as well as me and Alex. But it's funny, he doesn't leave
• 17:37
  you as a character. He does sort of stick in your
• 17:40
  head. Yeah, enchanting.
• 17:42
  I think I was a little bit in love, if I'm honest.
• 17:46
  Sorry, Alex, I hope you're not listening to this, but the so
• 17:49
  that that was a long side though.
• 17:51
  I or before the other things, right, You know, then came.
• 17:54
  Yeah, there'll be lots of Doctor Who came.
• 17:56
  This going why we talk about Dorian Graham.
• 17:59
  I don't care about those people. Don't worry about it.
• 18:01
  They'll they'll listen in there. They'll come just for you.
• 18:03
  No, no. But like, obviously there was
• 18:05
  Gallifrey, there was the War Master, there was, you know,
• 18:07
  there was a lot happening sort of in one go.
• 18:10
  Is that a lot to to juggle? Yeah, yeah, it was.
• 18:17
  But I, I quite like I, I'm, I like being busy and I like
• 18:20
  spinning plates. I think I've certainly always
• 18:24
  had a mind that can keep track of things in various places and
• 18:28
  various stages, which has sort of stood me in good stead for my
• 18:33
  career elsewhere. Because, you know, working on TV
• 18:36
  shows in scripts, not just Doctor Who, but other dramas as
• 18:39
  well, where you're spinning multiple episodes from a series
• 18:42
  and multiple revision stages and stuff like that.
• 18:45
  And you're, you know, you're dealing with crew and
• 18:47
  departments and they're going, oh, when did that change your
• 18:49
  stuff like that And being able to go, well, that was in the
• 18:51
  yellow revisions and you know, we're now on Cherry or something
• 18:54
  like that. You know, it's, it's quite
• 18:57
  useful. Yeah.
• 19:00
  I don't know why. I've just always been quite good
• 19:03
  at retaining that kind of information.
• 19:05
  So spinning multiple series of Big Finish was quite nice.
• 19:08
  And also it meant you never got bored because, you know, you'd
• 19:11
  be listening to edits for Benny one weekend, and then maybe
• 19:15
  edits for Dorian or Gallifrey would come in.
• 19:17
  And it just meant you'd always have this sort of nice little
• 19:22
  just just ever changing menu. And, you know, you look at the
• 19:26
  the leads in all of those series, you know, Alex Lala
• 19:29
  Ward, Louise Jameson, Derek Jacobi, I mean the the actors
• 19:34
  that you know from one day to the next that you could be
• 19:36
  working alongside. That must have been so exciting.
• 19:39
  Oh, it's, it's great. I think radio is, I mean, it's a
• 19:46
  really freeing medium anyway, because you're not restrained by
• 19:49
  budget in the sense of you can tell any story, you can go
• 19:52
  anywhere, you can be as mad and expansive as you want to be.
• 19:56
  I don't always think you should, but you have that potential.
• 20:00
  And there's no sort of, I always say because there's no roller
• 20:03
  that goes up at the end. It's sort of most of the people
• 20:08
  working in it don't really have any ego.
• 20:11
  They're just there for the craft and the stories and the love
• 20:14
  and. They, they care about doing a
• 20:17
  good job and having fun with it. Whereas sometimes in, you know,
• 20:21
  TV or theater or something, because it's a lot more visual
• 20:23
  and people are, you know, visibly out there, you sometimes
• 20:27
  attract a few more egos who care more about how they look or how
• 20:30
  they might be perceived. Whereas audio strips that all
• 20:34
  back both sort of with cast and behind the scenes, which is why
• 20:37
  I think so many brilliant established actors will come in
• 20:41
  for a day to do radio, because it allows them to be themselves
• 20:44
  in a way sometimes other media don't.
• 20:47
  I was exploring the Big Finish YouTube page the other day and
• 20:51
  there was a gorgeous interview. No, no, with David Warner, you
• 20:55
  know, a prestige actor. And he was there going, I love
• 20:59
  doing this. I love coming here and you know,
• 21:02
  and it goes, why explain why you like to do it.
• 21:05
  And he goes, well, I get to come in, look at the state of me.
• 21:07
  He goes, I'll come in like this in my slippers, you know, I
• 21:11
  don't have to read for hands in a rugby top just.
• 21:13
  So relaxed. I'm amazed he did an interview
• 21:16
  on camera. He used to hate doing
• 21:18
  interviews. Oh, it was so charming.
• 21:20
  He's so lovely. He's the only person I know who
• 21:22
  could call you poppies. It didn't sound condescending or
• 21:27
  patronising. You just look, oh, thank you,
• 21:30
  pop it and you just go. From anyone else, that would
• 21:32
  just sound really sort of demeaning.
• 21:34
  Maybe. Oh God.
• 21:36
  David Warner. I'll try not to say pop it by
• 21:39
  the end of the interview then. All right.
• 21:42
  Well, looking at your sort of audio output as a whole, are
• 21:47
  there any that you're like especially, I'm sure you're
• 21:49
  proud of it all and like I said, it is all of a great standard,
• 21:53
  but is there anything that really stands out as like, I'm
• 21:56
  so pleased we did that? I mean, the War Master,
• 22:03
  obviously I adore. I remember pitching that to Big
• 22:08
  Finishing. And look, you're doing the War
• 22:09
  Doctor with John Hurt. Why don't we do the War Master?
• 22:12
  Because I'd love the Master. I think I'd pitched a few years
• 22:15
  before doing a Master series with Jeffrey Beavers and it got
• 22:18
  sort of nixed or they just went, we're not sure about a series
• 22:22
  led by a villain. But then the War Master and the
• 22:27
  idea of the Time War and Derek Jacobi, you know, we thought
• 22:30
  we'd just do that one box set and it was, it was lovely
• 22:33
  working with Derek and you know. Like did you know he was Kane or
• 22:37
  did no? He, he just thought it'd be
• 22:40
  interesting to, to come back and do it.
• 22:42
  And, you know, within that first week, he really enjoyed the
• 22:46
  process. Nick was there being Daleks.
• 22:52
  And when he look, he, Nick could see he enjoyed the rapport we
• 22:56
  shared and just sort of the working relationship.
• 23:00
  And that fed a lot into the next few years, particularly in
• 23:03
  lockdown, actually, the fact we knew each other quite well.
• 23:05
  And, you know, we've, we not very often, but we've caught up
• 23:11
  outside work and stuff. You know, it's, that's, that's
• 23:14
  the other weird thing about audio is actually you form
• 23:16
  relationships really quickly. And I know actors have come in
• 23:19
  just for a day and then become firm friends just from doing a
• 23:21
  big finish. It's really lovely.
• 23:23
  So hell of a name to drop, you know Derek Jacobi, that's a hell
• 23:27
  of a name to drop. But that, that was lovely
• 23:29
  because I think no one expected it to, you know, survive.
• 23:33
  Otherwise there's stuff like you just get to work with mad talent
• 23:38
  so tortured. You know, the fact we had, we
• 23:41
  kicked off with John Sessions in our very first story.
• 23:43
  But then you get people like Simon Russell Beale coming in to
• 23:46
  lead the story or Michael Palin. You know, Palin's always been
• 23:50
  someone on my bucket list. And I remember I've been talking
• 23:56
  about the idea of a haunted self help tech with James.
• 23:58
  And then I went to Tim Foley and it was amazing.
• 24:00
  And. I saw that and the schedules got
• 24:02
  oh wait but. It was that thing of you just
• 24:07
  suddenly go, well, we've got the opportunity here to just go a
• 24:09
  bit mad and and see who's up for it.
• 24:11
  And so that's that was really exciting and fun.
• 24:17
  And then, you know, the stuff like the heart lives alone was
• 24:20
  the first script for Dorian that was written.
• 24:22
  So that feels quite special. But even even recently, you
• 24:26
  know, you take someone like tortured and we did a story
• 24:28
  called The Boy Who Never Laughed, which is A2 hander,
• 24:32
  effectively A2 hander. There are a few other roles, but
• 24:34
  basically it's a 2 hander between 2 characters, both
• 24:37
  played by Johnny Green, which it's a beautiful script by Joe
• 24:41
  Lidster, but also so technically demanding that from that kind of
• 24:46
  standpoint you go, I'm glad we pulled it off because it's a
• 24:49
  script that deserves it. But also you do get a bit of
• 24:53
  free song from going, Oh, no one can see the joints, if that
• 24:58
  makes sense. And then, you know, we got mad
• 24:59
  stuff like Kate Winslet in for Dark Season, which no, nobody
• 25:04
  really promoted. And you sort of go, there's a
• 25:06
  Big Finish series out there. When Kate came back to replace
• 25:10
  the. Role and yeah I.
• 25:12
  I mean, I did see the photo go out, you know, with you, Russell
• 25:15
  and Kate on the couch. That's like, well, that's,
• 25:18
  that's a pretty good bit of marketing.
• 25:21
  I know, but then it came out and no one sort of mentioned it.
• 25:24
  It was really, really bizarre, but I'm glad that exists.
• 25:28
  But no, all the big finished stuff is lovely and fun.
• 25:31
  And then, you know, we've done stuff like Dracula with Margatis
• 25:33
  before he did it on TV, and Mark's so good.
• 25:36
  You know, I've just been watching Bookish and I'm really
• 25:41
  glad that's been as successful as it is, because he's just so
• 25:45
  clever and so good. And yeah, it's it's.
• 25:50
  It sounds like, it sounds like you sort of dived into a world
• 25:54
  where there was just an amazing pool of actors, an amazing pool
• 25:57
  of directors, sound designers and all of that.
• 26:00
  The the, the massive education was handed out in those early
• 26:05
  days and then you just got to play in the sandbox for for as
• 26:10
  many years as you did it. That's kind of incredible.
• 26:12
  Well, that's it. I, I again, I, I, I'm very
• 26:15
  grateful to Gary for sort of letting me just observe him for
• 26:18
  a couple of years before I tried it myself, because I don't know
• 26:22
  if people do that now, actually, if they, if they get people to
• 26:26
  come in and shadow and, and learn or whether they just go
• 26:29
  right here are, you know, the guidelines and sort of what you
• 26:34
  have to deliver when and whether people actually get to see how
• 26:37
  you interact with engineers or cast and, and stuff.
• 26:41
  And, you know, you have to temper your approach to every
• 26:45
  different scenario because everyone responds differently.
• 26:47
  So, you know, there are some actors I've known for years and
• 26:52
  I'm very pally with like a Sam Barnett who, you know, we can
• 26:56
  just be rude to each other because it's like siblings
• 26:58
  working in a studio. But then you'll have people
• 27:01
  you've never worked before and you have to be a bit more
• 27:04
  formal, but you still want to be relaxed.
• 27:05
  And it's, that's what I quite like about this gig is it keeps
• 27:09
  you on your toes. There's no, you can't, you can
• 27:12
  never default. You've always got to be thinking
• 27:14
  and reacting and working, really.
• 27:16
  And if I was to ask you to identify the the most satisfying
• 27:21
  thing about that whole experience, that whole Big
• 27:24
  Finish experience, what would you say that was?
• 27:29
  The most satisfying thing about Big Finish?
• 27:34
  I mean, for me it's listening to them.
• 27:35
  But I mean, I suppose you do get.
• 27:38
  Do you mean I? Mean I've listened to most of
• 27:41
  them about, you know, six or seven times by the time you've
• 27:44
  gone through dialogue edits and every draft and.
• 27:46
  Then can't take any more, put it on the shelf.
• 27:49
  But that's the thing, if you've done your job well, it's still a
• 27:51
  real thrill every stage to to to listen to them.
• 27:56
  I think I love about Big finishes.
• 28:00
  I'm still sort of doing stuff for them.
• 28:02
  It's, it's sort of not like a few years ago where I was pretty
• 28:08
  much constantly doing something every month.
• 28:11
  But it's quite nice that if I do have a gap, someone like James
• 28:16
  Gospel come back and go, oh, are you around?
• 28:19
  Can you just come back and do this?
• 28:20
  And it's, it's like coming home. It is a big sort of family.
• 28:25
  I think they tweeted the other day something like they've now
• 28:28
  been doing Doctor Who audios longer than the classic series
• 28:31
  was on air, which is bonkers. I am visibly grey before your
• 28:37
  eyes when you say something like that.
• 28:39
  OK, good, good. I mean, I can still remember,
• 28:41
  you know, sorrows a time I wasn't that old then.
• 28:45
  I mean. And you mentioned some fabulous
• 28:47
  names as well. Tim Foley, James Goss.
• 28:49
  Like there are some wonderful creatives in there, isn't there?
• 28:52
  Jacqueline Rayner? I mean just amazingly.
• 28:55
  Established names. But you know, someone like Tim
• 28:57
  Foley I his first big finish was I think it must have been
• 29:02
  Gallifrey Time War, that first time War One box set where he
• 29:07
  wrote the story with Ace and Braxiatel.
• 29:11
  I want to say it was called Soldier Obscura but.
• 29:14
  It absolutely was because I listened to it 2.
• 29:16
  Weeks ago. There we go.
• 29:18
  The whole set. All retained into my that.
• 29:20
  Was his first script. That was his first script.
• 29:24
  I can't remember how I sort of found him or, or became aware of
• 29:29
  him, but I remember giving him that a script going look, I, I
• 29:35
  think I knew he was a Doctor Who fan and he, he was clearly
• 29:38
  interesting. So I got him in and then I was
• 29:42
  working with James on the tortured stuff and said, look,
• 29:44
  we should get him in for that. And then we did a 7th Doctor new
• 29:48
  adventure style thing as well. But it was, it was really lovely
• 29:51
  actually. Not not nurturing a talent like
• 29:54
  that, because the talent's there, but certainly nurturing
• 29:57
  within the audio environment because there's a very
• 29:59
  particular way of, you know, writing.
• 30:02
  And I think Tim learned a lot. And we, it's just that
• 30:05
  collaboration. You want to, you never want to
• 30:08
  be telling people what to do, but you want to, you know,
• 30:12
  support them into doing what they're best at.
• 30:14
  And, you know, Tim's a brilliant theatre writer as well.
• 30:17
  And I think theatre writers naturally lend themselves quite
• 30:20
  well to audio, because it's all about the words.
• 30:23
  Whatever nurturing occurred there, Tim's output is stunning
• 30:28
  as well. So like, you know, yeah,
• 30:30
  absolutely. Got it.
• 30:31
  There are. Loads of even now there are
• 30:33
  loads of new exciting names coming through all the ranges
• 30:36
  and it's it's. In fact, more than ever, I think
• 30:39
  I see, I see completely names I don't recognise at all on the
• 30:43
  set of things like that now it feels like there is a much more
• 30:45
  sort of free hand in bringing in new people just to give them a
• 30:50
  try. Yeah, and you know, you never
• 30:52
  know some people, you know, different media around for that.
• 30:57
  I mean, you look at someone like James Goss and I hate the fact
• 31:00
  he he in fact, I adore him, but it's you look at someone for who
• 31:05
  I know how hard he works. But you just go, Oh my God.
• 31:08
  One day you're doing audio drama, the next you're doing
• 31:11
  novels, the next you're doing this and that.
• 31:13
  And and he can just turn his hand to anything and make it
• 31:15
  look so simple. And of course it isn't that
• 31:19
  there's so much work and thought and time he puts into
• 31:22
  everything, but he's definitely someone who understands the
• 31:26
  blocks and, and you know, the, the requirements of everything.
• 31:30
  And I think he, I'm sure he said he just breaks it down into
• 31:34
  mathematics at some point and, and has a very sort of
• 31:36
  structured plan for everything. And that's sort of the key.
• 31:39
  But yeah, I can't remember how we got into this just big Finish
• 31:42
  and big family and just the excitement of working with
• 31:45
  different people, established and new.
• 31:47
  It's it's great. I was going to be very facetious
• 31:50
  and say James Austin tip his hat to many, many things, but he
• 31:53
  can't keep a room call, can he? That target good day.
• 31:56
  Good grief. I don't know what time you left,
• 31:58
  but by the end of the day, that was a lot of very hot Doctor Who
• 32:01
  fans blessing. Not a sentence you hear very
• 32:04
  often. Never.
• 32:06
  Good grief. Well, all right.
• 32:09
  One last question about Big Finish, if I may.
• 32:11
  And that's just because I'll kick myself if I don't ask you.
• 32:13
  This is well, the lunch is really that good.
• 32:15
  Yes. OK, why?
• 32:17
  I need to know because we never get any.
• 32:19
  Details Toby Toby Francesca Robinson, who was the owner of
• 32:26
  the studio and the sound engineer.
• 32:32
  I mean, he's done everything. He's engineered so many albums
• 32:34
  over the years and everything like that.
• 32:36
  And I think he worked for a while in South Africa and worked
• 32:42
  as a chef as well. So he part of his background was
• 32:46
  he, you know, he was a trained chef.
• 32:49
  So it, you know, we obviously in a studio environment you have to
• 32:53
  eat. So he just got very used to
• 32:56
  rustling up these quite simple, but, you know, very healthy,
• 32:59
  very varied. Yeah.
• 33:03
  Just sort of buffets of, you know, it wasn't like cocktail
• 33:08
  sausages or anything like that. It was just everything freshly
• 33:10
  prepared, really. No, I'm.
• 33:15
  I'm salivating thinking about it.
• 33:17
  The thing was, it's like, I swear some of those actors were
• 33:20
  taking the roles just because of the lunches, because no, they
• 33:22
  would. They would say on every single
• 33:24
  one of those behind. Well, yeah, I'm really here for
• 33:26
  the food today, you know? But that's the thing, a lot of,
• 33:30
  you know, radio compared to TV isn't as high profile and it
• 33:34
  doesn't pay as well as something like that.
• 33:38
  But people do it for the love. They do it for the green room
• 33:41
  gossip. And everyone loves a free lunch.
• 33:43
  But it was known within the industry, you know, agents would
• 33:47
  be turning around to their clients going just, you know,
• 33:50
  you'll have a lovely time. You'll have a laugh and they
• 33:53
  feed you really well. And there'd be people coming in
• 33:55
  and going, I've heard about the lunches.
• 33:56
  And then it would reach lunchtime and they'd walk into
• 33:58
  the little kitchen area and go, oh, wow, OK.
• 34:03
  You know, I wish you could slip a microphone into that green
• 34:05
  room. I mean, you could have some good
• 34:07
  CDs there, I bet. Yeah, I can see your face.
• 34:10
  I can imagine. The lawyers just going, That's
• 34:13
  the other thing I I've never understood.
• 34:15
  Even in a studio environment where there are always
• 34:17
  microphones obviously peppered around, actors are literally
• 34:20
  stood in front of microphones. They'll still gossip between
• 34:22
  takes. You saw they're going.
• 34:24
  This is all on microphone, mind you.
• 34:27
  I did that with you just before we start recording.
• 34:29
  Oh, don't worry, I'll take it out.
• 34:30
  Don't say. Anything unpleasant?
• 34:32
  But you know you do. Just start going Oh God, have
• 34:35
  you heard about Marjorie and her dog?
• 34:37
  He is. I'm total bastard.
• 34:38
  I agree with you. Yeah, well, let's let's take a
• 34:42
  look then from Big Finish to television and how the golly
• 34:47
  gosh does that happen. I mean the the 2 are kind of
• 34:54
  completely unrelated in a way. I didn't get my job in TV
• 35:00
  because of Big Finish and I didn't get Big Finish because of
• 35:02
  the TV job. So there's not really a link.
• 35:04
  It's just chance really. I mean, the link would be Gary
• 35:09
  Russell in that he was someone working in both camps who was
• 35:15
  able to recommend me for the runner role on Confidential for
• 35:19
  those first four weeks. And actually, you know, having
• 35:23
  worked in TV, as long as I have you, you always get chatting to
• 35:27
  people about, you know, how how did you get started?
• 35:30
  Do you always want to do this? And the number of people I know
• 35:33
  who basic basically the industry seems to be made-up of a lot of
• 35:38
  people who never expected to work in television.
• 35:40
  See. It's, is it luck?
• 35:44
  It's, I mean, I'm assuming there's talent involved.
• 35:48
  Well, yeah, it's, I think it's a lot of people just going, oh,
• 35:51
  and opportunities here. There's something interesting,
• 35:56
  why not give it a go? And then just finding
• 35:59
  themselves, you know, particularly if you're
• 36:01
  interested in research or scripts or something like that,
• 36:06
  you can migrate across, but then you know, you've got a lot of
• 36:08
  people who are interested in carpentry or set design or the
• 36:15
  number of jobs in TV, you know, it covers everything.
• 36:17
  So people often just, you know, in the same way I was
• 36:21
  recommended by a friend, someone might recommend someone else for
• 36:23
  a research job or, you know, a secretary job or production
• 36:27
  coordinator, you know, just helping out in an office.
• 36:30
  And those junior roles are fairly generic in a way.
• 36:33
  And then you can find your feet. And it's why being a runner, I,
• 36:37
  I loved both on the floor and in the production office because
• 36:40
  you had to engage with every department.
• 36:43
  So you're suddenly going, oh, right.
• 36:45
  I understand how the costume team work, how the makeup team
• 36:47
  works, special effects, visual effects, the edit, you know what
• 36:52
  everyone does in the production office.
• 36:53
  And so it's a really good grounding for understanding how
• 36:59
  a production and, and, and TV generally works and how there's
• 37:02
  a domino effect if, if one thing changes here, it's going to
• 37:06
  impact affect every single department.
• 37:10
  Do you learn from mistakes? I mean, I generally do.
• 37:12
  That's that's how I learn to perfect any any job of doing it
• 37:15
  and. Mistakes will always be made.
• 37:17
  And it's that thing of learning that actually, do you know what?
• 37:19
  There's no point wasting time trying to assign blame.
• 37:24
  You've just got to move on and resolve it.
• 37:25
  And you know, if it's something deeply serious, of course it
• 37:28
  needs to be investigated. But very often a lot of things
• 37:30
  like, Oh my God, so and so didn't get their call sheet or
• 37:33
  something like that. Often it's human error or just,
• 37:38
  yeah, whatever, and you just crack on and go, right, we'll
• 37:41
  sort it. What needs to be done?
• 37:42
  I'll tell you about a mistake, Right.
• 37:44
  I'll tell you about a great mistake that happened.
• 37:46
  So Marv Roth used to live in Cardiff, OK, and worked at the
• 37:50
  gate where Power of the Doctor was filmed.
• 37:53
  Oh, yeah. OK.
• 37:54
  And some fool that worked on that production, I don't know
• 37:57
  who they were, left 5 pages of the script in a bin.
• 38:03
  And so obviously this is years and years before that came out.
• 38:06
  And guess whose names were on that script?
• 38:08
  Ace Antigen. And my other half being a Doctor
• 38:12
  Who fan was like, Oh my word, I'm I've got the keys to the
• 38:15
  castle. I know it's like, fortunately he
• 38:17
  also, he kept his mouth shut. He's a good person.
• 38:21
  And he didn't. Surprise for anybody, But you
• 38:23
  know, that could have been catastrophic, right?
• 38:26
  Yeah, however, I mean, security is, is mad on a show like Doctor
• 38:30
  Who. And if you've if you've been a
• 38:32
  fan or you've worked in long enough, you get it.
• 38:34
  But it's always interesting seeing people come to the
• 38:37
  franchise fresh and just go. But you get people going.
• 38:41
  People aren't going to care about this.
• 38:43
  What do you what do you mean we're not going to get people,
• 38:45
  you know, interested in this? What do you mean?
• 38:47
  We need code names for the toy maker or, or stuff like this.
• 38:50
  And you're sort of going, honestly, if anyone gets a whip.
• 38:54
  And then I, I remember we were doing the Star Beast and, you
• 38:58
  know, we were filming in a street in Cardiff and the Meep
• 39:01
  was glimpsed from about 200 metres away.
• 39:04
  It was just this little furry blodge on photos and overnight
• 39:09
  beep, the meep was trending. And I think everyone just went,
• 39:12
  what is this show? And the group of us, they're
• 39:15
  going, we told you, we, we warned you and they went, but
• 39:19
  it's never been on TV before. And you go, no, it's from a
• 39:21
  comic strip in the, you know, early 80s and people going, but
• 39:24
  what? And you go literally, you have
• 39:26
  to be so good. And everyone suddenly went OK.
• 39:30
  Scott, there are MEEP obsessives around here.
• 39:32
  You know. Always on my shoulder at the
• 39:34
  time when I'm on a call. There's a darling one side and a
• 39:37
  meet the other. It's sort of conscious and
• 39:39
  paranoia either side. I mean, Mark was saying like to
• 39:43
  get people in and out of the of the gate that day.
• 39:47
  There was like a whole tunnel erected.
• 39:49
  Black cars were coming because Sasha Tawar was there.
• 39:51
  They didn't want to spoil that surprise, however.
• 39:53
  So it was just a huge enterprise just getting people in and out
• 39:57
  of buildings and things like that.
• 39:58
  I. Think even when we did Empire of
• 40:01
  Death, you know, there's the sequence where Mel is converted
• 40:05
  into a sort of servant of Suitek and has the skull prosthetic on
• 40:11
  and, and she obviously had to be.
• 40:13
  You know, literally covered under a sort of tarpaulin and
• 40:16
  taken into location and everyone thought we got some really
• 40:20
  exciting surprise, you know, guest star.
• 40:23
  And that's. Oh, you did.
• 40:24
  We did. Well, yes, I mean, that
• 40:26
  actually, at that point, no one knew Bonnie was coming back.
• 40:28
  So yeah, actually I think we, we, we had announced that Bonnie
• 40:32
  was coming back for the series, but we hadn't announced she was
• 40:38
  coming back for the 60th anniversary.
• 40:39
  So I remember again, James Goss, who'd novelised the Giggle
• 40:43
  going, oh Phew, I don't need to keep it a secret.
• 40:45
  And I went well. Well you do, because we've only
• 40:48
  said she's come back for series 1 so people still shouldn't know
• 40:51
  she's in the Giggle. That's crazy.
• 40:53
  As well as as well as script editing the series, you know,
• 40:57
  having to stagger the surprises, the press releases coming out,
• 41:01
  you know, when do we do this? At what point do we say?
• 41:04
  Oh, it's a machine. It sounds like a huge endeavour.
• 41:07
  Yeah, it's it's so different from you think how it was back
• 41:12
  in the classic series and pre Internet.
• 41:15
  And yeah, it's funny how fans, I think have an idea of people's
• 41:20
  jobs now equating it to the roles people would have had back
• 41:25
  in the classic series. Because you think you look at
• 41:27
  the credits roller of a classic Doctor Who story and there's
• 41:30
  barely comparatively barely anyone involved.
• 41:34
  And, you know, the the gaps between head of department are
• 41:40
  much shorter. You know, everyone's a lot more
• 41:42
  involved in one room was now every department sort of
• 41:47
  separate. And there are big meetings where
• 41:49
  people come together to to overlap.
• 41:52
  But you know, say it's the script that is traditionally in
• 41:58
  the classic era, obviously worked very closely with the
• 42:00
  producer was now you've got exec producers who sort of take on
• 42:04
  that overall narrative role. And so the script editing role
• 42:09
  ever since 2005 has been a bit more, I don't want to say nuts
• 42:13
  and bolts because you're working with the writer to sort of relay
• 42:18
  notes from production to them and work up the script with them
• 42:21
  and everything like that. But it's, it's a lot more, you
• 42:26
  know, nuts and bolts in terms of making sure the script is fit
• 42:32
  for production and all the departments know what they're
• 42:35
  working from and which draft you're on and communicating
• 42:39
  changes. So that as I say, it's that
• 42:41
  domino effective if something changes in the script to making
• 42:43
  sure that every department knows that one, you know, one person's
• 42:47
  not still working on something or people have enough time to
• 42:51
  change stuff or you know, everything has a budget
• 42:55
  implication as well. I can imagine that one person
• 42:58
  isn't that needs to be on set that day for whatever reason and
• 43:02
  you need them on set well. That's, that's a second AD job
• 43:06
  and everything like that. But it's, it's, it's
• 43:09
  interesting. Script editing is obviously a
• 43:11
  lot more connected to the script than anything else.
• 43:14
  But it's also now, I think, a very good training round for
• 43:21
  producers because, again, it means you have to work directly
• 43:24
  with every single department and have an understanding of the
• 43:27
  link between the story and the budget.
• 43:31
  But it's far less, I don't say less creative because it's still
• 43:37
  very creative in a lot of ways, but you're not driving the story
• 43:43
  arcs in the way that Terence Dix or Robert Holmes might have.
• 43:46
  And I think a lot of people still think you get to do that.
• 43:49
  Can I ask you a personal question?
• 43:51
  I think you're going to. I'm going to try.
• 43:53
  You might just bat it away, but no, no, no.
• 43:55
  Well, basically this, this is, you know, it's you're on your
• 43:59
  first day to start this new role you're working with who are
• 44:05
  considered to be possibly the God of television, Rusty Davies
• 44:10
  and this amazing team at Bad Wolf.
• 44:13
  How on earth do you feel on your first day?
• 44:22
  It's funny you you sort of go, I want to say it was daunted
• 44:28
  because it feels like that's the sort of thing you should say,
• 44:31
  but I wasn't. I was just quite excited because
• 44:35
  I mean, the the job is one I've been doing for a long time in
• 44:40
  terms of script editing, Bad Wolf were always very generous
• 44:44
  of going low. We want to train you up to
• 44:46
  effectively produce, which is why I produced Tales of the
• 44:50
  TARDIS and I'm assistant producer on the War between.
• 44:53
  But because they were coming back to do Doctor on the scale
• 44:55
  no one had known how to do before they went well, look,
• 44:58
  we're not going to put you in that bracket.
• 44:59
  We'll put you, you know, I think they were originally going,
• 45:03
  well, we'll see if there's an assistant script editor role we
• 45:05
  can bring you in on. And Ellen Marsh actually, who's
• 45:09
  Co producer, I remember her very generously turning around and
• 45:14
  going, you shouldn't be an assistant.
• 45:17
  You've been script editing other TV shows.
• 45:18
  And I'd done some development work for Bad Wolf a few years
• 45:22
  before actually. And she'd read my report and
• 45:26
  went, you can just, we can just make you script editor.
• 45:29
  So that's how I just sort of came in there.
• 45:31
  So it was that thing of going, look, I know how to do the job.
• 45:35
  I don't necessarily know the people or the structure of Bad
• 45:38
  Wolf, but that's the same with every production company.
• 45:41
  They have different ways. So it was, you know, we, we
• 45:44
  started, I started in February 2022, which was about 3 months
• 45:50
  out from I think when we had our read through for the specials.
• 45:55
  So it was a good 12 weeks of just sort of finding feat and
• 46:01
  getting to grips with everything and, you know, working like
• 46:05
  that. But you know, so much of the
• 46:07
  script that his role as well is to oversee the the rest of the
• 46:10
  brand and make sure it's all consistent.
• 46:12
  And again, I've been doing that with the keep the Peter Capaldi
• 46:17
  era. I've been sort of keeping an eye
• 46:18
  on licensees and their stories. So on my first day, I sort of
• 46:21
  had Russell going, oh, there's this thing called Doctor Who
• 46:23
  Redacted that's sort of been commissioned for Radio Four and
• 46:28
  BBC Sounds, which sort of slipped between the cracks of
• 46:33
  Chris Chibnall's era and the Bad Wolf era.
• 46:35
  And so they went, now we've got you.
• 46:37
  Can you just sort of keep an eye on that and, you know, making
• 46:42
  sure that the books. Were good and pushed because I
• 46:45
  was very aware of redacted when it was coming out.
• 46:49
  Well, it wasn't just that, it was just making sure that it
• 46:51
  totally felt right for the, the, the brand and, and, you know,
• 46:58
  between production companies and, and production teams, there
• 47:03
  hadn't sort of been that editorial overview.
• 47:07
  So, so there were lots of weird little things like that, which
• 47:11
  you'd never get on any other TV show.
• 47:13
  But when stock do they go? We need someone to do it.
• 47:16
  You can do it. And that's sort of as well how
• 47:19
  the Target Books came around because I was working closely
• 47:24
  with the brand team and we had lovely Vanessa Hamilton and
• 47:27
  James Page and, you know, you're working with Steve Cole and
• 47:30
  Albert de Petrillo at BBC Books and you're always going, what
• 47:33
  can we do? What would be exciting?
• 47:36
  And yeah, for the 60th, you know, I'd be chatting to Russell
• 47:40
  going, oh, I love the novelisations, all that.
• 47:42
  And so that that sort of kernel of an idea.
• 47:45
  I think he was very much Bad Wolf going, please, can we do
• 47:48
  Target Books, please? Can we do them to coincide with
• 47:52
  transmission? I can't remember now exactly
• 47:55
  when they came out. I can't remember.
• 47:56
  They came out as ebooks pretty much as the episodes transmitted
• 48:02
  and then had a physical publication later.
• 48:05
  The specials, yeah, they did. Yeah.
• 48:08
  So. That that was a joy, I mean.
• 48:12
  Whoever made that call about doing as many targets as came
• 48:16
  out from the specials to the second series of Cyploc, it just
• 48:21
  feels so important. I don't know why to me, because
• 48:24
  I've grew up reading targets, right, loving Doctor, but the
• 48:26
  targets in the TV show, just having the two, it feels more.
• 48:31
  I can't think of the word I'm trying to say.
• 48:33
  I don't know. I I just, it's important to me.
• 48:36
  So yeah, whoever made that decision, massive thumbs up and
• 48:41
  and well, they've been a huge success as well, though.
• 48:44
  Well, they're lovely, aren't they?
• 48:45
  I mean, The thing is they're unlike other things like VHSS
• 48:50
  or, or, or, you know, old world distributors, annuals and things
• 48:55
  like that. I think everyone's got a memory
• 48:57
  of the targets. Some, you know, I remember going
• 48:59
  down to my local library and picking up Destiny of the
• 49:01
  Dialects and Doctor Who and the Cybermen and the power of Crawl
• 49:06
  and. You were brought up on the best
• 49:09
  there. But you would.
• 49:12
  And then discovering Terrance sticks his Spitfire somewhere
• 49:14
  slightly further off in the children's department and go Oh
• 49:17
  my God, it's the man who does the Doctor Who books.
• 49:20
  I remember writing to him actually and saying how much I
• 49:22
  love Target books and Spitfire Summer as well.
• 49:26
  Did I come back to you? He.
• 49:27
  Did. He wrote me a letter back?
• 49:29
  And I have no idea where it is now, but he was really, really.
• 49:35
  Yeah. It was just nice and
• 49:37
  encouraging. And yeah, he's sort of a
• 49:39
  childhood hero, but it's that thing of sort of, I don't want
• 49:44
  to say passing the baton, but keeping a tradition alive is
• 49:47
  really nice and fun. And, you know, when we did those
• 49:54
  60th books, I remember Russell asked me if I, he wanted me to
• 49:58
  do one of those. And because we were going
• 50:03
  straight from the 60th, you know, the 60th specials into
• 50:07
  Series 1, I just didn't have time to do it at that point.
• 50:16
  But I did say, look, if you ever do any more because we were just
• 50:20
  coming up to making or we were just early days of Series 1, I
• 50:24
  went. I love 73 yards.
• 50:26
  I. Remember, no way a consolation
• 50:28
  prize, OK? No, but but it was.
• 50:31
  I remember reading the script on the summit.
• 50:33
  I think it came in during August 2022 and it was a really hot
• 50:37
  summer's day and I was literally sat on my sofa with chills
• 50:40
  going, Oh my God, this is so dark.
• 50:42
  This is just, it's kind of it's just very much my kind of thing.
• 50:52
  And I went, I would kill to do it.
• 50:54
  And bless him, he said, I will tell BBC Books if we do more,
• 50:58
  that will happen. And it did, which was great.
• 51:00
  And then I remember feeling a bit guilty, like I'd just been
• 51:05
  foisted upon BBC Books. But then they asked me back for
• 51:07
  more and I went, oh, it it. That's nice to know.
• 51:12
  That's that's, yeah. I mean, of all the stories of
• 51:16
  that first year, I would have thought that 73 yards would be
• 51:20
  the hardest one to put into prose because so much of it is
• 51:26
  intangible, you know, and, and the atmosphere is so thick.
• 51:30
  But boy, you did a good job with this book.
• 51:32
  Oh, thank you. Although may I just take a
• 51:36
  moment here to say I remember Ice being in the episode?
• 51:40
  No, that's the fun of the targets though, isn't it?
• 51:43
  Is is it's interesting when you think back again to new series
• 51:49
  versus classic is back in the day when a lot of people
• 51:53
  novelise 8 novelising the the classic series stories.
• 51:58
  They wouldn't well, some of them towards the end, you look at the
• 52:02
  McCoy era and how many of the actual TV writers novelising it
• 52:06
  and therefore expanding it in ways that they won't object to
• 52:11
  because obviously they're their stories and they're going right.
• 52:13
  This is what I've had in my head.
• 52:14
  Here's an opportunity for me to put it down into paper.
• 52:18
  But then, you know, you'll get Terrance Dix novelize A
• 52:21
  novelizing kinder or something. And it's just very bare bones.
• 52:26
  He said, she said, you know, straight up.
• 52:31
  But there there was also room for some people to come along
• 52:33
  and just like Eric Saywood novelizing The Twin Dilemma.
• 52:39
  And you just go, there's a whole storyline about, you know, how
• 52:42
  much the dad hates the kids in it and just basically wants them
• 52:49
  dead. And it's it's Eric.
• 52:50
  Turned into Douglas Adams that day, didn't he?
• 52:52
  It's. It's very sort of traumatic and
• 52:55
  you go, there's no suggestion of this anywhere in the TV version,
• 52:59
  you've just gone rogue. So was there free reign to to
• 53:03
  sort of add on and develop? Yes, because it won't surprise
• 53:11
  anyone. Ace wasn't scheduled to turn up
• 53:13
  in 73 yards. I thought I was going to be
• 53:17
  asked to cut it. If I'm honest.
• 53:20
  I thought I'll I'll, I mean, the context is obviously, you know,
• 53:23
  you in my head, I'm going in the TV episode, you have Ruby
• 53:30
  rejected by her mum and then you cut to her meeting Kate
• 53:34
  Lethbridge, Stuart and you sort of just go right.
• 53:36
  Well, in prose, what happens between those two moments?
• 53:39
  And you go, well, there's a massive tower in the centre of
• 53:42
  London for UNIT. Now Ruby might go there and go,
• 53:47
  look, this weird thing's happened, you should know.
• 53:52
  And because of the power of the Doctor establishing people like
• 53:55
  Ace and Tegan working. I just thought, you know, I'll
• 53:58
  write a cheeky little cameo for Ace and you know it.
• 54:02
  It was also lovely because obviously Ace had been a
• 54:04
  teenager when she was travelling with the 7th Doctor, and Ruby's
• 54:07
  not far off, and so those parallels were fun.
• 54:11
  Particularly. They're both sort of pawns of
• 54:13
  gods and it's weird how much do they have in common without
• 54:17
  realizing it. Actually kind of joyous, you
• 54:19
  know, because I, I had watched 73 yards an obscene amount of
• 54:24
  times, one of my favourites in the whole of the new series and,
• 54:28
  and I'm reading the book and get to that bit and I know Kate
• 54:31
  Stewart's coming. I turned about what the hell is
• 54:33
  this? I had exactly the same reaction
• 54:36
  when I read Empire of Death and opened Page 3 or 4 and I was
• 54:41
  suddenly on the planet Vortis. Oh yeah, but that that was in
• 54:44
  the original script. But when?
• 54:46
  When? Because Russell reads all the.
• 54:48
  Was it really? Yeah.
• 54:50
  Were you going to Fortis? Oh, that's wonderful.
• 54:52
  But Russell? Reads all the books and even he
• 54:55
  sent me an e-mail going. I screamed when Ace appeared,
• 54:58
  which I thought great, lovely, done my job.
• 55:02
  But yeah, so it's a weird thing if you have to stick to the
• 55:05
  story as presented on screen, you know, you're not rewriting
• 55:09
  dialogue and you're not changing what happened, but you can
• 55:15
  obviously build upon and expand upon it.
• 55:18
  So you can add, but you can't change.
• 55:23
  And, and, and the interesting thing about having worked on it
• 55:28
  as a script editor is you, you glean a lot of stuff.
• 55:30
  So it's sort of, I expanded a lot on the back story of people
• 55:33
  in the pub based on partly conversations we'd have with
• 55:39
  directors and cast and things like that.
• 55:41
  So I knew they were in the spirit of what Russell had in
• 55:45
  his mind. There was still a few times he'd
• 55:47
  go, oh, maybe tweak that about Enid or stuff like that.
• 55:52
  And and, you know, little stairs because, yeah, you wanted to
• 55:59
  feel like part of that story. But you can you can add new
• 56:02
  elements and, and build the world, which is lovely.
• 56:07
  And actually there's a whole thing where you get to plug more
• 56:11
  gaps as we cut through that montage of Ruby growing older
• 56:16
  and thinking, actually, you're a young girl, what does happen?
• 56:20
  How do you get the money to find a flat?
• 56:21
  What happens when your grandmother dies and, you know,
• 56:23
  your mum doesn't even want to tell you?
• 56:25
  You know, 73 hours in that sense was quite easy to novelise
• 56:33
  because it's actually a story that's only from one perspective
• 56:36
  anyway. So you're always sort of
• 56:38
  following Ruby's journey and you're in her head and it's it's
• 56:42
  sort of describing her reactions to things and how she feels it.
• 56:48
  Covers so much ground in 45 minutes, doesn't it?
• 56:51
  Like, you know, an entire life. Oh, it's incredible. 5 minutes.
• 56:55
  But that means there's an entire life to expand upon, isn't
• 56:58
  there? On the page.
• 56:59
  And actually, you know, the, IT sounds really silly, but you
• 57:02
  talk about the atmosphere and stuff, you know, as a script
• 57:06
  that you go on the reckies. And I mean, we must have gone to
• 57:10
  about 20 or 30 locations for that episode.
• 57:14
  The ones that were extraordinary.
• 57:16
  You've got newsrooms, you've got stadia, you've got a train,
• 57:20
  you've got the clifftops, you've got the pub, you've got
• 57:25
  different houses, streets. Oh, it was bonkers.
• 57:29
  But it meant I sort of had a muscle memory of what it was
• 57:32
  like to be in all those spaces. And you could draw upon that as
• 57:37
  well. And you know, like the Cliff
• 57:39
  tops, remembering how hellish it was just to get up there.
• 57:42
  And I mean, I'm not even exaggerating.
• 57:45
  There was a lovely tea shop there that we arrived in for our
• 57:50
  recce in our lovely coach. We walked in and then literally
• 57:56
  the heavens opened. Thunderclap, all of that.
• 58:00
  The rain was so heavy it actually breached the walls of
• 58:03
  this tea shop and was just running down the walls and we
• 58:08
  were just going, Oh my God, we've driven 2, two and a bit
• 58:12
  hours or so to get out to Tenby. We're going to have to turn back
• 58:16
  and we went, we can't do this again, we've got to have a look.
• 58:21
  So we just had to clamber up this sort of Pembrokeshire Cliff
• 58:24
  top in. Please, you're still winning.
• 58:28
  Score, you know, I mean, literally, I have videos on my
• 58:31
  phone of the rain. Just it's like, oh, you know,
• 58:38
  it's, it's like protest cannons, just water cannons just firing
• 58:43
  into you horizontally. And we were sending videos back
• 58:45
  to the production office who were just laughing at us.
• 58:49
  But then when we came to shoot it, you know, we prepared for
• 58:52
  the worst based on that racket and it everything, you know, it
• 58:55
  was misty, it was Moody. You have that beautiful dawn.
• 58:58
  It was insane. But yeah.
• 59:02
  Here's a, Here's another question.
• 59:04
  If you're wrecking and your script editing and your sort of
• 59:08
  involved in every part of this production, I'm assuming there's
• 59:10
  a screening once it's all done and dusted, but there's some
• 59:13
  sort of a screening for people to watch.
• 59:16
  Not, not really. I mean, it's, it's funny when
• 59:21
  you're on doctor, you're trained to think, what can I say, What
• 59:23
  can I give away? What can I talk about?
• 59:25
  But actually it's fairly industry standard that script
• 59:30
  that is, you know, because you're across every aspect of
• 59:33
  the script, you, you get, you know, the rushes everyday, you
• 59:39
  get assemblies every week just so you can see how the episode's
• 59:41
  building up. So you know, the rushes everyday
• 59:44
  are useful because if someone gets something wrong or you know
• 59:48
  there's something crucial that's missed storyline story wise, or
• 59:54
  you know, someone's just missed a critical detail, you can flag
• 59:58
  it while there's still time to correct it and go, oh, actually
• 1:00:00
  we need to do a pick up of that because you've misunderstood
• 1:00:03
  this. I think, I think that may have
• 1:00:08
  happened on Wild Blue Yonder where I pointed out that because
• 1:00:13
  there was so much cross cutting between the different doctors
• 1:00:17
  and donors, there was just one line where I think on the rushes
• 1:00:23
  I went, oh, that seems to have been given to the wrong donor.
• 1:00:27
  And I went and then they saw the Russians went, Oh no,
• 1:00:31
  absolutely. But because the sets were there
• 1:00:32
  and we had the same cast, it was very easy to just drop it in.
• 1:00:35
  But it's sort of that thing of as a script that you're
• 1:00:37
  constantly thinking in multiple stages.
• 1:00:40
  So you're obviously prepping some scripts, you're filming
• 1:00:42
  scripts, but also you're then in post for other scripts.
• 1:00:45
  So you've sort of got to be actively spinning, you know, 12
• 1:00:48
  scripts at that point because we had four specials we were
• 1:00:51
  working on the 8 scripts for Series 1, all of that.
• 1:00:53
  So yeah, it's. Wonderful that you can
• 1:00:56
  compartmentalise it. It's given me a headache just
• 1:00:58
  thinking about it, you know, trying to juggle all that up.
• 1:01:00
  I mean, I suppose you have to keep one eye as a viewer, right,
• 1:01:03
  At all times. What's the viewers seeing?
• 1:01:06
  Are they getting every part of this?
• 1:01:08
  I would say as a script that say you've got to be the sort of
• 1:01:12
  village idiot who's just sort of going, look, I'm, I'm just going
• 1:01:16
  to basically pretend I'm my mum on the sofa on Saturday night
• 1:01:21
  and go, why are they doing that? Why is this happening?
• 1:01:23
  I'm sure she was a smart woman, but.
• 1:01:26
  But you, you sort of go, you, you can't presume information.
• 1:01:29
  So you'd always be asking the questions going, do we need, is
• 1:01:32
  this clear enough? Is this all and?
• 1:01:34
  And yet, Scott, and yet people still say to me, what was that
• 1:01:38
  woman saying? Oh boy.
• 1:01:41
  I mean, there's still people who insist that the people who find
• 1:01:45
  time weren't racist. Oh yeah, Well, indeed, yes, I
• 1:01:48
  have. Literally sometimes you go OK
• 1:01:51
  unless there's an explicit line spoon feeding people.
• 1:01:55
  Funniest I heard was why was he so upset at the end of that?
• 1:01:59
  Like, maybe we'll find out at the end of the season.
• 1:02:02
  But it's a really fine line to balance because you, you don't
• 1:02:08
  want to, you know, spoon feed your audience.
• 1:02:11
  But sometimes you need to give them enough.
• 1:02:13
  So again, as a script that you'll ask the questions and you
• 1:02:17
  know, it's, it's not just me making decisions.
• 1:02:19
  You've got every head of department will be contributing
• 1:02:22
  at script meetings, tone meetings, everything like that.
• 1:02:24
  You've got the writers themselves, you've got
• 1:02:26
  showrunners, you've got the exec producers, you've got producers,
• 1:02:29
  you've got everyone feeding in a script editor.
• 1:02:33
  Your job's sort of there to facilitate everyone else and
• 1:02:35
  just implement it. So you're sort of the, I would
• 1:02:39
  say you're sort of like the punching bag between production,
• 1:02:42
  the writer, because you'll deliver a script to the
• 1:02:45
  production, they'll disseminate it.
• 1:02:47
  They'll come back at every department and go, Oh my God,
• 1:02:50
  well, they've written this. We can't afford this.
• 1:02:52
  How the hell are we going to achieve this?
• 1:02:54
  And they'll come back to you and go, why would you let them write
• 1:02:57
  this? And then you have to go back to
• 1:02:58
  the writer and go, I'm really sorry, we can't do this.
• 1:03:00
  Can we find a way? And you know, you work around
• 1:03:02
  that and then the writers going, Oh my God, I can't.
• 1:03:05
  Believe you're so likable. Do you know what?
• 1:03:08
  Like I wouldn't want to be. I mean, that's a very extreme,
• 1:03:12
  it's never quite that combative. But in essence, that's the sort
• 1:03:16
  of thing is you're you're having to be the sort of diplomat
• 1:03:19
  between two different camps and just you're constantly
• 1:03:21
  negotiating, you know, what you can tell story wise and what you
• 1:03:26
  can physically achieve and everything like that.
• 1:03:28
  And it's, you know, with something like Empire of Death,
• 1:03:31
  why suddenly I went, oh, if we can novelize it, you know, we
• 1:03:35
  had to cut an entire opening with Einstein and Paul Robeson
• 1:03:40
  and alien diners and Vortis and Zabi and everything like that
• 1:03:44
  because, you know, it's a big epic season finale.
• 1:03:48
  And the money, it was decided, need to be pushed elsewhere
• 1:03:51
  rather than also, which is arguably very cuttable.
• 1:03:55
  It's fun, but it's cuttable. So it was nice to just put that
• 1:03:58
  back and add a bit more context of, you know, what you could
• 1:04:02
  have seen. But yes, people do still ask
• 1:04:03
  what the woman was saying in 73 yards and you sort of, it's not
• 1:04:09
  a plot hole. It's just that thing of that
• 1:04:12
  that, yeah, I don't want to get too defensive about it.
• 1:04:15
  It's like, it's like every time you get to the end of a horror
• 1:04:17
  movie and you find out what the horror is and then it's far less
• 1:04:20
  scary, you know, like it's better not to know.
• 1:04:23
  I I've always maintained that the reason horror films don't I
• 1:04:28
  love horror, but horror films don't scare me as much as the
• 1:04:34
  idea of ghost stories or actually UFO alien abduction
• 1:04:39
  scare me because there's no finite answer.
• 1:04:41
  It's all speculation why people go missing or what happens you
• 1:04:45
  you go we, we don't actually know what's happened.
• 1:04:49
  Serial killer you, you sort of know, right?
• 1:04:51
  That's, you know, someone with a spooky mask on and a slasher
• 1:04:55
  knife. All of that.
• 1:04:56
  But not being able to explain something in this day and age is
• 1:05:00
  the most frightening thing in the world.
• 1:05:04
  And there's an there's, yeah, a sort of unease to that that you
• 1:05:12
  can't put your finger on. And it's that thing of what?
• 1:05:16
  What could someone say to a mother to make them walk away
• 1:05:21
  from their own child? What could someone say to
• 1:05:23
  someone like Kate Lethbridge Stewart, who's seen his thought
• 1:05:25
  to make them just turn away, never to speak to someone again?
• 1:05:29
  And you sort of go, if we gave you an answer, you'd go, oh,
• 1:05:32
  that's a bit underwhelming. Was actually going.
• 1:05:35
  It's something so terrible you can't even conceive of it is
• 1:05:40
  awful. Well, I can imagine stretch is
• 1:05:43
  quite far. So, you know, not telling me is
• 1:05:46
  absolutely the best thing you could possibly do because.
• 1:05:48
  But it's also like, you know, back in the day, they'd say, oh,
• 1:05:51
  we'll never really show you what happened in the Time War because
• 1:05:55
  if we do it, we'll just sort of be reduced to people with ray
• 1:05:58
  guns zapping at each other. And you go actually in Russell's
• 1:06:02
  head, it was always something so far worse and and sort of
• 1:06:08
  literally inconceivable. He once started describing it to
• 1:06:11
  me and it was just ghastly. And he went, yeah, we'll never
• 1:06:13
  be able to put that on. Screen glimpses of chaos that
• 1:06:16
  you couldn't possibly understand.
• 1:06:19
  It's like the the the the could have been king with his army of
• 1:06:24
  meanwhiles and never were's and stuff like.
• 1:06:25
  That, you know, that's a child, you know, what the hell does
• 1:06:28
  that mean? I'll never know, but it sounds
• 1:06:30
  terrifying. And and yeah, just the the way
• 1:06:34
  that sparks your imagination was if you actually present the full
• 1:06:38
  thing, suggestions always far more frightening.
• 1:06:41
  I think you, you go. It's why the first Alien film is
• 1:06:43
  so potent even now, because you don't say.
• 1:06:47
  You compare it then to something like Alien 3 or Alien
• 1:06:50
  Resurrection, where you've just got CGI aliens all over the
• 1:06:53
  place in full vision you go. This isn't quite as frightening
• 1:06:56
  as not being able to see it or not knowing where they are.
• 1:06:59
  Unless you're Tom Baker, who by all accounts was distinctly
• 1:07:03
  unimpressed with that first one. But can I ask you another
• 1:07:06
  question about? That.
• 1:07:08
  He did. He did did obscene things with
• 1:07:11
  it as well. Can I ask you another question
• 1:07:13
  about 73 yards? It's something I alluded to in a
• 1:07:16
  message that is about Marty. And I don't want to get into the
• 1:07:21
  insurance and outs of it. I just basically want to ask
• 1:07:24
  like, where's the line? Because that is a very, very
• 1:07:30
  strong idea. In the TV episode I wondered if
• 1:07:34
  it wouldn't make it into the book because I I mean, I always
• 1:07:39
  think of the targets as kids books rather than like.
• 1:07:43
  Well, I mean, The thing is a bit like on screen, it's something
• 1:07:48
  where, I mean, as we've established, I've just mentioned
• 1:07:50
  the example of dot and bubble where a lot of people didn't
• 1:07:54
  realise the entire population are racist because unless you
• 1:07:57
  explicitly say something, if people aren't tuned into it, it
• 1:08:01
  goes over their heads. When I think that was the lesson
• 1:08:04
  with that episode, it was at what point did you realise, you
• 1:08:07
  know? You would, you would think, but
• 1:08:11
  again, with Marty Bridges and, and that sort of abuse
• 1:08:14
  storyline, there are, I, I mean, there are no, I, I know there
• 1:08:18
  are people who feel I wasn't explicit enough in the
• 1:08:20
  novelisation. But in the same way the TV show,
• 1:08:27
  if you're a kid watching it and you're not tuned into that kind
• 1:08:30
  of world, it, it, it sort of goes over your head.
• 1:08:33
  Whereas if you're an adult and you, you are aware and you, you,
• 1:08:37
  you can pick up on the, the cues.
• 1:08:40
  There's a much darker story happening in the background of
• 1:08:42
  that. And so it's sort of having to
• 1:08:49
  follow that cue of, again, providing enough that adults
• 1:08:57
  reading will know what you're talking about without ever
• 1:08:59
  explicitly crossing a line. So I think I always have in the
• 1:09:05
  back of my head, would we do this on screen?
• 1:09:09
  And that's sort of where I, I, I judge things because you don't
• 1:09:14
  want to be violent, you don't want to be sexual, you don't
• 1:09:17
  want to swear, you know, you, you want to keep it appropriate
• 1:09:20
  that if you were listening to this as an audio book in the car
• 1:09:23
  with kids, no one's going to be going Mummy, what does that
• 1:09:26
  mean? Or something like that.
• 1:09:30
  It's the same, actually. There's a sequence in the
• 1:09:32
  Emperor of Death novelization where there's an opening
• 1:09:37
  sequence in Pennsylvania with Einstein and Robeson and Susan
• 1:09:42
  Twist appearing as a Pennsylvania nanny.
• 1:09:47
  And they were only in that opening scene.
• 1:09:51
  But then as part of the novelization, I thought, oh,
• 1:09:52
  we'll come back to them when Suitex projecting its avatars
• 1:09:57
  all over the universe. And, you know, we'll, we'll
• 1:10:00
  return to the nanny with a skull like face and everything like
• 1:10:03
  that. And in the same way Susan tries
• 1:10:06
  blowing her dust across 21st century London, she just blows a
• 1:10:11
  kiss into the pram and, you know, effectively kills a child.
• 1:10:19
  And it's just that thing of going, you could have written a
• 1:10:23
  much more graphic version of that.
• 1:10:25
  But in my head, I'm going, you know what, just the image of a
• 1:10:30
  nanny leaning into pram and blowing dust is creepy enough.
• 1:10:34
  And the implication is, you know, anyone who, who wants to
• 1:10:42
  imagine it will absolutely get it, basically.
• 1:10:45
  And you could have shown that on screen because it's not too
• 1:10:49
  explicit. It's still utterly horrible, but
• 1:10:51
  it's it's not graphic. So it's that's the way you have
• 1:10:56
  to toe the line of going. What can you do to tell the
• 1:10:59
  story and still keep that mood and tone without being too
• 1:11:04
  overt? I think.
• 1:11:06
  I think it towed that line between a child reading this and
• 1:11:11
  sort of getting the gist. But they fingers crossed.
• 1:11:16
  I've never experienced anything along those lines.
• 1:11:18
  And so that they're just reading a Doctor Who book and an adult
• 1:11:21
  where not getting the explicit details.
• 1:11:25
  That's scarier because you can fill in the gaps.
• 1:11:28
  You know, it's it's it was really well judged.
• 1:11:31
  But yeah, it did surprise me that it was there, though.
• 1:11:35
  Well. In a good way.
• 1:11:39
  It was definitely something I remember thinking about how you
• 1:11:45
  did it. And I, I will admit I did think
• 1:11:47
  BBC Books would go, look, this isn't right for our audience.
• 1:11:49
  Can we pull it back? But again, because they're very
• 1:11:51
  keen on preserving the shape of the TV story as much as
• 1:11:55
  possible, I, I think they accepted that, you know, it is
• 1:12:00
  an important part of the story and part of Ruby's journey
• 1:12:03
  because ultimately it's seeing Marty that prompts Ruby to take
• 1:12:07
  action at the end when she's in the football stadium.
• 1:12:10
  So you've sort of got to be able to build that up and and follow
• 1:12:14
  that as well. Well, we we already think Roger
• 1:12:18
  is a monster, but now we know. Now we know he is.
• 1:12:23
  But he has a heart. Yeah, you know, Yeah.
• 1:12:25
  We, we give him a horrible young death.
• 1:12:27
  So I can't, I don't think we ever specified what kills him,
• 1:12:31
  just that he dies very alone, about the age 50 or something
• 1:12:34
  like that. So.
• 1:12:36
  Forgotten about. Can I ask you one more question
• 1:12:39
  about the books? It's just a curiosity of mine.
• 1:12:41
  And that is like, where do you start?
• 1:12:45
  You just have the script in front of you.
• 1:12:46
  Do you build up a sort of narrative of this is how I'm
• 1:12:50
  going to build it into chapters? I I mean it varies from story to
• 1:12:59
  story. I think 73 yards is quite, it
• 1:13:04
  was quite simple in a way, because actually it's naturally
• 1:13:06
  broken down into sort of lots of smaller acts.
• 1:13:12
  So I think I sort of broken down into either locations or
• 1:13:15
  characters and Ruby's sort of interaction with them.
• 1:13:21
  So that was quite because that's quite linear.
• 1:13:23
  It was, it was quite easy to do. Empire of Death.
• 1:13:31
  Yeah, that was a it's a little bit harder just to break it down
• 1:13:36
  and working out where the natural beats are, because even
• 1:13:39
  when you're writing, you sort of want each chapter to end with a
• 1:13:41
  little cliffhanger so that people go, oh, I was going to
• 1:13:44
  stop there and put it down, but oh, I want to carry on.
• 1:13:50
  So you're just finding those moments where it's appropriate
• 1:13:52
  to just pause for a little bit. But also, what one thing I did
• 1:13:57
  enjoy about Emperor of Death was obviously on screen.
• 1:14:00
  You've watched it entire season and I'm sure anyone picking up
• 1:14:04
  this book would be aware of the TV story, but there might be
• 1:14:07
  people who just pick it up and have no idea.
• 1:14:10
  So you know, Susan is a fundamental part of the Doctor's
• 1:14:15
  back story, particularly with relation to Legend of Legend of
• 1:14:20
  Ruby Sunday and and Burrow of Death.
• 1:14:22
  So I gave a little prologue so detailing Susan's travels with
• 1:14:27
  the Doctor and how she left and why he'd be feeling sort of
• 1:14:31
  remorse about that. And similarly, a little bit of
• 1:14:35
  background into Sutek and the history of the Sirens later, a
• 1:14:40
  little interlude about halfway through the book.
• 1:14:44
  So that was quite fun finding those little structural places
• 1:14:47
  to do that. And yeah, because Emperor of
• 1:14:51
  Death was a sequel, obviously I I, I did reread Pyramids of
• 1:14:57
  Mars. I noticed.
• 1:14:59
  Oh, did you? Did you?
• 1:15:01
  There's like a half page, isn't it?
• 1:15:03
  There's like a back story of Sutec in there.
• 1:15:05
  Oh, there is that. Yes, that's sort of loosely
• 1:15:09
  following the but also I just wanted to have a few terrancisms
• 1:15:13
  in there. So just little phrases that
• 1:15:18
  leapt out at me like a note of self pity crept into his voice
• 1:15:22
  when talking about Sutec, which I think I slipped in something
• 1:15:26
  similar. And when Suitex doing the the
• 1:15:30
  green eye glow and just sort of bringing the doctor to his feet.
• 1:15:33
  I think I I just tried to make sure I used matching adjectives
• 1:15:38
  or or something like that just so it felt consistent.
• 1:15:40
  So I mean I doubt anyone will, but if anyone may choose to read
• 1:15:44
  Pyramids of Mars the novelization, then go straight
• 1:15:47
  into Empire of Death. Well, they will now.
• 1:15:50
  I'd like to think there's a bit of continuity where you just go,
• 1:15:54
  OK, that's quite cute, but it's really subtle.
• 1:15:56
  Maybe I delve too deep in my prep when I do this stuff.
• 1:16:00
  Similarly, when I wrote Vortis, I reread the Web Planets to just
• 1:16:03
  make sure the descriptions weren't.
• 1:16:06
  I mean, they're not identical, but they just come from a
• 1:16:08
  similar sort of yeah vocabulary. Well, you read that out on
• 1:16:13
  Target book that I it was all I could do to stop myself from
• 1:16:17
  punching the air because I love the web planets so much.
• 1:16:19
  I mean, the audio book is amazing because David Darlington
• 1:16:23
  uses the proper zombie sound effect.
• 1:16:25
  I wasn't prepared for it. Suddenly Susan Twist is reading
• 1:16:28
  Emperor of Death and you just hear the chiroping of zombie and
• 1:16:30
  the reader isn't. She.
• 1:16:34
  Do you know she'd never done one before?
• 1:16:36
  Really before 73 yards I bumped into her at wait.
• 1:16:40
  I'm trying to think if it was a convention or when she came back
• 1:16:47
  for series 2, but anyway, but I bumped into her and said, you
• 1:16:51
  know, thank you so much for reading it.
• 1:16:52
  Twitch just went, Oh my God, it was it was my first one.
• 1:16:56
  Was it any good? And I went, it's amazing.
• 1:16:58
  You know, she's, she's a really good natural reader and.
• 1:17:04
  I'm determined to get to a phantom and I will tell her I'm
• 1:17:07
  going to embarrass you again very quickly if that's all
• 1:17:09
  right. I'm so sorry.
• 1:17:10
  Sorry about this, but one I want to I want to prove to you that
• 1:17:14
  one that you did capture that wonderful Terrance way of ending
• 1:17:18
  a chapter from the most exciting point.
• 1:17:21
  I've got 3 consecutive chapter endings here.
• 1:17:24
  OK, Are you ready? How?
• 1:17:26
  How is this for excitement? Then Misses Flood was no more.
• 1:17:30
  Cherry sundae was gone. The bathroom was quiet and
• 1:17:32
  still, just like the rest of the world.
• 1:17:34
  Quiet dot dot dot still dot dot dot dot and ending.
• 1:17:39
  Now that's a terroristic Cliff hanger, but this one's even
• 1:17:42
  better. It's wooden doors slam probably
• 1:17:44
  shut behind them. They were trapped.
• 1:17:47
  Now that's a terrorist extent. And if ever I heard, well.
• 1:17:50
  Well, I mean, it's, yeah. How do you make it exciting when
• 1:17:53
  you're in a small box? But you know.
• 1:17:55
  I've got one more for you. Just one more.
• 1:17:57
  Well, I thought I chose 3 on the dot.
• 1:17:59
  I mean, there's so many moments in Empire if you could choose
• 1:18:01
  for chapter endings, but this is the, this is the zinger.
• 1:18:05
  The Doctor nodded, some solemnly confirming it's the end of the
• 1:18:09
  universe. Oh come on, if you're not going
• 1:18:12
  to pick up the next chapter on the train after that.
• 1:18:15
  Come on, the stakes don't get much higher than that, do they?
• 1:18:19
  No, they really don't. Yeah.
• 1:18:23
  It's funny because I keep saying things are funny.
• 1:18:26
  It's not particularly funny. But after doing 73 yards, Steve
• 1:18:30
  Cole did sort of go, oh, you know, we really loved working
• 1:18:35
  with you on that. Would you want to do something
• 1:18:36
  else? I went.
• 1:18:37
  Yeah. And you went.
• 1:18:37
  Or would you like to do an original or novelise Emperor of
• 1:18:43
  Death? And I remember Russell going,
• 1:18:46
  you're mad. Why didn't you do an original?
• 1:18:48
  And part of it was, you know, we were doing the war between at
• 1:18:51
  the time and having done 73 yards.
• 1:18:54
  I knew how I could work on a novelization, but also what it
• 1:18:58
  was. And I don't want to go too much
• 1:19:00
  into the personal reasons, but it was actually the final scenes
• 1:19:05
  of Ruby reuniting with an estranged parent.
• 1:19:10
  And I just went, I want to novelize that because of certain
• 1:19:15
  things that have happened in my life with parents and stuff.
• 1:19:20
  Like I, I just, I remember when those scripts were coming in, I
• 1:19:22
  went, this feels so raw and real and I can absolutely relate.
• 1:19:27
  And I just went, it's nothing to do with Suitech or Vortex or
• 1:19:31
  anything like that. It's actually the, the
• 1:19:33
  culmination of Ruby's story There is what made me go.
• 1:19:35
  I I just want to novelise a scene in the Cafe and everything
• 1:19:39
  else is sort of instead. I mean, everything else is
• 1:19:42
  brilliant and I had a lot of fun with it.
• 1:19:43
  But it's, it's funny what you connect with and go.
• 1:19:47
  That's the bit that I I really want to tackle.
• 1:19:50
  And and, you know, stuff like this sequence of the kind woman
• 1:19:54
  with the spoon on Agua Santino and, and but, you know, yeah,
• 1:20:00
  it's just a really, really, really rich story.
• 1:20:02
  And then you get to throw in a few references to Mel and
• 1:20:05
  Savlong Blitz and how she had her first adventure with the
• 1:20:08
  master. So, you know, link it into JNT's
• 1:20:11
  good old pitch document. Oh God I'm such a fanboy.
• 1:20:13
  I'm so jealous. That would be my ultimate job,
• 1:20:16
  You know, I've got no aptitude for it at all.
• 1:20:19
  I'll tell you, That scene in the cinema broke me.
• 1:20:22
  That scene in the cafe. Oh.
• 1:20:23
  That's so good. Boy boy.
• 1:20:25
  I mean I I was a massive fan of Trolley to the Sky 1 sitcom for
• 1:20:31
  years and years and years. And the woman who plays Ruby's
• 1:20:34
  mother is the woman on on the Tanner way in Trolley.
• 1:20:37
  I had no clue but I I so someone pointed that after I said really
• 1:20:41
  I wish she was it. Looks so I remember the read
• 1:20:44
  through literally. Oh, God, it was Anita Dobson and
• 1:20:49
  German Redgrave were sat next to each other in tears, literally
• 1:20:53
  clutching each other's hands to support each other.
• 1:20:55
  But they were. And also they look, you look at
• 1:20:58
  Faye and compared to Millie and go.
• 1:21:02
  I think they almost didn't put her in the credits because I
• 1:21:05
  went, God, if anyone Googles her that work out immediately,
• 1:21:08
  they're meant to be related because they look so right, you
• 1:21:11
  know? Yeah, that's sort of peas in the
• 1:21:14
  pod you used to go. I can see how she'd be playing
• 1:21:17
  the mother. You have to be so careful, don't
• 1:21:19
  you? If not even putting someone's
• 1:21:21
  name in a car. Sounded paranoia, but you just
• 1:21:23
  know if we hadn't done that then someone would have.
• 1:21:26
  I think if you're in that job that's founded paranoia, not
• 1:21:30
  unfounded, although you did set yourself a hell of a task.
• 1:21:32
  You know you chose to do the target but double the length.
• 1:21:36
  I didn't choose to make it double.
• 1:21:38
  The length. It's.
• 1:21:41
  It's just both episodes or nothing.
• 1:21:43
  I was I. It will.
• 1:21:45
  I mean, I could have done a Terence, he said.
• 1:21:48
  She said really, you know, kept it simple and not added
• 1:21:51
  anything. I've seen a few reviews of
• 1:21:53
  people going. Oh, should have expanded even
• 1:21:57
  more, but you should have go. I was already well over the word
• 1:22:01
  count and Stephen Cohen was going yeah, you can go over
• 1:22:03
  going. How over are you?
• 1:22:05
  OK, maybe don't go too much more over because yeah, I think it's
• 1:22:11
  42,000 words and the average targets about 30 to 35 S Yeah,
• 1:22:19
  it's it's a bit chunkier. I now once heard a very wise man
• 1:22:25
  called Russell T Davis on an interview saying that he gave
• 1:22:29
  some very wise words to Helen Rayner, his script minister at
• 1:22:32
  the time. Please, whatever you do, why are
• 1:22:35
  you going online and looking at what people are saying about
• 1:22:39
  your work? And I think, and given that I am
• 1:22:41
  a podcaster that puts my opinion out all the time, I doubly know
• 1:22:45
  that you shouldn't be doing that.
• 1:22:47
  Like you can't please everybody, can you?
• 1:22:50
  Oh, no, no, no, no, no. But also it's, it's funny.
• 1:22:52
  Now you live in a world on social media where people tag
• 1:22:54
  you and stuff. Yes, yeah.
• 1:22:56
  So imagine you, you don't even have to go looking.
• 1:22:59
  People tag you and you just, I don't know why it's, it's the
• 1:23:03
  idea of someone waving something in your face.
• 1:23:05
  You sort of go, I feel like I should have a look, but it, it,
• 1:23:09
  it's funny. There's also a lot of positive
• 1:23:12
  stuff you hear and, and it's why I cringe when you're positive
• 1:23:15
  about stuff like Dorian and things like that.
• 1:23:16
  It's not it, no, no, no, but it's not, it's not that I'm
• 1:23:21
  ungrateful or anything. It's very nice to receive the
• 1:23:23
  compliment, but it's it's that thing of you can take stuff to
• 1:23:28
  heart both ways. So in the same way you don't
• 1:23:31
  want to necessarily read bad reviews, you don't also want to
• 1:23:35
  necessarily read the glowing ones either, because you get a
• 1:23:39
  false perspective. And like you say, some people
• 1:23:41
  will pick up one thing and see completely different things from
• 1:23:44
  someone else. Thereby, you know, might both
• 1:23:47
  enjoy it, they might both hate it or, you know, you just have
• 1:23:51
  to do something that's consistent with what you want to
• 1:23:53
  do. Yeah.
• 1:23:56
  And also, it's a really interesting thing with Doctor
• 1:23:59
  Who fandom, and I say this is someone who's been a fan, yeah.
• 1:24:02
  We're mad. Yeah, I still am a fan, but you
• 1:24:05
  notice a lot that people very often criticize something for
• 1:24:09
  what it's not rather than evaluate something for what it
• 1:24:12
  is. So it's that thing of I remember
• 1:24:17
  while Blue Yonder got slating because it wasn't a multi doctor
• 1:24:20
  story rather than people sort of reviewing it for what it was and
• 1:24:26
  you still go. I always think that's slightly
• 1:24:28
  unfair when? Can I confess something to you?
• 1:24:30
  Yep, here on the call. I mean, I'm one of those people.
• 1:24:33
  No, well, no, no, I I loved. I told Russell I was at the
• 1:24:37
  Church of Ruby Rd. screening and I, I spoke to Russell that night
• 1:24:40
  and I said he goes, well, what's your favorite?
• 1:24:42
  I went wobbly Yonder. It really he was absolutely
• 1:24:45
  flabbergasted. I loved wobbly Yonder.
• 1:24:48
  I love them all. It's like a selection box of
• 1:24:50
  chocolates where you go. I love chocolate and but they're
• 1:24:52
  also distinctly different. You can't compare them.
• 1:24:55
  Yeah, but I, I went on a, you know, the someone else's podcast
• 1:25:00
  where they were doing, you know, speculation about what's coming.
• 1:25:02
  And I was like, Oh yeah, while blue Yonder is going to be a
• 1:25:05
  multi doctor. And there I was every cliche you
• 1:25:07
  just listed there. That's what I said.
• 1:25:09
  And then what it was flawed me as a result.
• 1:25:12
  That was a case of my expectation.
• 1:25:13
  It's just been tossed about it and.
• 1:25:16
  Why? That's the thing I could.
• 1:25:17
  Have thought. But but even if you hadn't liked
• 1:25:21
  while blue Yonder, if, if you sort of wrote a review saying
• 1:25:28
  what you didn't like because of it, you know, that's that's
• 1:25:30
  valid. But when when it's sort of going
• 1:25:32
  well, I didn't like it because it wasn't what I wanted it to
• 1:25:34
  be. In that it's really it's it's
• 1:25:39
  very unique to sort of fantasy series.
• 1:25:44
  Here it's even worse over with Star Wars, you know, so you
• 1:25:47
  might have got lucky. Yeah, I.
• 1:25:49
  Mean. It's just curious when you go
• 1:25:51
  off and do other projects and sort of you're braced for
• 1:25:55
  certain reactions and go, oh, it's yeah, pretty curious, but
• 1:26:00
  yeah. Coming away from it, you must
• 1:26:01
  have been like, well, don't worry, I've just worked with,
• 1:26:03
  you know, putting out things for Doctor Who fans.
• 1:26:05
  So I'll be all right here. I'll be fine in.
• 1:26:08
  Comparison. Every single pocket of the
• 1:26:09
  industry has its own sort of foil ball.
• 1:26:11
  Really. OK.
• 1:26:12
  Everything like that, but yeah. Do you know what I would
• 1:26:15
  suggest, not necessarily to you, but I would suggest to anybody
• 1:26:18
  that was involved in the production of RTD 2, as I
• 1:26:23
  believe it's sort of generally being coined, is that if there
• 1:26:27
  was ever any criticism that they'd sit down and put on the
• 1:26:30
  Devil's Cord or Lucky Day or The story in the engine and just go,
• 1:26:37
  forgive me, fuck you. Like, this is an amazing bit of
• 1:26:39
  work. Like it speaks for itself, I
• 1:26:42
  think. It's it's again, I feel like I'm
• 1:26:47
  quite old now. I remember back in 2005 when the
• 1:26:51
  show came back and I think a whole generation of us loved it.
• 1:26:55
  There were still fans then who hated it because it wasn't what
• 1:26:59
  Doctor Who had been in the 70s. And that's what I mean.
• 1:27:02
  Sometimes people put barriers up as to why they can't love
• 1:27:07
  something without it necessarily being related to that version.
• 1:27:13
  It's it's because of what it isn't.
• 1:27:14
  And yeah. I have a bizarre theory, Scott,
• 1:27:18
  that Doctor Who fans, they have a sort of bubble of what they
• 1:27:21
  expect the show to be. And if it sort of pushes outside
• 1:27:27
  of that bubble, that sort of shatters their world for you a
• 1:27:29
  little bit. And that's when you get the, you
• 1:27:32
  know, lashing out. I mean, I should say this is,
• 1:27:35
  you know, you, you see a lot of new fans coming in who are
• 1:27:38
  falling in love with it for the first time and everything like
• 1:27:40
  that. Which is the best part of this,
• 1:27:42
  right? And every time you get a, it's
• 1:27:45
  why the targets are great, because you've, you've now got a
• 1:27:48
  generation, people who've never read novelisations because
• 1:27:50
  they're sort of stopped being a thing.
• 1:27:54
  It's like, you know, every time a Doctor changes, you'll have
• 1:27:55
  people go, oh, I'm not watching Doctor anymore because Matt
• 1:27:58
  Smiths left or, you know, Jodie Whittaker's left or.
• 1:28:01
  You're talking about my mother there.
• 1:28:02
  You're aware of that? But you do you have people go, I
• 1:28:06
  can't possibly like it anymore. And you know, it's the same
• 1:28:08
  show. It's the same people making it.
• 1:28:10
  But no, literally it's. It's literally the joy of it,
• 1:28:14
  right? That's why it's this enormous
• 1:28:15
  engine of storytelling, is that it's exchanged hands in so many
• 1:28:19
  different ways. Actors, directors.
• 1:28:21
  You know, script editors, that so many creators.
• 1:28:24
  What's great is if, if one kind of little pocket of that world
• 1:28:28
  isn't for you, there's, you know, that everything's now on
• 1:28:32
  iPlayer or you've got the audios or the books or everything.
• 1:28:36
  It's just, it's, I mean, it's impossible.
• 1:28:40
  If you had tried to consume every single piece of Doctor Who
• 1:28:43
  media now, I'm not sure it would it be possible.
• 1:28:49
  Probably drive you mad. I mean I think people are
• 1:28:51
  binging. People are finding it on BBC and
• 1:28:54
  binging I. Mean if you try to read every,
• 1:28:55
  every 8th Doctor novel and missing adventure and, and I
• 1:29:01
  mean, at this point we're 60 years in, is it, is it even
• 1:29:05
  possible in a lifetime to, oh, I don't know.
• 1:29:08
  I'm nearly there. I think, you know, I've got
• 1:29:09
  three years, a big finish to go, and then I'll let you know, all
• 1:29:11
  right? But I'll be in a padded cell.
• 1:29:14
  I mean, one last compliment, OK? And I promise you no more
• 1:29:19
  because clearly you hate them. But that.
• 1:29:21
  But that period, like, I don't think you can say it was doing
• 1:29:27
  any one thing. I think sometimes with periods
• 1:29:29
  of Doctor Who there was, oh, that was the tone of that
• 1:29:32
  period, you know, undergraduate humour, Hammer Horror, you know,
• 1:29:36
  you know what periods I'm talking about there.
• 1:29:37
  Oh. Douglas Adams and Philip
• 1:29:39
  Hincliffe, of course. Yeah.
• 1:29:40
  Yeah, but you put something like Lucky Day and Story the Engine
• 1:29:43
  back-to-back. That's two different shows.
• 1:29:44
  That's the joy of Doctor Who, isn't it?
• 1:29:46
  Is? You're literally thrust from one
• 1:29:48
  genre to another. I wonder if it's because in the
• 1:29:51
  classic series you had, you know, 4 weeks before those sort
• 1:29:54
  of tonal shifts so people didn't notice it more.
• 1:29:58
  Whereas now because it's one episode a week, it it feels more
• 1:30:02
  distinct when you you have that gear change maybe, I don't know.
• 1:30:05
  I just think the infinite potential of the storytelling is
• 1:30:09
  the greatest strength and should be exploited, sort of, Max.
• 1:30:13
  Well, look, I'm going to ask you two more questions because I'm
• 1:30:16
  very aware. I've kept you here for an hour
• 1:30:18
  and 40 minutes now. Oh.
• 1:30:19
  I can rabbit on, it's fine, but my. 1st is, can you single out a
• 1:30:24
  handful of people in that whole journey from Big Finish to
• 1:30:28
  television to writing the books? God that have made the
• 1:30:32
  experience really special. I'm sure you could probably give
• 1:30:35
  me the Magna Carta of names. We just don't come.
• 1:30:39
  Into contact with everyone, don't you?
• 1:30:41
  Yeah, I mean Gary Russell got me my first gig, both the Big
• 1:30:47
  Finish and suggested me for Doctor, you know, and he lives
• 1:30:50
  just around the corner from me in Cardiff.
• 1:30:51
  So it's I pop round every, you know, 3 or 4 days like home
• 1:30:58
  help. Just make him a little dinner
• 1:30:59
  now because he's, you know, getting on.
• 1:31:03
  I found it hilarious that, you know, there are two.
• 1:31:05
  He was scripted and Doctor Who in the noughties.
• 1:31:07
  I was scripted in the 20s, and we just pop round and watch
• 1:31:09
  Richard Osmond's House of Games with, you know, a bit of Spag
• 1:31:12
  Bowl. Yeah, you can't imagine Eric
• 1:31:15
  Saywood and Terence Dix doing that.
• 1:31:18
  I like to think that whatever comes next, yeah, whatever
• 1:31:21
  Doctor Who comes next on the TV, that the two of you ex script
• 1:31:25
  editors will be sitting there watching it together.
• 1:31:26
  Oh, I wouldn't have done that, you know.
• 1:31:29
  Yeah, yeah. But yeah, so, so yeah, obviously
• 1:31:34
  Russell T Davies is is bonkers because when I was a kid growing
• 1:31:37
  up watching Queer as Folk and stuff, it's very weird to work
• 1:31:42
  with people you'd admire but also and become friends.
• 1:31:45
  And he's been the most incredible person during a lot
• 1:31:49
  of personal sort of difficulties in the last few years.
• 1:31:54
  And not just as a boss, but as a friend.
• 1:31:57
  His generosity is insane. And then you know, stuff like
• 1:32:02
  Big Finish, James Goss, I first met while working on Doctor
• 1:32:07
  Confidential and I think, I don't think we clashed, but I
• 1:32:14
  don't think we particularly got on.
• 1:32:16
  And then Big Finish, we were sort of thrust together because
• 1:32:19
  he was producing Bernie Summerfield and I was attached
• 1:32:23
  as his director. And I don't say we never really
• 1:32:28
  had any issues, but I don't think we ever gelled.
• 1:32:29
  And that was just really lovely because we both got to work with
• 1:32:32
  each other properly for the first time and that's of mutual
• 1:32:35
  respect grew. And then just again, friendship.
• 1:32:39
  And, you know, we've worked so closely together on so many
• 1:32:42
  ranges and particularly Tortured and Benny.
• 1:32:44
  And it's great. It's sort of a bit like Wallace
• 1:32:47
  and Gromit and that he is just the sort of, he's an absolute
• 1:32:51
  genius, but sometimes he can get a bit distracted or something
• 1:32:55
  like that. And I'm sort of Gromit just
• 1:32:56
  laying out the train track while the train's just speeding along
• 1:32:59
  to make sure we don't swerve off course.
• 1:33:02
  I'm sure he won't mind me saying that, but yeah, it's a really
• 1:33:06
  lovely dynamic because we just push each other in the right
• 1:33:11
  directions and inspire in different ways and just just
• 1:33:16
  both striving to make the best products we can on limited
• 1:33:20
  resources a lot of the time. And you know, even now we're
• 1:33:23
  working together on just little pet projects amongst ourselves
• 1:33:26
  because we just really like working together.
• 1:33:29
  So that's nice. And then, you know, stuff like
• 1:33:31
  lockdown, that dirty word from about five years ago, you know,
• 1:33:38
  introduced me to people, introduced me to Emily Cook,
• 1:33:40
  who's one of my, you know, best mates now.
• 1:33:42
  And we did a few little lockdown things together, but then didn't
• 1:33:48
  mind if the Hodiak together and and and like I say, she's one of
• 1:33:51
  my best mates in the world. And people like Jake Dudman, I
• 1:33:55
  think I gave him his first gig as an actor, a big finish on the
• 1:33:58
  War master. Just a little computer voice and
• 1:34:00
  you go look at that career now and, and everything like that.
• 1:34:04
  But again, he, he's just become, you know, there are just so many
• 1:34:07
  people you meet and become part of your life.
• 1:34:12
  It's, it's really lovely actually.
• 1:34:16
  And then you, you go to stuff like Gallifrey Cabaret and, and
• 1:34:19
  target book clubs and stuff and you, it's just nice to engage.
• 1:34:26
  It's what's actually really weird is because I've been so
• 1:34:29
  immersed in Doctor Who for the last three years on the TV show.
• 1:34:31
  And you sort of it's just difficult to do stuff like
• 1:34:39
  conventions or even stuff like this, even do a little podcast
• 1:34:43
  chat about the books and everything and Big Finish.
• 1:34:46
  And so I've sort of not been able to do that or engage and
• 1:34:50
  everything like that. And being able to come back and
• 1:34:52
  go to Gallifrey Cabarets and just remember how much people
• 1:34:56
  love it. It's really lovely.
• 1:34:58
  I've. Never been and I see the
• 1:35:01
  pictures coming out and it looks like a great night.
• 1:35:04
  It's. Just so silly and daft.
• 1:35:05
  And I think that at the end of the day, that's The thing is
• 1:35:08
  Doctor Who is so full of joy and and and absurdity that you've
• 1:35:14
  sort of just got to roll with it.
• 1:35:16
  And I think just not take it seriously.
• 1:35:19
  I think, yeah. I think sometimes people can
• 1:35:22
  forget that, and it's always worth remembering.
• 1:35:24
  It is silly and it's full of joy.
• 1:35:26
  Yeah, well, one last question, and I don't even know if you can
• 1:35:33
  answer this, but what on earth does the future hold for Scott
• 1:35:36
  Hancock? I definitely can't answer that
• 1:35:40
  because I don't know it's. Usually people just give me sort
• 1:35:43
  of obscurities, you know? James Goss just went well, I'm
• 1:35:46
  doing AI just started mumbling. No, it's weird.
• 1:35:49
  It's it's, it's funny. We're in an odd point with the
• 1:35:53
  creative industries because of where we are politically in the
• 1:35:57
  world. I mean, I don't want to get too
• 1:35:59
  deep, but you look at the way the arts are being dismantled on
• 1:36:03
  on both sides of the pond and, and you know, the tariffs and
• 1:36:07
  everything that sort of having a trickle down effect.
• 1:36:09
  So it's it's, it's, it's difficult out there, if I'm
• 1:36:16
  honest. I mean, what's coming up?
• 1:36:20
  I am, you know, I'm the system producer on the war between.
• 1:36:24
  So that's obviously wrapped last year and in post production.
• 1:36:28
  So looking forward to everyone seeing that.
• 1:36:32
  Can't say so much, but it's genuinely really exciting.
• 1:36:37
  Probably Russell Tovey cast as a lead in something Doctor Who
• 1:36:41
  related. Oh, it's just, yeah, it's sort
• 1:36:46
  of, it's weird. It feels like mainstream drama
• 1:36:48
  that will appeal to Doctor Who fans rather than a Doctor Who
• 1:36:51
  drama that will appeal to mainstream viewers.
• 1:36:53
  It's just really robust and solid.
• 1:36:55
  And yeah, but I I think I've not said anything there.
• 1:37:00
  No, it hasn't already been there.
• 1:37:03
  You'll listen back to this before.
• 1:37:04
  I'll put it out, all right? Just to put you.
• 1:37:07
  Put you. It's all good.
• 1:37:10
  What else? I mean, I've done some more,
• 1:37:12
  actually, a fair bit of Tortured with James Garcer, Big Finish.
• 1:37:18
  Yeah. And just working on a few
• 1:37:21
  projects with other people. Little podcasty things maybe to
• 1:37:27
  just fill the days really while I'm seeing what you had your
• 1:37:31
  own. Podcast, didn't you?
• 1:37:32
  I did from queer to eternity, just interviewing lots of people
• 1:37:36
  from across the sort of LGBT wonderful people.
• 1:37:39
  Yeah. Yeah, no, it's really lovely
• 1:37:41
  actually, because you think a lot of people have had the
• 1:37:44
  experience of coming out whether you're, you know, gay, lesbian,
• 1:37:47
  bisexual, transgender, non violent, you know, having to
• 1:37:50
  overcome that hurdle. But everyone's got their own
• 1:37:52
  distinct story, you know, whether it's based on age or
• 1:37:58
  culture or, you know, generational geography where you
• 1:38:02
  grew up. And it's yeah, it's interesting,
• 1:38:07
  everyone having something in common and yet being so wildly
• 1:38:09
  different. So yeah, so just just lots of
• 1:38:14
  plate spinning and playing hopefully.
• 1:38:18
  But yeah, there's no concrete. Here's the path.
• 1:38:21
  Because as I say, I'm I'm very much yes and rather than no but
• 1:38:24
  and so I'm just yeah, do whatever, really.
• 1:38:28
  I mean, all I will say is I'm coming away from this call with
• 1:38:30
  very exciting news from my other half who adores those tortured
• 1:38:33
  plays so much and frequently tries to terrify me every night
• 1:38:38
  by saying, oh, let's put that on to go to bed.
• 1:38:40
  So I went, no way. Are you kidding?
• 1:38:42
  Me. Oh, some of them are quite fun.
• 1:38:45
  Yeah, some of them are absolutely terrifying.
• 1:38:47
  There is one we, which James posted, I think we've sort of
• 1:38:53
  wrapped up underlined in era, but we've also, I think we're
• 1:38:56
  reaching #100 in the monthly series and we recorded one the
• 1:39:02
  other week, which isn't #100 we've already recorded that, but
• 1:39:06
  we recorded one the other week, which I'm really excited by.
• 1:39:09
  It's got Sam Barnett in and a guest star who I'm amazed has
• 1:39:16
  never done Big Finish before. And I've been trying to get in,
• 1:39:18
  and I'm very excited. It's not a big name in terms of,
• 1:39:22
  you know, it's not a Kate Winslet or a, you know, Michael
• 1:39:26
  Palin, but it's someone who has a connection to the universe.
• 1:39:31
  And I'm just very glad we've managed to get him in for an
• 1:39:33
  audio. Scott after nearly two hours.
• 1:39:39
  Oh my God, you're going to be whittling the hell out of this.
• 1:39:41
  No. I won't take out a word I'll
• 1:39:43
  take. It, if any, comparatively.
• 1:39:45
  I only edit if you request. How would you sum up this whole
• 1:39:50
  experience, this crazy experience with Doctor Who?
• 1:39:53
  How? How on earth do you sew it?
• 1:39:55
  Obviously you've worked with a plethora of people, you know,
• 1:40:00
  amazing people. How do you sum it?
• 1:40:05
  Up genuinely, just say unbelievable because, you know,
• 1:40:10
  as a kid growing up, what attracted me to Doctor Who was
• 1:40:15
  it was an unbelievable TV series.
• 1:40:17
  I wouldn't have believed I've ever get to work on it.
• 1:40:19
  I still don't believe I've got to work on it and I'm still
• 1:40:22
  connected to it. So yeah, just just unbelievable.
• 1:40:27
  Well, at two hours, I'm going to let you go to bed, so let's say
• 1:40:33
  thank you very much for your time tonight and.
• 1:40:35
  Thank you for asking. Will you please get on and do
• 1:40:38
  more Dory and get Graves when we please because I'm still
• 1:40:41
  waiting. I mean, it's down to Big finish.
• 1:40:44
  If it was me, I'd be doing them all the time.
• 1:40:46
  I've got some numbers I'll get in touch.
• 1:40:48
  I'll tell you what, I'll cut it right there.