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Chris Chapman Interview - Blu-rays and Big Finish · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:23
  None Hamster with a Blump Pen Knife
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  for doing quicker, quicker, quicker.
• 0:40
  Welcome back to our Hamster with a Blump Pen Knife the Doctor Who
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  Commentary Podcast Not a commentary podcast today.
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  Today I am with an esteemed gentleman from the Doctor Who
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  universe, Mr. Chris Chapman. Hello, Chris.
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  Hello, Joey. Nice to see you.
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  Thanks for having me. I'm, I'm going to say if you've
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  enjoyed ADVD documentary or a Blu-ray documentary in the last
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  10 years, then this gentleman has probably written and
• 1:07
  produced and directed it. If you've enjoyed a Big Finish
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  release in the last five or ten years, this gentleman's probably
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  written it. I'm a huge fan of your work.
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  I'm so pleased that you're here, Chris, Can I ask you first, what
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  is your Doctor Who story? How how did you come to Doctor
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  Who? How did you find it?
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  Oh well I'm I'm, I guess I'm one of those.
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  I'm almost an Inbetweener fan in the sense that I came to the
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  show very late in its original run.
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  I I was born in 81, so I have childhood memories of bits of
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  trial, of a Time Lord, lots of McCoy.
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  It was a big fan of McCoy. Remembrance of the Daleks.
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  I I have very vivid memories of and the rest of his run.
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  I remember being scared by clowns.
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  Terrified. By The Cliff Hangover episode
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  two of Survival, which is one of the weirdly most underrated ones
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  in the show's history. I would argue when Ace turns and
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  he realizes he's gonna have to use it.
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  He's great. And then the show went away and
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  I was only 8 years old and I thought, well, that's my
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  favorite show gun. And I think at the time it was
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  just the scary thing that I was allowed to stay up a bit later
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  to watch. And it was like a lot of things,
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  a gateway to horror really. I think it was the scarier to
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  who that probably was like crack to me as a 8 year old.
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  And it went away. And I guess really becoming a
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  fan was more about probably the repeat season they had in
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  909399293 when it used to be on BBC Two on an evening in that
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  kind of slot, they used to show like Captain Scarlet and things
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  like that. And I remember watching that run
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  of stories like The Sea Devils and the Demons and Genesis, The
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  Daleks and Andrew Zani was on, wasn't it?
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  And. And and revelation of the
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  dialects and battlefield and and and loving it and really
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  thinking this is the show from when I was 8.
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  But all these different dimensions to what I never knew
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  about all these different faces. So we people talk about the five
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  faces of Doctor Who back in the early 80s.
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  But this was that's what this was to I think a lot of younger
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  fans like me in 93 ish. And I bought Paradise of Death
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  on tape and I started buying all the VHSS.
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  And just discovered the show in a very higgledy piggledy out of
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  order kind of way and just had no idea which things were fan
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  favourites. You know bought Planet of Evil
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  on VHS and thought this is the scariest, best story I've ever
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  seen and and and just kind of slowly made my way through the
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  show and probably didn't see all of the existing who's until I
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  think 2004 I think knowing the show was coming back.
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  Made me finally watch Planet of Giants.
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  Or what was the weirdly mask of Mandraga?
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  I took the last story. I think Planet of Giants was the
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  final story but Mandraga was definitely in my last like three
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  or four that I watched. I don't know why it just hadn't
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  been in HMV on offer on the on the Saturday that I'd gone in
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  and and it took me until, I think you remember when there
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  used to be a thing called love film that was like yeah it was
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  delivered to your door. Yeah I would send you DVDs in
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  the post. Then you'd watch it and send it
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  back and I suddenly realized I could use that to fill all my
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  gaps and who knowledge like free iPlayer, free bit box and and so
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  I remember getting lost in time on that the the box set and
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  watching all the kind of orphaned missing episodes and
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  just thinking this is this is great and and I guess when 2005
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  happened I'd probably been away from fandom for you know for a
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  few years when I was at uni. And the show coming back.
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  And I remember being up in Newcastle on Miami and seeing
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  the big billboards outside St. James's Park, outside the
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  football stadium of the TARDIS, doors open and Rosen the Doctor,
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  and just being so delighted to have it back.
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  And that, I guess, prompted me to get back into it.
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  And and then I separate to that. I was.
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  I was starting to work as a director in telly.
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  And also you know, for corporates and commercials and
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  different bits and bobs. And I suddenly realised that
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  maybe I could turn this appreciation that I had into a
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  part of my job and pitched myself to the BBC, to Dan Hall
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  who was in charge of the DVD range.
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  And in about 2007 he commissioned our first one and
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  we kind of started slow and built our way up and and I think
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  we made like 40. Documentaries for the DVD range
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  and we're on about we just delivered #26 the other day for
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  Blu-ray and we've got another eight to deliver from where we
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  stand now So and that will hopefully continue.
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  So it it's been a lovely, I guess like a lot of people
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  involved in this it's been a hobby you know it's been a
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  hobby. It's been a a passion project.
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  That, you know, if you could just do this and do nothing
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  else, then you would. And sometimes real life will
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  force you to balance with it. But it's certainly been a real
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  pleasure so far, the whole thing, you know, the way you
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  describe sort of discovering Dr. as a whole.
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  I call it sort of the great archaeology.
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  You know how those videos came out all out of order.
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  And it's like putting together a massive jigsaw.
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  And in a way, I'm very jealous about this new iPlayer where
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  everything's suddenly available and you can pretty much binge
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  the series. And in another way, I think
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  doing it that way almost makes it a little disposable, like,
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  you know, just sort of crashing through it all at a pace.
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  And I know people that have done that and gone, yeah, that was a
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  good enough show. I think because of the way the
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  way we put it all together, it's sort of all the details stick in
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  your head, don't they? And.
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  Well, I think, I think part of it was that the VHS as I was
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  only. 12 or 1314 and if I wanted to buy AVHS, I'd spend I'd, I'd
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  certainly spend like a 10 or 11 quid.
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  I might get a disc you know you might get like a three for three
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  for reduced thing from HMV or Virgin.
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  But if you bought AVHS, you really had to.
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  You wanted to make the most of it and the idea of kind of
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  blitzing through it and moving on didn't really enter into it.
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  I would have watched. I I watched Terror of the
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  Autumns so many times in 9394 that I would, I'd I'd walk
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  around the playground kind of quoting the script at people,
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  and they'd look at me blankly, like quite rightly, They'd look
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  at me like I'd fallen off from another planet.
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  But I I'd watched them over and over, and I'd probably only had
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  about a dozen of those VHSS at the beginning, and you would
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  just wear them out. So all of those stories that the
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  1st 20 or so I had on VHS. I have a special place in my
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  heart. You know, regardless of kind of
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  where they end up in the polls, in a fan opinion, you know,
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  they're always going to be special.
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  You say in the school playground, I'll still do it.
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  Now I'll walk around, work. Well, in Doctor Who's stories,
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  it's it's a it's a curse and a blessing.
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  I think it's more acceptable now than it was in 1994.
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  So I think that that, that's that's the thing I'm I'm, you
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  know, in a nice way. I'm kind of envious of, you
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  know, young fans, if. I'd been at secondary school in
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  2000 and five 2006 when you're at Eccleston and Tennant.
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  I just think that rise of Geek Chic was was so lovely and I
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  think I like to think that Doctor Who fans of that era had
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  a hadn't had a nicer time and felt more kind of embraced by
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  you know, but but being a fan in 94, you genuinely felt like no
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  bugger in the world knows about this.
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  This is you know it's called the wilderness years for a reason.
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  It was. It was a very spread out time
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  and I was too young or too I wasn't connected enough to think
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  about. Oh, I could go and join a.
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  Fan club or you know there, there was nothing like that.
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  So it was very, it was a very private obsession and I'm trying
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  to make up for that now. It must feel astonishing now
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  then because I've, I've, I haven't done a load because
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  you've always been a busy bloke at these BFI events.
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  But to have that sort of, you know, that is like a collective
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  fandom all coming together to experience something they love.
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  I mean, it's quite enticing, isn't it?
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  Yeah, well, I I hope that a nice thing about the Blu Rays.
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  That we do now is that it? That it does bring fandom
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  together in a really positive open way and that we're not
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  judgmental about it. We're not saying here's the crap
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  one now here's the great one now we're kind of saying look it's
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  all it's all the same stuff. It's like you know we we kind of
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  we love it and and I I think those BFI days are nice because
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  I don't get sense of people coming in and and snaring what's
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  up there on the big screen that they they're coming because they
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  they just they want to see the other people and they want to
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  experience it together. And and we're kind of too old to
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  to get hopefully we're, you know to get wrapped up in in not
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  wanting certain stories to be part of the bigger picture.
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  I think it's all it's all Doctor Who, isn't it?
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  It would be a long way to go for people to come along just to
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  sneer. What's fabulous about that is I
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  don't realize how funny half those stories are until I'm
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  there with that audience. And they're absolutely laughing
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  their heads off at Revelation of the Dialects and The Sea Devils
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  and all of this. But also as well to see, you
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  know, those fabulous drone shots on the documentaries and things
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  like that on the big screen, because I've only got a 52 inch
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  telly and as big as that BFI screen, just see it come alive
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  on a big screen like that. Fabulous.
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  Well, I think and as you say, kind of part of it is that, you
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  know, you're getting to see it with an audience, a show that
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  you probably only have. You may have only watched it on
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  your own, and you've kind of forgotten which lines are funny.
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  Or maybe not picked up on something so to see it with a
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  crowd is is great, is I'm. I'm really glad that we've
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  because I guess those BFI days don't have to happen.
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  And it's because of people like Justin Johnson and and Dick
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  Fiddie and working with Russell Minton that they've made that a
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  thing and it didn't have to be a thing.
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  You know, I can't think of many home media productions that had
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  go hand in hand with these kind of big celebrative days, but I'm
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  glad they do. It's, it's come to a point now
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  where you've got to be there. It's like a Britney Spears
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  concert. You've got to be there with your
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  finger on the bottom to get those tickets, otherwise you're
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  going to miss out. You know, it's it's a hard
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  stuff. Well, can I take you right back
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  to the start of your professional association with
• 11:22
  Doctor Who then? So what was the first first
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  thing that you did working for Doctor Who?
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  So the first Commission that we got from Dan Hall was for.
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  I think he just wanted to try us out.
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  So I think it was very low budget and it was for the war
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  games and we did a a documentary called called Time Zones.
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  And it gets confusing because there's also doc called War
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  Zones on that set, which is by I think by Steve Broster, which is
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  more of a making of. And ours was in that slightly
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  interesting period of the DVDs when they decided to do lots of
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  kind of contextual. Documentary so you'd learn about
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  the history of this and that. So the the brief was just to go
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  and make a kind of 1050 minute film about the historical
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  periods that The War Games is partly set in.
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  So it's it's us interviewing historians and talking about
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  that. It's got quite an OTT opening,
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  kind of kind of 2007 style CG. Where we zoom down from the sky
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  to find the TARDIS in the middle of No Man's land which was our
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  kind of attempt attempt playing. You know we're here guys.
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  We're here. And then you have to watch a 15
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  minute talk about about the fairly dry presentation which is
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  on me about those historical periods.
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  And I remember on the day we filmed 4 interviews in a day up
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  in Newcastle against the green screen, which I wouldn't do now
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  anyway and. And I really didn't know what I
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  was doing. So when we did the whole
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  interview on a kind of mid shot and then I thought oh we should
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  get a closer version of that as well.
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  So we I asked all the questions again and we did.
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  So these people were sat there for like 2 hours each for their
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  interviews purely so I have the option and the edits of going
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  from a mid shot to a close up and making an edit which now we
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  would just either not worry about that or use two cameras or
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  whatever. But that's something we did on
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  that first shoot and I remember leaving the the room and saying
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  to the cameraman. I probably didn't need to do
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  that, did I? He was looking to watch the No,
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  you didn't. You didn't need to do that, but
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  you did. So that was the beginning of of
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  it all. You learn as you go on with
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  these things, don't you? OK, this is quite a big question
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  and you know you'd have to go into insane detail if you don't
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  want to, but could you? I'm really curious to if you
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  could take us through like the making of a documentary, if you
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  want to select just one from it's like conception to its
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  execution to its editing to its release.
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  I know that's a big question. OK.
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  I'm trying to think of a good one.
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  I mean, I can give you the general approach.
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  I'm trying to think of 1 that's come out that we can talk about.
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  I mean the the process that happens is that I will get a
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  message from Russell Minton. Who's the boss of the Blu Rays
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  basically and and Russell's Russell will come to me probably
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  on on Facebook Messenger and he will say hey the next set is
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  this or or two sets down the line is this what ideas have you
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  got. And I may have already pitched
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  him a document of ideas and he may be saying, I want to, I want
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  you to do this one and this one. Or he might be asking for just
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  pictures. Or he might be saying do a
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  making of you know that, that, that and and and get on with it.
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  And so I'll get a budget. And and I will probably write a
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  kind of half page or one page for Russell to say I think it
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  should be this. And that'll be not only it's a
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  creative pitch, it's a kind of the the shape of the film and
• 14:59
  where we're going to film it and the kind of visual approach.
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  But it's also a kind of these are the kind of people who it
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  could involve, and he'll sign off on that and then.
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  I guess the first thing is usually figuring out who's in
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  the world who can help us. And a lot of that's tracking
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  people down South, people like, you know, I do a bit of that,
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  but but we're, you know, we get a lot of assistance from people
• 15:22
  like Richard Bignell, like Toby Ader can and we'll try and track
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  people down. If you're doing the making of
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  you're thinking, well, who's in the world, who, who we can speak
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  to, How can we get in touch with them?
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  And I will approach them. I will say please come and be in
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  our film and I will start trying to schedule.
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  And really scheduling is the kind of the trickiest bit, just
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  trying to weave it together so that, you know, we can't afford
• 15:49
  to film and film and film. We can't have loads of filming
• 15:51
  days. And in the old days we could
• 15:53
  only really get a crew together on one day.
• 15:55
  And so you if you couldn't do that one day, you couldn't be in
• 15:57
  the film so. We're trying to get everybody to
• 16:00
  come and do the day. And if you're doing it at a
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  location, if you're taking the cast, if you're doing King's
• 16:04
  Demons and you're taking the cast back to Bodium, Castle has
• 16:07
  to be there. That works for the castle and
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  maybe that has to be a Monday because it's less busy.
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  And does that work for the cast and how we going to get them
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  there? And really in the prep, it's
• 16:16
  just me, you know, I'm the person that books.
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  I booked the cars, I booked the hotels, I signed the contracts.
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  I kind of every element of that. Is is on me because we just
• 16:28
  don't have the budgets. You know, it's not the budgets
• 16:30
  fault, but we just, we're not that shape.
• 16:32
  We're not that size to have a big team on production.
• 16:35
  So it's me. I'll write a kind of structural
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  script not, not like a person says, this person says that.
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  But just so I can get a sense of this is how the film begins and
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  this is how it hangs together, this ends.
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  You can rip that up in a second. If you come up with a better
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  idea of reality, provides you with one and then.
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  I'll go on recce actually before the script.
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  I'll usually go on recce so that I can see the spaces and build
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  on that rather than imagining what it might be like going down
• 17:04
  the wrong path. And then we will go and shoot
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  it. And that might mean everything
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  has to happen in a day or it might be a number of days spread
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  out all in one clump together. I then I would do a pre cut.
• 17:19
  I'll do a kind of assembly edit. Or sink pool of kind of slightly
• 17:24
  more advanced sink pool where I'll kind of go through and take
• 17:28
  everything that we've shot and we might have shot like for for
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  King's Demons, we probably shot like 8 hours of stuff and I have
• 17:35
  to go through and chop it up and turn it into little bits of Lego
• 17:39
  which I can then build into my own little film 88 hours.
• 17:44
  Yeah, but a lot of that's guff. You know, a lot of that's sort
• 17:48
  of looking, looking for the gold in there.
• 17:50
  Yeah. And and that's not a reflection
• 17:52
  on the contribs. It's usually because it's me
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  asking questions or you know, but ultimately with any of these
• 17:58
  things you want to take the best stuff and and avoid repetition
• 18:02
  and there's no point in two people saying the same thing.
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  So you pick the the the best thing said by, you know, the
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  best thing that anybody said on the one topic.
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  And I have a regular editor that I use, a chap called Rich
• 18:13
  Alderson who's based up in Northumberland, and I'll hand my
• 18:17
  pre cut over to Rich. So he can see, oh, here's the
• 18:21
  these are the words that Chris wants in the order that he wants
• 18:24
  them and the pictures to support them all alongside them.
• 18:28
  And then Rich will actually do the sexy stuff and actually kind
• 18:30
  of edit it properly. And he'll, I'll have suggested
• 18:33
  music track, so he'll have music to it.
• 18:36
  I try to avoid voice over a lot of the time, so there's not a
• 18:39
  big element to that. I'd rather that the people said
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  the things and that it wasn't me saying the same things.
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  And we will then. Rich will produce a a first cut
• 18:53
  and that will probably be a bit long and then I'll send him shit
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  loads of notes and bring the runtime down and compact it and
• 19:01
  tweak, tweak, tweak, tweak, add this, add that.
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  And we'll keep that communication going for
• 19:07
  potentially weeks of of amending and tweaking until we've got a
• 19:12
  cut that we're both happy with. He will then start the picture
• 19:17
  grade. So we.
• 19:19
  All all the kind of colours will be kind of brought out the best
• 19:22
  that we can from the rushes and at that point it will be sent to
• 19:27
  Russell Minton for him to hopefully you know any any
• 19:31
  feedback he's got any notes mercifully, he's very good on
• 19:34
  that front and I think if he's got on board with what we've
• 19:37
  pitched at the beginning, I think he he would probably say,
• 19:40
  you know it's not we don't surprise him at that moment.
• 19:43
  It's not like we're delivering the wrong thing.
• 19:47
  You make any tweaks required and then it goes to the sound mix or
• 19:50
  the levels are kind of or the sound levels are kind of
• 19:53
  straightened out so everything sounds fine.
• 19:56
  And then it is mastered and sent to a place called the Ark, which
• 20:02
  is a company that that handles all the production or the kind
• 20:05
  of final production on the Blu Rays and they're the ones who
• 20:08
  master it onto the Blu Rays as far as I understand it and then
• 20:13
  I I. I kind of get sent a copy when
• 20:16
  probably at the same time you watch it and I turn it on to
• 20:19
  make sure that it plays and then I turn it off straight away and.
• 20:24
  Why? I don't want to watch it again
• 20:26
  by that point. I've watched it too many times
• 20:29
  and you do a lot of viewing of these things just to make sure
• 20:32
  there are no glitches in it. And when that's we've just
• 20:35
  submitted a 97 minute film. So when you want to get to the
• 20:39
  end of that, you like, I love this, but I don't have to watch
• 20:41
  it again. So I I like to know that they if
• 20:46
  you press play, they play. That kind of reassures me and
• 20:49
  then I'll kind of leave it for, I don't know however long you
• 20:52
  need away from a thing like 10 years or 20 years or whatever.
• 20:55
  And then I might watch it again, but then it'll feel like
• 20:57
  somebody else made. So it's fine.
• 20:59
  What's What's the sort of like a good time then, from the initial
• 21:03
  idea to the finished result? Obviously you do.
• 21:06
  They must all take because they're different lengths and
• 21:09
  well, it really depends. Because it depends how quick we
• 21:11
  have to go. And because because I'm
• 21:14
  balancing this with with normal, with normal Tele directing work
• 21:18
  and Rich Alderson, the editor, is balancing it with other
• 21:20
  clients because the budgets are low.
• 21:23
  We kind of have to work it around other jobs.
• 21:25
  So sometimes a job will be artificially longer than it
• 21:29
  would be just blocked out time and you just did that.
• 21:31
  But we we can't afford to just block out time and turn other
• 21:34
  work away. So I mean the the 97 minute one
• 21:43
  has been two years of my life in some form.
• 21:50
  But for instance I remember something like the Who's Doctor
• 21:54
  Who doc that we did happened to happen in a window when I had
• 21:59
  just, I've just finished the telly job and I hadn't started
• 22:02
  the next one and so I could just go and zoom in on that and that
• 22:07
  probably had about three or four weeks of prep a shoot and then
• 22:13
  that would have been like a three day shoot and then it went
• 22:18
  into the edit and it was quite a quick turn around edit, excuse
• 22:21
  me. So I think that was in the edit
• 22:23
  for about 3 weeks or so. So so that one start to finish
• 22:29
  might have only been two or three months because we had the
• 22:33
  free time to do it. But it's hard harder to say
• 22:35
  normally because you do you fit them in around things.
• 22:38
  I'm assuming that one doesn't end and then another one starts.
• 22:42
  So I'm assuming that there are many juggled at the same time.
• 22:47
  Yeah, they're they're massively overlapping there.
• 22:50
  There will only normally be one of them in the edit at any one
• 22:52
  time because it makes sense for editor rich to to just focus on.
• 22:57
  Doesn't make any sense for him to edit something in the morning
• 22:59
  and something else in the afternoon.
• 23:00
  So he will tend to feed on what's in front of him.
• 23:04
  But while he's doing that, I might be writing the script for
• 23:10
  the next shoot we've got. I might be prepping the edit for
• 23:13
  the other one. I I mean, as I said at the
• 23:15
  moment, I, until last week we had 10 docs all in production
• 23:23
  and two of them were delivered last week.
• 23:25
  So now it's eight. And of those eight, probably
• 23:30
  three or four of them are kind of at a more intense stage and
• 23:35
  you know some of the other ones on the back burner, because I
• 23:37
  just know that deadline's not for a while.
• 23:39
  There's only so much we can do. Let's let's push that one to the
• 23:42
  back of the queue. But yeah it's it's very it's
• 23:46
  quite a kind of schizophrenic kind of to pardon the expression
• 23:50
  experience but but you know I wouldn't have it any other way
• 23:53
  and sometimes it can be really good if you get, if something
• 23:57
  gets stuck if you're like I can't do anything on this job
• 24:00
  until that location confirms access then to be able to say,
• 24:04
  well that's fine, I'll put that to one side.
• 24:05
  I'm going to write the script for this next one.
• 24:08
  It's it's actually better to have overlapping docks than just
• 24:11
  one that can get kind of bottlenecked at some point and
• 24:14
  slow you down. But yeah, we never have enough.
• 24:17
  There's never enough time. And I'd probably keep tweaking
• 24:20
  longer than I should do if I could.
• 24:22
  But you can't. That's why they're so good.
• 24:25
  I mean, I whenever I now look, you can't actually don't do a
• 24:28
  Toby, hey, don't call me and shy away from a compliment, all
• 24:30
  right? Because when we get to your big
• 24:32
  finish off, you're going to be very embarrassed when I.
• 24:36
  By the Blu-ray sets, if there's like a big dog on there like the
• 24:39
  JNT one, I'm just there for it straight away and as I was
• 24:44
  watching that sort of the the narrative.
• 24:47
  Of that story and how you you sort of take the audience up to
• 24:51
  that sort of high point in his life and then chronicle what
• 24:55
  happened as as things started to go downhill.
• 24:58
  And then the ending where, I mean, I don't cry easily, but I
• 25:01
  did cry at the end of that one and a few of the others, the
• 25:04
  Sarah Jane one as well and a few others.
• 25:07
  But just the amount of interviewees in something like
• 25:11
  that, like that must be an impossible schedule.
• 25:15
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 25:16
  And the the John one had about I think about 18 or 19 in that
• 25:22
  most of those we did in one day. I we did 12, I did, I sat down
• 25:27
  and did twelve of those straight in in a single day in a studio
• 25:31
  in London. And actually the biggest job on
• 25:34
  those docks is just wading through that amount of footage
• 25:36
  and not so much just watching that, but then organizing it and
• 25:41
  picking the best and trying to figure it out.
• 25:42
  And sometimes those things are really pleasant and it kind of
• 25:46
  paints itself but other times you get really stuck.
• 25:49
  You're like how do I, why didn't I ask him about this and and and
• 25:53
  as I said I'm quite committed where I can to to saying I don't
• 25:57
  want voice over to guide us through this.
• 25:59
  So the JNT one has no voice over so Jane one doesn't and and the
• 26:03
  new one that we've done doesn't And and I'd much rather let the
• 26:08
  voices guide you through let the people guide you through and and
• 26:11
  that that means I have to be a little bit clever in terms of
• 26:14
  how how it's structured. That is kind of a rod for us for
• 26:18
  our own back sometimes. But I think it does give you
• 26:20
  something more authentic that you just hear it.
• 26:23
  You're just almost as you say kind of the story kind of
• 26:26
  overwhelms you because all you're hearing is is testimony
• 26:32
  to that. I think part of it comes from
• 26:35
  this might be quite morbid, but I've lost.
• 26:39
  I mean, it's not particularly unusual for my age I guess, but
• 26:41
  I've lost my father and my mother and when my dad died, I
• 26:45
  was 28, this was in 2009 and I it's the first time I've done
• 26:51
  this. I I spoke at his funeral.
• 26:53
  I gave the eulogy at his funeral and I'd written 2 pages to try
• 26:57
  and sum his life up in a really joyful way that also talked
• 27:03
  about his death and and weirdly I've ended up doing that quite a
• 27:08
  lot. So I I did the same at my
• 27:11
  mother's funeral and I've spoken at different family members and
• 27:15
  and it's almost like a running family gag now that I'll kind of
• 27:17
  get you know, I'll I'll end up doing the chat and I think my
• 27:22
  mum said oh oh can you do mine as well when it comes to it can
• 27:25
  you do mine? And actually weirdly and very
• 27:28
  flatteringly this year this was awful.
• 27:30
  But my oldest friend sadly lost his father and the family asked
• 27:35
  me if I would take the service which was incredibly moving and
• 27:40
  and touching to be asked to do that.
• 27:42
  But I think it's because I I really, I find that
• 27:48
  responsibility of trying to sum up a life and embracing it for
• 27:53
  you know in all of its peaks and and and all of its tragedy.
• 27:57
  And I feeling the drama of human life you know then and
• 28:00
  compassion for what a a human being goes through and I guess
• 28:04
  that that's what those films are is that they are eulogies and
• 28:08
  that's why it sounds morbid but that's why you you can't do them
• 28:12
  when the person is still with you.
• 28:13
  You they have you have to have a a full stop and you have to be
• 28:17
  able to reflect on a life and so so with with John I really, I
• 28:21
  think I don't want to make them in a judgy way.
• 28:23
  I want to try and embrace that person.
• 28:27
  I kind of think if you're watching an hour and a half off
• 28:29
  somebody it can't be a hate watch.
• 28:31
  It has to be kind of you know why was why did this person
• 28:34
  matter? You know why, Why are you
• 28:36
  watching this? You know because you you care
• 28:38
  presumably. And the the more recent one, the
• 28:41
  97 minute one is the one I'm most proud of really because
• 28:44
  it's the one where, you know the Gente one was building on
• 28:51
  Richard Marson's book and Richard was consultant on that.
• 28:55
  And the Sarah Jane one had the foundations of Sarah's own of
• 28:59
  sorry of Liz's own writing, you know, that she'd she'd made it.
• 29:02
  She'd written a memoir. So you can kind of say OK well
• 29:05
  that's you know we're not adapting that but it's helpful
• 29:08
  to know what the person of their own life and the the new one
• 29:13
  that we've done has no kind of precedent like that.
• 29:16
  So that really felt like OK this is this is archaeology as well
• 29:21
  as you say and but kind of compassionate archaeology.
• 29:26
  So yeah. So I, I, I feel a great affinity
• 29:28
  for those ones and we'll we've got another.
• 29:31
  We've done we've shopped another biography for a companion actor
• 29:39
  which is really which is more fun you know which is more like
• 29:44
  kind of celebrating. Again it's joyful.
• 29:46
  But that one I think has more of a spring in its step in a
• 29:49
  different way and we we did a kind of different we did more of
• 29:53
  a kind of round table approach on that one that'll be coming up
• 29:57
  and then there's two more beyond that that that we've been
• 30:02
  commissioned for, that we've started to shoot bits for.
• 30:06
  So no it's it's something I I I take those jobs very seriously
• 30:09
  and and it's and it's nice that things like the Sarah Jane one
• 30:12
  and the Gentie one seemed to kind of punch through and people
• 30:16
  reacted people were really kind about them.
• 30:18
  So that's that was really gratifying.
• 30:21
  What surprised me was as a fan of this show for, and I think if
• 30:25
  you're a Doctor Who fan, you do a lot of digging into the
• 30:27
  insurance and outs behind the scenes.
• 30:29
  There were things I was learning and afresh that I had no idea
• 30:33
  about in both of those documentaries.
• 30:34
  So I was like, my God, there's still things to learn after all
• 30:37
  these years, you know? But, but, but for for me, like
• 30:40
  this, especially the JNT one, it was, it felt like it was
• 30:44
  structured like a movie. You know, like a good movie that
• 30:46
  it takes you up to a a writer's high and it's sort of painting
• 30:52
  as a flawed character but one full of life that people love to
• 30:55
  be around. And then the sort of that last
• 30:59
  third where you know, and it's detailed in the book as well,
• 31:01
  you know how it was a quite a spectacular thought from grace
• 31:06
  in many ways. And then just that sort of
• 31:09
  ending where everybody was chipping in with again, just
• 31:12
  what an incredible bloke he was. Astonishing.
• 31:15
  So thank you for that because it was a hell of a watch.
• 31:18
  Thank you. Well and I do.
• 31:19
  I do you know I want them to be to have that drama because I
• 31:23
  think that drama isn't inherent in these people.
• 31:26
  I think if you kind of shrug and say well and then they did this
• 31:29
  and then they did that but but for that person that was their
• 31:31
  life. You know for John that that was
• 31:34
  his life and that's that's only that's the life ends and that
• 31:38
  that's it. So we but we all have lives like
• 31:40
  that you know I genuinely think that every person you could
• 31:43
  speak to there is inherent drama to their life and and and so
• 31:48
  it's it's it's worthwhile looking at it.
• 31:51
  Well, I won't tell you now, but I'll detail the details of my
• 31:53
  life in another time. You can make a fabulous
• 31:56
  documentary about that, I'll. Be too scared about the people
• 32:01
  talking about actually, what can I ask then?
• 32:05
  But we've mentioned a couple. Which of the documentaries have
• 32:08
  one, sort of had the biggest impact and two, are you proudest
• 32:12
  of? Oh, I mean, I think it's been
• 32:18
  lovely. I'd love it when we have a
• 32:20
  series, when we find a format that kind of works and that's
• 32:24
  really gratifying. And so things like the Looking
• 32:26
  For series that we've done with Toby, you know, that started in
• 32:31
  2011 or so, we're looking for Peter with Peter on Newman.
• 32:37
  And that was, you know that one was just a we were going to do a
• 32:41
  sense rights making of and then went Oh no, this is going to be
• 32:45
  rubbish. We've got nobody to talk to.
• 32:47
  And I originally I've said this before but I was going to get, I
• 32:50
  was going to try and get permission to use.
• 32:53
  I think it was Paul Casey who played the Ood in the new
• 32:56
  series. And I thought because the Ood
• 32:58
  sphere is the cousin of the sense that I would get the OOD
• 33:03
  to present. Yeah hello, I'm an Ood and this
• 33:06
  is the story all about my cousins, the Sensorites.
• 33:10
  And that was that was my that was the limit of my creative
• 33:13
  pitch for that one. And we were.
• 33:16
  And then and then it just, I think Toby came forward and said
• 33:20
  there were these. I think he, as he said on your
• 33:22
  podcast, he was initially saying Mervyn Penfield and Peter R
• 33:26
  Newman are really unsung heroes that we don't know anything
• 33:28
  about. And then I said, well this is
• 33:31
  very like who do you think you are?
• 33:32
  And that's good because I quite like taking ATV style and and
• 33:36
  trying to evoke that and and play on that.
• 33:40
  But let's just let's make it singular.
• 33:42
  Focus is always so important. Let's let's do Peter because the
• 33:45
  writer feels more maybe we can see the writer in the script in
• 33:49
  the story and that feels more pertinent and to see that series
• 33:53
  kind of carry on and you know we've done three that have been
• 33:57
  released. We're working on the next two of
• 33:59
  those and that's really lovely. And that relationship with Toby
• 34:04
  has really kind of grown and and I look forward to those shoots
• 34:08
  because there's no element of, you know, I've I've worked with
• 34:13
  presenters before in television where things can be
• 34:16
  unpredictable and you might, you might, they might you might rub
• 34:19
  up against some some hard edges at times and that's part of the
• 34:23
  business that you buy into. And with Toby it's just always a
• 34:27
  delight. Been really easy and we can just
• 34:30
  talk very openly about how things are going and what we're
• 34:34
  trying to get AT and what's coming up.
• 34:38
  So that's been really good. I mean the the two big ones you
• 34:40
  mentioned the the Gentie and the Liz one.
• 34:43
  It it's really exciting to to make something feature length
• 34:47
  and as I say this new one that we've done which will be out
• 34:51
  next year is kind of is the is the one I'm most proud of really
• 34:56
  because it's the one that took it felt like it was the most
• 35:02
  challenging to bring together and and I feel like we have
• 35:06
  brought it all together and it's there and it and it's a very
• 35:10
  very personal very emotional story.
• 35:13
  So that that that will probably be the one that I'm most proud
• 35:16
  of the fact that it exists and it could easily not have existed
• 35:20
  but I like the silly ones as well.
• 35:22
  I really enjoy shooting like the Doctor's table because we just
• 35:25
  go in and shoot for like 3 hours and have a laugh.
• 35:28
  They seem like a riot, those ones.
• 35:31
  It's just so easy, you know, because you'll do these big
• 35:34
  biographies where it's really sad and and rightly and and
• 35:38
  happy and sad and you're filming for weeks.
• 35:41
  And then to be able to go and just get 4 beautiful, wonderful
• 35:45
  people together on a table, a bit of food and drink talks,
• 35:49
  talk about some silly things, You know, genuinely everybody's
• 35:53
  gone into those days being like what do you want me to do?
• 35:56
  And then kind of going that was great and and so I hope we can
• 35:59
  continue you know do a few more of those.
• 36:02
  I love. I love seeing what they're going
• 36:03
  to eat. Yeah.
• 36:03
  What have they chosen to eat? Yeah, well, and and they're very
• 36:08
  silly. And I've seen some people at 9
• 36:09
  be like, oh, I don't like the book.
• 36:10
  When they do snog, marry, or void, you're like.
• 36:13
  The first time you do, because I do that on my podcast.
• 36:15
  So the first time. So I said they're not, they're
• 36:17
  not going to do this. Oh, they are.
• 36:19
  I love it It it's all just an excuse to learn things you
• 36:23
  wouldn't normally learn. Sometimes those silly little
• 36:26
  kind of party like it was inspired by partly ripping off
• 36:31
  ABBC 2 show called I'll get I'll Get This I think, which was a
• 36:34
  very good format recently BBC Two and partly just I'd go and
• 36:38
  stay with my parents in law and they had a game called Social
• 36:41
  Stirrers where you picked questions out of a pot and it
• 36:45
  was all like, what was the first band you went to see live?
• 36:48
  Or what's kind of your most embarrassing habit?
• 36:50
  And I just like the kind of the directness of just asking stupid
• 36:54
  questions and people having to answer them.
• 36:57
  It is quite fun. And I've got to ask you, when
• 37:00
  are we going to get a sequel to the Doctor Who Cookbook?
• 37:03
  One, Because that was an absolute delight.
• 37:06
  One. Well, yeah, well, we loved, we
• 37:08
  loved doing cookbook and genuine.
• 37:10
  I think it kind of surprised us all that it it felt a lot more,
• 37:16
  you know, it felt warmer and oddly more touching than we than
• 37:20
  we thought it would. And I think a lot of people gave
• 37:24
  us a lot of gifts on that. You know, I thought the
• 37:26
  contributors really went for that and really embraced that in
• 37:30
  a way that they might have just said what, Why do you want to do
• 37:33
  this? This is stupid.
• 37:34
  Why do you want to do this? And even things like India
• 37:38
  Fisher, you know, I kind of pitched that to her thinking
• 37:42
  there's no way she's going to do this.
• 37:44
  And not only do, you know, I think because India had the The
• 37:46
  Doctor connection to to Colin, you know that they'd done big
• 37:49
  finishes together. So that appealed to her.
• 37:53
  And we had to get special permission from the MasterChef
• 37:56
  production office for her to do it because she's not allowed to
• 37:58
  just do that voice, that voice, her voice, but not that style of
• 38:01
  voice. She can't do it just for like
• 38:04
  adverts for telly or something that's not in her contract.
• 38:07
  And so somebody at MasterChef must have liked us.
• 38:10
  There must be a Doctor Who fan in there somewhere.
• 38:12
  Who? Said everywhere.
• 38:14
  This sounds like good crack and but I don't know if we'd do it.
• 38:20
  I don't genuinely don't know if we'll do a second one because I
• 38:22
  don't know if that kills the joke or not.
• 38:25
  I don't know if that loses the gag because there is more in
• 38:28
  that book you could do. There's more books as well,
• 38:33
  Yeah, yeah, well and. And what what I am interested in
• 38:36
  is we have this kind of revisited strand which so far
• 38:39
  has been Cookbook and Who's Doctor Who and unofficially the
• 38:44
  Havoc Doc that we did on DVD put the team back together.
• 38:48
  I kind of put under that banner and we tried to pitch I don't
• 38:54
  know if Ian Levine in Levine probably doesn't know this but
• 38:56
  we I did pitch let's do doctor in distress revisited and and
• 39:03
  and I wanted to bring all the people back in the studio maybe
• 39:05
  do another verse you know from beyond the grave and and we I
• 39:10
  think it never quite got off the ground but I would have but I
• 39:12
  was saying actually I think there's something joyful about
• 39:15
  the ridiculousness of this and and it's interesting to explore
• 39:21
  how these things happen Now who knows if we would have got the
• 39:25
  right balance on that but I would have tried to make a
• 39:27
  joyful film in the same way that cookbook.
• 39:30
  You know I wasn't looking at the the physical cookbook and
• 39:33
  thinking this is the best book ever made but I could see the
• 39:35
  joy in that book and that's what we needed.
• 39:39
  But BI would I with cookbook it's like is that something
• 39:44
  towards the end of the range that we could do with a slightly
• 39:48
  different format. I was thinking maybe you could
• 39:50
  master Chef it up a bit more you know you know do it but then if
• 39:54
  you don't see the people's kitchens that's part of the
• 39:56
  drawing of that film is going into that's kind of through the
• 39:59
  keyhole element of of that. So I don't know is the answer to
• 40:03
  that question. What seems to have emerged in
• 40:06
  the later sets is as well as the sort of the factual
• 40:10
  documentaries there are, you know, that the travel logs in
• 40:15
  the recent one like the Cookbook where it's really leaning into
• 40:19
  the relationships that the actors have post the series.
• 40:24
  And that's really nice to see as well.
• 40:25
  I think those are the the, the one in the car, you know, where
• 40:28
  they went on the car trip over to Germany and they're just
• 40:30
  squabbling the whole time. I mean, I I I haven't seen a bit
• 40:33
  of comedy as funny as that in the last year.
• 40:36
  Well, I think that I think that's something that if your
• 40:38
  pardon the pen has been, has been driven by by Russell Minton
• 40:41
  really that when you see when Russell came onto the DVD range,
• 40:45
  if you go back and watch the doc he did for the Visitation
• 40:50
  Special Edition towards the very end of the range he gets.
• 40:54
  I think it's, I think it's the four of them, it's Peter and
• 40:57
  Janet and Sarah and Matthew. I think it's all for them.
• 41:01
  Or is it Maybe not Matthew and they get Mark, Mark, Mark's
• 41:04
  showing them around, I think. But, but it's just them going
• 41:08
  around the woods looking at stuff and it's not, you know, I
• 41:11
  think we'd always thought we have to have lots of facts and
• 41:14
  kind of information about Doctor Who and Russell kind of
• 41:16
  discovered this lovely, really obvious but lovely thing.
• 41:20
  That these people have a history together and they have
• 41:22
  relationships. And if people just let them hang
• 41:24
  out, A, it may well open up things we didn't know before.
• 41:28
  It may open up memories that we haven't heard before.
• 41:32
  And B, it's really charming and funny and and inherently as
• 41:36
  Doctor Who fans, hopefully we have an affection for these
• 41:38
  people at the heart of the show. And so when Russell came on
• 41:43
  board with the Blu-ray range in that more senior position.
• 41:46
  He's kind of run with that and and and I've very much pinched
• 41:49
  that to say, yeah, that's a great idea.
• 41:52
  This is much more fun to do it that way and I don't think it's
• 41:55
  for everything. You know, we we I think
• 41:59
  sometimes on a biography, you know on this new one, it's
• 42:02
  basically a talking head film. And I think sometimes that's the
• 42:04
  best way to tell a story that if you want 25 people to have their
• 42:07
  say then. You you want to be able to
• 42:10
  bounce between them at speed and not to have to worry about how
• 42:14
  you get in and out of each room. But I think there's something
• 42:18
  really lovely about the Blu-ray era being about interaction and
• 42:23
  chemistry and dynamics and that's what Behind the sofa does
• 42:28
  and that's what it's just driving.
• 42:30
  You know, there's an element which is more of a romp and I
• 42:34
  think that's really nice and I think Russell knows very well.
• 42:37
  As we all do, it's lovely to kind of balance out on a set
• 42:40
  that you have. I think, I think Nick Briggs
• 42:44
  coined this phrase to Simon Gurier that that sometimes it's
• 42:48
  nice to have really strong orange juice, you know, to have
• 42:51
  kind of a lot of concentrate in your orange juice and something
• 42:54
  like our David Whittaker doc is Hardcore Who information.
• 43:01
  Into your veins and and hopefully you know sensitive
• 43:04
  portrayal of a of a man at the same time and and it's nice that
• 43:08
  we can have that and then something completely silly as
• 43:11
  well and that both of those things can coexist.
• 43:15
  But I think more and more what what I try and what we all try
• 43:18
  and do I'm sure but what I keep thinking of is I want each film
• 43:22
  to to work for the Doctor Who fan who's bought the set and the
• 43:26
  Doctor Who fan friend who's come around to watch it with them.
• 43:28
  But I also want if the partner. Have that Doctor Who fan walks
• 43:32
  into the room or the family member and they go, what's this
• 43:35
  shit? What are you watching that they
• 43:37
  might actually sit down and go, oh, Oh no, I don't mind.
• 43:42
  I'll watch the end of this. No, no, don't turn it off.
• 43:44
  I'll watch the end of this and this is this is Doctor Who,
• 43:46
  Master Chef and say it right I'm there.
• 43:49
  And that it has a universality, if that's a word that that that
• 43:53
  I want it to work for both of those audiences.
• 43:55
  So I think having that interplay and the comedy, I think it.
• 43:59
  I think hopefully it works for everybody and makes us bigger.
• 44:02
  I hope as as a fandom I get those sets through the post and
• 44:07
  I feel as if we are the luckiest fandom around because I'm a fan
• 44:12
  of a lot of other shows as well. I get seasons of those through
• 44:15
  the post as well. And I'm telling you now the the
• 44:18
  the cupboard is bare in comparison to the extras that go
• 44:21
  on to those Blu-ray releases. I think we're and like you said
• 44:24
  there with the David Whitaker one again, that was packed full
• 44:27
  of stuff. I didn't have a couple about.
• 44:30
  So that was fascinating. And again, very moving that the
• 44:32
  end of that was very moving. You've got that on one on the
• 44:36
  one hand and then you've got more And O'Brien watching
• 44:38
  herself in the Romans and just having an absolutely wonderful
• 44:41
  time watching. She's going, oh, this silly
• 44:43
  little creature. Look at her, you know, like it's
• 44:46
  just fabulous. Yeah.
• 44:48
  And she does the Matthew Sweet interview in that set as well,
• 44:51
  doesn't she? I mean, you know, I'll take a
• 44:53
  week off sometimes just to get through all that.
• 44:56
  Yeah, I mean it's it's a lot of stuff.
• 44:58
  And and we have several people, people like Richard Bignell, who
• 45:02
  one of their jobs is to watch through the entirety of each set
• 45:06
  before it, before it's finally mastered or when when the
• 45:09
  initial masters come out, but before it goes to press and
• 45:14
  there's a lot to get through. I mean, I I don't.
• 45:16
  I probably don't watch it all across the whole set because
• 45:19
  there's a lot there's. I shouldn't really be confessing
• 45:22
  this you know, on camera. But the only thing I cannot
• 45:24
  watch all of is all of the studio footage and location
• 45:28
  footage. Now I know people that sit there
• 45:30
  and work from home and have that on in the background and you
• 45:32
  know they sort of perk up at the pertinent points.
• 45:35
  Sometimes they do cut down. Once I know where it's like 15
• 45:37
  minutes of all the most dramatic barrel weed having a fit or
• 45:40
  something like that, if. You have to because there there
• 45:42
  will be like 6 hours of of stuff and you have to have some kind
• 45:46
  of cut down but. Yeah, no, I'm sure there's there
• 45:48
  must be an element of fandom which which kind of goes to
• 45:51
  sleep with with the studio playing in it and you know, and
• 45:54
  it's it's like having the cricket.
• 45:55
  I'm not a big cricket fan, but it's I imagine it's like having
• 45:58
  the cricket on in the background and kind of you're just feeling
• 46:00
  better. Well, I'll say it again, I think
• 46:03
  we're incredibly lucky. I've got two more questions then
• 46:07
  about the Blu Rays and DVDs. One's from my dear friend
• 46:10
  Fraser, who really wanted to ask this.
• 46:12
  So he asked what? What do you see as the future?
• 46:17
  The Doctor Who releases? And he said 4K Animation cut
• 46:21
  down colourisations. I mean, I don't know.
• 46:26
  I think the future is that we will.
• 46:28
  I'm sure. I'd be amazed, you know, if we
• 46:31
  didn't complete our objective, you know, which is to get
• 46:34
  through the Classic series in the way that we're doing it,
• 46:38
  that that seems to be. We're in a really nice position
• 46:41
  at the moment where we're working on docs across lots of
• 46:44
  different releases and I don't know the order of those
• 46:46
  releases, you know, we're just getting ahead and that was my
• 46:49
  last question anyway, sorry. No.
• 46:52
  So there seems to be a real enthusiasm from the BBC to say
• 46:57
  let's get these sets out. That's great.
• 46:59
  That's working. Beyond that, I don't know,
• 47:02
  because every time you try and predict where physical media is
• 47:05
  going to go next. I'd I wouldn't have said at the
• 47:08
  end of the DVD range that we would because there was some
• 47:10
  talk of doing DVDVD box sets, like seasoned box sets towards
• 47:14
  the end of the down hall era, but that would have just been
• 47:17
  probably the discs on a box set. I don't don't think it would
• 47:22
  have been any new stuff or it might have just been one bit of
• 47:25
  like a new dock or something, but it wouldn't have been the
• 47:28
  scale that we've seen for Blu-ray.
• 47:30
  So I wouldn't have predicted that Blu-ray would have
• 47:32
  happened. Partly because Blu-ray just
• 47:35
  wasn't really out there in the world at the point when we were
• 47:37
  finishing off. So I don't know what will happen
• 47:40
  next. I I like to think of these sets
• 47:44
  as definitive, but I guess we thought of the DV DS as
• 47:48
  definitive. So I I would say let's let's
• 47:50
  wait and see. But I certainly we're certainly
• 47:52
  making them as if they're our last chance.
• 47:55
  So if we're going to do it, we should do it now.
• 47:58
  And we we're at the same time we're talking about a show
• 48:00
  that's obviously 60 years old. So there is a certain impetus to
• 48:03
  say let's do this now and and tell these stories now, but no,
• 48:10
  I don't know. It's heartening that physical
• 48:11
  media continues because I I'm a I'm a big fan.
• 48:15
  I've got a huge wall of DVDs and Blu rays in the other room and I
• 48:20
  I'm, I'm one of these people that grew up with adverts
• 48:24
  telling you like own it forever, take it home.
• 48:27
  It's your collection. And so the idea that.
• 48:29
  I would own things that would just be digital files on a hard
• 48:32
  drive or a reliance on a streaming service fills me with
• 48:36
  a certain amount of fear. I like to have a box set or a
• 48:40
  disk, and I'd like that whether or not I worked on it.
• 48:43
  So I hope that physical media continues to be a part of it.
• 48:47
  But you know, I'd I'd love to see the stuff that we do be seen
• 48:50
  wider as well. You know, we we often get
• 48:53
  feedback on people saying oh where's this going to be shown,
• 48:56
  is this going to be on telly? Like this is a very specific
• 48:58
  documentary. There's probably this is not
• 49:01
  really built to be broadcast, but I think whenever we get an
• 49:05
  opportunity for it to be seen wider, even if that's a BFI
• 49:08
  screening or something like that like we did with the JNT film,
• 49:11
  that's really special so. You know, a wide audience would
• 49:14
  be amazing, but what we have is brilliant.
• 49:17
  So I'm. I'm not complaining.
• 49:19
  It's hard to think how there could possibly be a more
• 49:21
  definitive set for Doctor Who. I remember the early days of the
• 49:26
  arc in space. You know that first or one of
• 49:28
  those first DVDs where you had a commentary some schematics of
• 49:32
  the arc and I can't, I don't know, but there was certainly
• 49:35
  wasn't a making of doc on it or anything like that.
• 49:38
  But I think, I think that was from the era that at the on the
• 49:40
  back of the set, back of the box, it would say special
• 49:43
  features include kind of chapter, chapter, menu, whatever
• 49:47
  that would that would count as a special feature that you could,
• 49:50
  we've come to expect a lot more now, haven't we?
• 49:52
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've certainly things have
• 49:54
  improved and and you would have paid like, I don't know, you'd
• 49:57
  have paid £15 for those. I think the RRP on those
• 50:00
  original DVDs was 1999, wasn't it?
• 50:04
  And that's about 20 pound. Yeah, yeah.
• 50:05
  Yeah, for the early ones. Yeah.
• 50:08
  So it's not bad value. It's phenomenal value.
• 50:12
  I mean and you say about physical media, one of the many
• 50:14
  arguments I have with my other half is about because I'm I'm
• 50:19
  subscribed to all the streaming services and he and he insists
• 50:22
  we always buy physical media for everything.
• 50:24
  We've got our floor to ceiling, Big Finish shelf downstairs with
• 50:28
  every single Big Finish release. And and I was coming, you know,
• 50:31
  it's all on the streaming services and then the Internet
• 50:33
  went down for a week and he's never looked so smug.
• 50:39
  OK, fair. I think in truth it's nice to
• 50:42
  have both and I I'm signed up for streamers and I love the
• 50:44
  stuff I watch on streaming. But my ideal is that streamers
• 50:49
  then make things available on physical media as well.
• 50:51
  And they they seemed seems to be a move that they're starting to
• 50:54
  realise that too that that I think they've started talking
• 50:58
  about about kind of Marvel and Star Wars series from Disney
• 51:01
  getting physical media releases and I think doing both is.
• 51:05
  Inherently sensible. So hopefully, but I I was very
• 51:08
  raised very much on those early days of DVD box sets when things
• 51:12
  like the Alien Quadrilogy would have a six hour documentary or I
• 51:17
  was obsessed with the Lord of the Rings extended Editions.
• 51:20
  And the the sheer volume of behind the scenes stuff that was
• 51:23
  really beautifully put together and entirely honest and
• 51:26
  comprehensive about, you know, these are the things that.
• 51:29
  It went right. These are the things that went
• 51:30
  wrong. I think probably inspired a lot
• 51:33
  of people to to get into television or film.
• 51:36
  And so we're really following in.
• 51:38
  You know, really the heyday is weirdly that the early noughties
• 51:42
  and it's nice that Doctor Who continues to do that stuff
• 51:45
  because it's not happening widely in the industry.
• 51:47
  So it's it's good that it's continuing here you say about
• 51:52
  this the honesty that goes into these things and I really think
• 51:54
  that's true of the the Blu-ray documentaries as well because
• 51:58
  you know we can all listen to a talking heads say well it was
• 52:01
  marvellous being in that production and what a jolly time
• 52:03
  and we were all a great family. After a while that that becomes
• 52:07
  a bit sort of dull whereas when you really get into you know
• 52:10
  some of the the more I'd say acidic there but there's more of
• 52:15
  the sort of there's some commentaries where there's a bit
• 52:17
  of disagreement going on and or that like the moment where Tom
• 52:22
  Baker almost breaks down at the end of the Sarah Jane one.
• 52:24
  You know, those moments are sort of vulnerability.
• 52:26
  And honestly, those are my favorite bits, I think.
• 52:31
  Well, at the end, I just think I my take on it is that this is,
• 52:35
  we're talking about history. You know that this is television
• 52:38
  history, but it's it's history. And so you have different
• 52:41
  accounts on things, you have different opinions, but I think
• 52:47
  you have to be able to do light and shade.
• 52:49
  You have to be able to reflect honestly this is what happened
• 52:52
  And and if you, I think if you do that from a position of love
• 52:55
  and compassion and understanding that we would never, I don't
• 52:58
  think we would ever say in a film, you know, somebody was
• 53:02
  rubbish, you know, whatever, we it would always be us trying to
• 53:05
  contextualise. The challenges that somebody was
• 53:08
  facing or team were facing at any time and usually the amazing
• 53:11
  things they were doing to overcome that, but it it can't,
• 53:15
  it can't be a whitewash of, you know, everybody loved each
• 53:19
  other. It was all great.
• 53:20
  In order for those things to mean something, you have to see
• 53:23
  that it was really hard. You know, making that making
• 53:26
  television was really, really hard.
• 53:27
  And all the best documentaries I've seen about movies, if you
• 53:32
  watch like the, I think it's. What's it called?
• 53:38
  There's a wonderful like 2 hour doc on the Blade Runner final
• 53:41
  cut. Call it dangerous days.
• 53:43
  That's what it's called dangerous days and a doctor that
• 53:45
  is very honest about the fact that Blade Runner goes massively
• 53:49
  over budget. The Ridley Scott's kicked off
• 53:50
  the movie kept out of the edit fights way back in.
• 53:53
  You know if you those stories are part of the legacy of that
• 53:57
  of that film and and it's richer and we're richer as fans to hear
• 54:02
  them and as long as you come at that I think in a.
• 54:05
  In a sensitive and and honest way then then you're doing the
• 54:10
  right thing. I would say it's it's in
• 54:13
  documentaries like, you know, in in sort of infamous productions
• 54:16
  like Nightmare of Eden or Warriors of the Deep.
• 54:19
  And it's less sort of, you know, explain yourself what on earth
• 54:22
  went wrong with this production. And it's more like they they
• 54:25
  sort of say right here we're just going to like you've got
• 54:27
  the special effects person in and the actors and things like
• 54:29
  that. And they're all just saying
• 54:30
  look, here's what went wrong. You know, let's just get it
• 54:33
  down. The facts now just.
• 54:35
  To be able to say, look, this happened, you know, and and and
• 54:41
  it happened so, so there's no point in trying to invent an
• 54:44
  alternate reality for that. It's but I think, I think we
• 54:47
  want to be responsible in the way that we do that.
• 54:49
  But it is it is the reality. And then my final question about
• 54:55
  these incredible documentaries that are being made, and I've
• 54:58
  got a feeling you're going to tell me you can't say a word is
• 55:01
  what could you possibly tell me about what's coming up in the
• 55:03
  future? Well, only the only the kind of
• 55:06
  vague things that I'd blather about on Twitter.
• 55:08
  Basically I can say that we have I mean this is all moon balloon
• 55:13
  so this is all my own company the stuff that we make for the
• 55:16
  range. So I can't say much beyond that.
• 55:19
  I can say that we've got. 10 documentaries that you've not
• 55:24
  seen yet, that two of those have been delivered, That of the
• 55:29
  remaining 8, two of them, three of them are biographies of
• 55:34
  companions. Two of them are looking for
• 55:37
  films. One of them is a making of Is
• 55:45
  that all of them? I don't understand any, but
• 55:48
  they'll and they'll all be coming out.
• 55:50
  I mean that's the nice thing. I think it's just nice to know
• 55:52
  work continues. There's lots coming down the
• 55:54
  line. If there's a series that you
• 55:57
  like, there's probably a bit more of that coming, coming to
• 56:00
  you. We're trying to fill the gaps
• 56:01
  where we can. If we see that something needs a
• 56:03
  making of we can't, you know, for whatever reason we can't
• 56:06
  always do it. But we certainly want to try and
• 56:10
  fill those gaps. And I think certainly the, as I
• 56:15
  say, the the, the, the big biography that we've just
• 56:18
  finished. Is the one I'm really, genuinely
• 56:21
  excited to kind of to introduce to you And so, so that's coming
• 56:26
  out. That's on its way.
• 56:29
  Well, that's certainly more than I thought I was going to get
• 56:31
  from you. Did you know, I don't know if
• 56:35
  you how much you sort of look on social media it it makes me dark
• 56:39
  because there's a there's a fabulous wave of right.
• 56:42
  I've got my Blu-ray set. It's arrived in the post and so
• 56:45
  suddenly social media is flooded with you know, sort of people
• 56:48
  clutching their Blu rays And then the day after it's like,
• 56:51
  right, what's the next one coming out?
• 56:53
  But the interest is there and it's instant, and it means that
• 56:57
  something's being produced that people are excited about.
• 57:00
  And I do take that as a compliment.
• 57:01
  I know there's an insatiability about the I've got it.
• 57:04
  What's next? I I do take that as a compliment
• 57:08
  rather than an annoyance whoever.
• 57:10
  But I think I think it's flattering that people are that
• 57:13
  are that keen and and I know that the whole team are working
• 57:17
  really hard to get them to people as soon as we can.
• 57:20
  It just, you know, it's a lot they're big sets and we could
• 57:23
  release them smaller quicker but we kind of don't want to go
• 57:26
  smaller. So it's you know.
• 57:29
  It's how much you want it to be definitive.
• 57:31
  Hopefully that the time that it takes is worth it.
• 57:33
  I I certainly think it is. I think the end results speak
• 57:36
  for themselves. Yeah, OK.
• 57:41
  So moving on to Big Finish. You've written a number of
• 57:46
  scripts for them now. How did that first come about?
• 57:49
  Then how did you first start working with Big Finish?
• 57:53
  Weirdly, and I've said this before, but it was all through
• 57:56
  death to the Daleks. I believe and it was that we
• 58:00
  were I made a making of documentary for Death to the
• 58:04
  Dialects on DVD which is quite a quite a fun little one.
• 58:07
  When it was I, I we had ACG thing where it was all Dalek,
• 58:12
  like a Dalek supercomputer you were going through to get the
• 58:15
  documentary. You found the number one fan of
• 58:17
  death to the dialects I seem to recall.
• 58:19
  Yes, exactly so. So it was narrated by the
• 58:22
  Daleks. And so that was us, me going to
• 58:24
  Nick Briggs, who I think I bumped into once or twice, and
• 58:27
  saying to Nick. I know that.
• 58:29
  I think I was listening to the Big Finish podcast and they him
• 58:32
  and Benji. I think it was him and Benji at
• 58:34
  the time. Certainly I knew that Nick was a
• 58:36
  massive fan of Death to the Daleks and I said why don't you
• 58:42
  come and be an interviewee so we can get the audience
• 58:44
  perspective. I just thought that'd be fun,
• 58:46
  and that opened up the door to Nick and I said to him at the
• 58:49
  time. I'd I'd written kind of.
• 58:54
  I'd written for the stage, I'd written at university, I'd been
• 58:59
  president of the theatre group that we had, and I'd written and
• 59:03
  produced. Mostly.
• 59:05
  We started off on sketch shows and then we wrote a kind of
• 59:09
  comedy drama, took it to the Fringe, to the Edinburgh Fringe.
• 59:12
  And then when I was at Newcastle from AMA, I wrote a play.
• 59:18
  That was all up at the Fringe as well and did do quite well at
• 59:21
  the Fringe for for like a student play.
• 59:22
  We actually somebody turned up. We I we'd done sketch shows, two
• 59:26
  people in the audience and on this one I think they had an
• 59:28
  average audience of 50 people a time.
• 59:30
  Which a student show was like This is great.
• 59:34
  And that was with Nuts and Newcastle University Theatre
• 59:37
  Society and I and I started writing short films when we used
• 59:42
  to make corporate films up in Newcastle.
• 59:46
  In one of my early jobs and we I'd Co written a film called The
• 59:51
  Conquerors which conquer with AK which was all about a an
• 59:55
  underground club at A at a boarding school where it
• 1:00:00
  basically was a Fight Club spoof.
• 1:00:01
  It was like beneath this beautiful school is a conquer
• 1:00:04
  club where they come in and smash conquers against each
• 1:00:06
  other and people are going to die.
• 1:00:08
  And it was really brutal and violent and.
• 1:00:12
  I think I sent that, I sent that film to Nick Bricks and said
• 1:00:16
  here's an example, we just won some awards for this.
• 1:00:19
  Do you like it? And and I think he he responded
• 1:00:24
  really well and said well if you're interested in pitching
• 1:00:28
  I'd love to hear and I kind of sat on that for about four years
• 1:00:34
  not knowing quite what to do with it and being really busy
• 1:00:37
  with other things. And I think it was when I left
• 1:00:40
  when I was about to leave London and move to Bristol which is in
• 1:00:43
  about 2016 or so. I suddenly had about two weeks
• 1:00:49
  after a job had finished with nothing to do and thought what
• 1:00:51
  we going to do. And I went and sat I think in
• 1:00:54
  the ritzy cinema in in Brixton in the in the bar there and
• 1:00:59
  thought I should I should write to Nick Briggs I should actually
• 1:01:02
  do something about this. And and I wrote down a number of
• 1:01:07
  ideas for stories and I wrote down a four part story starring
• 1:01:12
  the 5th Doctor and Tegan and and Anissa I think, which was
• 1:01:18
  basically the memory bank, which was the the first script I ended
• 1:01:22
  up writing for Big Finish and I sent this over.
• 1:01:25
  And that was right as a it can be a bit funny when people say
• 1:01:29
  in interviews, where do you get your ideas from?
• 1:01:31
  You tend to get quite pithy answers back from writers or
• 1:01:34
  they roll their eyes. Oh my God.
• 1:01:35
  And actually I've got to get rid of.
• 1:01:37
  All my questions Now then. No, sorry, no.
• 1:01:39
  But I'm a great believer in in I get my ideas really obvious
• 1:01:43
  places that turn up in front of me that you either get you
• 1:01:46
  either literally see something in the world you go that'd be a
• 1:01:49
  good doctor story. Or in the case of the memory
• 1:01:51
  bank I literally had a dream that was about me having to
• 1:01:57
  replace somebody who was remembering everybody in a
• 1:02:00
  planet that to remember there had to be a person whose job had
• 1:02:04
  a million screens up in this big cathedral like place that he's
• 1:02:07
  in. And his job is to remember every
• 1:02:10
  person who's alive in the planet and if he forgets any of them
• 1:02:13
  then they cease to exist. I'm like, oh that's good.
• 1:02:15
  I will literally pitch the story thanks.
• 1:02:18
  Dream that that's really helpful of you.
• 1:02:21
  So I didn't have to do any work to come up with that and I'd
• 1:02:25
  pitched it as a four parter and I think Nick sent it round to
• 1:02:28
  the different script editors and producers.
• 1:02:31
  And amazingly, Alan Barnes came back, replied and said hello
• 1:02:35
  Chris, this is really good timing because I Alan was
• 1:02:40
  working on one of the anthology releases when they have four one
• 1:02:44
  part episodes. And by Amazing Fortune, he'd
• 1:02:49
  already decided that that the kind of theme for this set would
• 1:02:53
  be memory, and that all the other stories were about this in
• 1:02:56
  some way, or at least that's the way it was coming together.
• 1:03:00
  And would I like to do the memory bank for that.
• 1:03:02
  And that's why, in a way, you know, very delighted to do that.
• 1:03:06
  But that's why when you listen to the memory bank, it's only
• 1:03:08
  one part. A lot happens in one part.
• 1:03:11
  It's very much like a four part story condensed into like, shit,
• 1:03:15
  get it, squeeze it into one. And a nice development there was
• 1:03:18
  that that anthology was going to be The Doctor and Turlo, and we
• 1:03:25
  haven't got an awful lot of Turlo stuff through Big Finish,
• 1:03:28
  I think, as Mark's the other side of the world most of the
• 1:03:30
  time. So I kind of developed that into
• 1:03:34
  into Peter and and Mark rather than Janet.
• 1:03:37
  And so I think originally it would have been Tegan who
• 1:03:39
  strapped in because I like the idea of, you know, Tegan such a
• 1:03:43
  reactive character that anything you can do to put her in a
• 1:03:47
  situation that she doesn't, she's not that keen on.
• 1:03:49
  She would absolutely let you know that she's not that keen on
• 1:03:52
  it and that's that's quite fun. But no.
• 1:03:55
  So that and that was the first one and Alan was really
• 1:04:00
  supportive about that and then was open to me.
• 1:04:04
  Pitching for A4 Parter which was the middle was literally an idea
• 1:04:11
  I got from going to the zoo and seeing a display about ants.
• 1:04:14
  And it said that in some Ant colonies the oldest aunts are
• 1:04:19
  the ones that are given all the most dangerous jobs to do
• 1:04:21
  because they're more disposable and they've lived their lives.
• 1:04:24
  I'm like fuck it that's great. Yeah.
• 1:04:26
  That that will be a Doctor Who story and and so you get the
• 1:04:28
  middle you know is all about where it's the elderly who are
• 1:04:31
  sent out to fight battles and the people of middle-aged people
• 1:04:36
  like 35 to 70 I think it is do all the admin and the under 30
• 1:04:40
  fives have all the fun and and that was almost like a kind of
• 1:04:45
  that that was really lovely to be able to have four parts to
• 1:04:48
  embrace. And and it's kind of gone from
• 1:04:50
  there really and and and I've loved it I've I've found it just
• 1:04:54
  this amazing tonic to be able to go away.
• 1:04:58
  And often documentaries you can find yourself away from home or
• 1:05:05
  in a very intense situation for a long period of time.
• 1:05:08
  And to actually just be able to go and write a script in a in a
• 1:05:11
  cafe near my home and just say actually this character will say
• 1:05:18
  this. I might have been working on an
• 1:05:19
  observational thing where I'm hoping and praying that somebody
• 1:05:22
  might articulate the thing I have in my head or or you know
• 1:05:26
  often it'll be much better than what's in my head but I can't
• 1:05:28
  control it and and that's great that unpredictability is is why
• 1:05:33
  we do it. But then to write a script where
• 1:05:34
  you can literally say you're going to say character A says
• 1:05:38
  this to character B. And and to be able to work it
• 1:05:40
  out it's it's been a great joy to be able to do it and I don't
• 1:05:45
  think I just want to write and I don't think I just want to make
• 1:05:48
  films It's lovely to be able to do both and mix it up and I've
• 1:05:51
  now I've just done the story outline for my for #16 with the
• 1:05:57
  Big Finish work. So it's been a lovely kind of
• 1:06:01
  every year there's been kind of one or two or three that I've
• 1:06:05
  been able to work on and it's kind of been, it's been really
• 1:06:07
  pleasant. Is it a case of pitching each
• 1:06:11
  time, or is it a case of the sort of the assignment has been
• 1:06:15
  handed out? It's mostly pitching, but it
• 1:06:20
  depends really. Sometime in the one that I've
• 1:06:23
  just submitted a story outline for, which may or may not
• 1:06:26
  happen, that was a case where the producers kind of said
• 1:06:31
  generally to the big finished writers.
• 1:06:33
  We're looking for ideas. Who wants to pitch?
• 1:06:35
  And you go, here's 4 ideas and they go, oh, we quite like this
• 1:06:38
  one. You go, OK, well here's a more
• 1:06:39
  detailed description of that idea and then hopefully it works
• 1:06:43
  out. But other times, I I guess
• 1:06:46
  inevitably, it's about relationships.
• 1:06:48
  And if you're if you've just done something for a producer
• 1:06:51
  and a script editor that they're happy with, they're more likely
• 1:06:53
  to turn around to you and say have you gotten a thing for, you
• 1:06:56
  know, we're we're doing this one next year.
• 1:06:57
  Have you gotten a thing that might fit for that?
• 1:06:59
  And you pitch an idea. Weirdly, sometimes it happens in
• 1:07:03
  weird ways, like I'd written Scorched Earth.
• 1:07:07
  The Colin Baker one that I did for John Ainsworth was producing
• 1:07:12
  that and he then said to me, I think he, he, I was really happy
• 1:07:15
  with that and he, he seemed happy with that.
• 1:07:17
  And then he turned around and said, well, Colin, I've just
• 1:07:19
  spoken to Colin Baker and he's always wanted to do something
• 1:07:22
  about the Scarlet Pimpernel. Do you fancy developing
• 1:07:25
  something for that so easily? You know, I could have either
• 1:07:28
  said no or pitch something rubbish.
• 1:07:30
  And John, you know, it wouldn't have happened.
• 1:07:32
  But John was opening the door to say give me an idea.
• 1:07:35
  I'll see if I like it and and go like that.
• 1:07:39
  So it's kind of it's kind of a mix and I and I and I don't, I
• 1:07:43
  like pitching and it's and it's a nice thing that I'm not one of
• 1:07:48
  those writers who could just say I'm going to start the script
• 1:07:52
  and see where it goes. And Big Finish, as far as I can
• 1:07:55
  tell, doesn't really work like that anyway that they need, they
• 1:07:59
  need you to do an outline that says this happens, then this
• 1:08:02
  happens. And it's very easy.
• 1:08:03
  I I do this a lot to write that outline and then to summarize
• 1:08:07
  the kind of final actors and then all hell breaks loose and
• 1:08:10
  what will happen to our heroes and they'd come back and say
• 1:08:13
  yeah, but but what actually, can you tell me how the story ends
• 1:08:17
  which is you know the the killer thing to kind of get right.
• 1:08:22
  So it's good that you're forced on a story level to say this
• 1:08:25
  happens in episode one, this happens in episode 2, because
• 1:08:28
  when you then come to write it, you've already done a big part
• 1:08:32
  of the working out and doesn't mean you can't adapt it and
• 1:08:35
  evolve it. But I find it very helpful then
• 1:08:38
  to to use that as a framework and and and work it out.
• 1:08:43
  But it's it's been, but I've loved doing it completely.
• 1:08:48
  I know one of my favorite sets of regulars for Big Finish,
• 1:08:52
  certainly nowadays, is the Sick Doctor flipping constants,
• 1:08:57
  because I just think it's such an interesting mix.
• 1:08:59
  There are all such different people, and forgive me, I feel
• 1:09:03
  there's The Middle and The Scorched Earth are two of the
• 1:09:05
  best scripts they've had written for it, because both of those
• 1:09:10
  stories are doing really interesting things with the
• 1:09:12
  characters. Like what sort of?
• 1:09:15
  What possibilities did you see with that team when writing
• 1:09:17
  those scripts? Oh well with with the middle, I
• 1:09:22
  I I think when Alan mentioned it, I think he well, he would
• 1:09:26
  have said this is for Colin and Miranda and Lisa and I probably
• 1:09:33
  hadn't encountered them at that point.
• 1:09:36
  I don't think. I think I would have been aware
• 1:09:38
  of them through through fandom. But I may not have listened to
• 1:09:42
  any of those stories, and I think I went away and listen to
• 1:09:45
  as much as I could get my hands on.
• 1:09:47
  And I think at that stage they hadn't actually recorded any.
• 1:09:52
  I think Quicksilver was the only one that had been recorded where
• 1:09:55
  they were both in it, so you could see that's what they're
• 1:09:57
  going to be like. And I went away and listened to
• 1:10:00
  all of the ones with just constants, and all the ones
• 1:10:03
  would just flip and tried to kind of absorb them a bit.
• 1:10:08
  And I thought it was really clever, a big finish to put them
• 1:10:11
  together because you've got really winning lovely good
• 1:10:15
  actresses and those parts. Having somebody, I know, I know
• 1:10:19
  like technically flippers like from 20 years ago now isn't she?
• 1:10:22
  Or something, but potentially a modern perspective.
• 1:10:27
  And Constance is that World War 2 stiff upper lip.
• 1:10:33
  They're very good contrast and it was really interesting that
• 1:10:35
  when is it? Is it?
• 1:10:37
  Is it Matt Fitton wrote Quicksilver.
• 1:10:40
  Yeah, he did, Yeah. And Matt did really well to
• 1:10:42
  bring them together and not make them antagonistic.
• 1:10:46
  It could be so easy to bring 2 companions who they already
• 1:10:49
  know, the Doctor, but who's this other person?
• 1:10:51
  The temptation there is to make them be a bit frosty and then
• 1:10:54
  they decide they love each other, whatever.
• 1:10:56
  But actually Matt really had them immediately be quite
• 1:10:59
  delighted with each other I thought and quite intrigued by
• 1:11:03
  all the doctors got other friends.
• 1:11:05
  That's great and and I thought that was lovely that their
• 1:11:09
  relationship felt quite quite warm and both actresses have
• 1:11:14
  talked about that kind of sibling element they've got that
• 1:11:17
  that that Constance naturally as the older character is an older
• 1:11:23
  sister but equally Flip is further ahead in time.
• 1:11:27
  So Flip has more knowledge of of events and technology than
• 1:11:31
  Constant does. So the older younger sister
• 1:11:34
  balance keeps kind of redressing and the middle I think is is was
• 1:11:40
  me trying to use what they represent differently.
• 1:11:44
  Oh your doors opened. Yeah.
• 1:11:46
  That goes back again. I'm going to keep looking at
• 1:11:51
  that door now, Shall. I shut it.
• 1:11:53
  Hang on, it's kind of really spooked me out actually.
• 1:11:55
  It's going to, it's quite scary. They're in the middle.
• 1:12:00
  They get they get split up and and Constance goes into the
• 1:12:04
  middle because it's her 35th birthday and flip goes flip,
• 1:12:08
  flip is at the beginning. So I guess that that story gave
• 1:12:13
  them both an opportunity to be their own doctors in a way, you
• 1:12:16
  know, to have their own bit of the story they were exploring.
• 1:12:19
  But I really with Scorched Earth, it was, it was kind of an
• 1:12:25
  opportunity to say these characters have always basically
• 1:12:27
  got along. What would be the thing that
• 1:12:30
  would splinter them? What would be the thing that
• 1:12:32
  would divide them? And and I thought that would be
• 1:12:35
  to do with, you know, the different perspectives,
• 1:12:39
  different perspectives of of time, of of society.
• 1:12:44
  And I knew that I was going to write something about the end of
• 1:12:48
  World War 2, about the reactions that you had in in as as France
• 1:12:55
  became unoccupied at that point where my grandfather had been
• 1:13:00
  in, you know, the character Walter in that story.
• 1:13:03
  Walter is my grandfather's name. And you know this is what I mean
• 1:13:08
  about taking ideas from what's in front of you that he, he
• 1:13:11
  arrived late onto D-Day. He arrived onto the beaches of
• 1:13:15
  Normandy D-Day plus 23 I think late for the battle just like
• 1:13:19
  Walter he he went through French villages on the back of vans and
• 1:13:25
  and he he did. He had a mobile radar base for
• 1:13:30
  the night fighters to kind of pinpoint where they were in the
• 1:13:32
  sky so other people could shoot them.
• 1:13:34
  But he was the one saying he's up there Sir and and I just
• 1:13:39
  thought this was a really interesting place to to set a
• 1:13:41
  Doctor Who story where the war was over.
• 1:13:44
  But is it? And reading up on that, you
• 1:13:47
  realise that kind of all those simmering emotions that are
• 1:13:51
  happening in French villages at the time and the retaliation
• 1:13:54
  that's happening against your own people, Where if if somebody
• 1:13:58
  is seen as having been liaising with the enemy, as somebody you
• 1:14:02
  know as being a collaborator, then it was very gender related.
• 1:14:07
  You know a huge amount of women had their hair cut or shaved and
• 1:14:10
  had brands put on them or or you know kind of markings put on
• 1:14:14
  them. And I thought to put the girls
• 1:14:16
  in situation to put Constance and flip in a in a crowd of
• 1:14:21
  people in a mob where somebody, a woman is having their hair
• 1:14:25
  shaved by a mob, they're going to react in completely different
• 1:14:30
  ways. And and I understand entirely
• 1:14:33
  why each one reacts in the way they do.
• 1:14:35
  So I'm not saying at that point Constance is wrong or Flip is
• 1:14:39
  wrong. I'm just saying this is how I
• 1:14:40
  think they would react to this And and then the story kind of
• 1:14:44
  goes out for now and I and I felt really you know
• 1:14:47
  particularly that first episode that that kind of big big
• 1:14:51
  falling out. I was really happy with and I
• 1:14:53
  thought they Miranda and Lisa played it beautifully and and I
• 1:14:59
  I was there luckily fortunately was there on the recording day
• 1:15:02
  for that and it was lovely kind of seeing them when they do a
• 1:15:05
  big scene, when they when they did a big scene they would kind
• 1:15:11
  of bring in my charger. When they do a big scene they
• 1:15:14
  would kind of run out of the of the recording booth and I
• 1:15:17
  remember like Miranda running out just kind of being like yeah
• 1:15:20
  I was having so much fun and I think they really got their
• 1:15:23
  teeth into it and and that was really lovely but but I think
• 1:15:27
  there's a huge potential for those characters and I think
• 1:15:31
  their chemistry with Colin is lovely and and I don't want to
• 1:15:34
  speak for for Lisa but I I know from what she's put out into the
• 1:15:37
  world that that she's been dealing with long COVID and and
• 1:15:42
  health has been very tricky and and and I know big finisher done
• 1:15:47
  some stuff with with Miranda solo but I hope I certainly
• 1:15:51
  don't know anything about all that but I would I'd I'd love to
• 1:15:54
  think those characters will continue with those actresses
• 1:15:57
  and I think and I would be first in the cue to say you know I
• 1:16:01
  think I love writing for them and and and I think it's
• 1:16:03
  probably quite liberating that they that their their original
• 1:16:07
  characters that they're big Finnish characters so you don't
• 1:16:10
  feel that weight of knowing whether still then or and you
• 1:16:14
  don't know how they left the do we know how they left the doctor
• 1:16:17
  I guess we don't. No, there's there's there's the
• 1:16:21
  indication that Flip will go back to her husband, Jared.
• 1:16:25
  Yeah. And Constance's husband?
• 1:16:27
  That was sort of dealt with in Quicksilver.
• 1:16:29
  So her ending is sort of a bit ambiguous and we we we know that
• 1:16:34
  she or she pops up in that last Colin Baker adventure, but she's
• 1:16:38
  not in the final story. So again, we we just don't know.
• 1:16:40
  And I think that felt quite liberating to fit to to play
• 1:16:43
  with that dynamic because we don't know if they will remain
• 1:16:47
  best friends or if they'll fall out or or.
• 1:16:50
  I can remember listening to that first episode of Scorched Dirt
• 1:16:53
  and I was absolutely in love with the two of them by this
• 1:16:55
  point. And where the woman's having a
• 1:16:58
  head shaved and flip, jumps in and then Constant reacts to that
• 1:17:02
  and then the doctor's not quite sure.
• 1:17:05
  How to deal with this because they're both and you can
• 1:17:07
  understand both points of view. And then you sort of I had a 6th
• 1:17:10
  feeling in my gut thinking how do you come back from this?
• 1:17:13
  And that's where all the dramas I was like I thought, I'm not
• 1:17:15
  sure this is going to end well. And then you go into the next
• 1:17:18
  one and some pretty terrible things, I said in that second
• 1:17:21
  episode and how at the end of that it's Constance basically
• 1:17:25
  having to say I need to get over this in order to move on.
• 1:17:31
  So it was it was a sort of a huge journey for her.
• 1:17:34
  It was just a phenomenal script. And you're right they they acted
• 1:17:37
  it beautifully as well. Well that's very kind of you
• 1:17:40
  know and I think I think they're they're brilliant in it and I
• 1:17:42
  guess the message of the whole script was that that you know it
• 1:17:47
  it it's a very personal thing for me that I I believe very
• 1:17:51
  strongly that you can't ruin things that you that there there
• 1:17:54
  is a chance for rehabilitation and and hope and that and that's
• 1:17:59
  the the journey that Constance goes on with with Lucian the
• 1:18:03
  character that she connects with formerly of the French
• 1:18:06
  resistance that you kind of you you everybody realises that that
• 1:18:12
  ultimately you know this isn't the end of something that there
• 1:18:14
  is there is there is hope for that So now I'm glad you enjoyed
• 1:18:17
  it. And I've got to say, yeah, sort
• 1:18:20
  of fabulous luck with your covers as well, because the
• 1:18:22
  cover of The Scorched Earth is a banger.
• 1:18:25
  It's beautiful, isn't it? No.
• 1:18:26
  We. We I I'm always very excited to
• 1:18:28
  see those covers and I I don't know anything about them until
• 1:18:31
  they're done. So I see it the same time that
• 1:18:34
  you see it. And no, I've got that one up on
• 1:18:36
  my wall. It's it's a beauty though.
• 1:18:41
  I was going to ask of so you write these scripts, do you ever
• 1:18:44
  have an idea in your head? Yeah.
• 1:18:46
  Oh, it would be great if so and so played this part.
• 1:18:49
  Like what's been the sort of the casting because you have some
• 1:18:52
  fabulous actors come in. And say your words that's that's
• 1:18:56
  really sort of surprised you or thrilled you the most.
• 1:18:59
  I mean I I I don't I never think about it when I'm writing it
• 1:19:03
  because I guess you'd be on a hiding to nothing and I know you
• 1:19:05
  you might well, you know obviously you know that The Who
• 1:19:08
  the regulars are going to be. But I've never really known
• 1:19:12
  about guest casts, and occasionally they'll ask if I've
• 1:19:14
  got any ideas, and I probably won't.
• 1:19:16
  But I don't know. I can't.
• 1:19:18
  I can't think I'd probably be useless as a producer, as a
• 1:19:20
  casting producer, because I I I can't.
• 1:19:23
  I can't quite picture it. And then, but I remember being
• 1:19:25
  really amazed that they got that when Jamie Anderson directed The
• 1:19:30
  Middle, that he got Mark Heap to come and be the middle man.
• 1:19:34
  Because I'm a huge fan of space and things like.
• 1:19:36
  That and me too. Even back to see he was in like
• 1:19:39
  no, well yeah and and and Green Wing and things like that.
• 1:19:42
  So I I was just over the moon and then I felt really bad
• 1:19:45
  because I thought, Oh no, the middle one's a bit underwritten.
• 1:19:47
  I should have given him. If I'd known Mark Heath was
• 1:19:50
  going to play him, I would have beefed this up a bit.
• 1:19:52
  But, but so that was lovely and. His rich voice as well, in that
• 1:19:57
  it's gorgeous. You bring so much to it.
• 1:20:00
  And then, you know, I remember on on Iron Bright, I remember is
• 1:20:07
  it Christopher Timothy? I think I might be going
• 1:20:12
  completely screwed, but the chap who plays Marc Brunel is the
• 1:20:16
  chap from Alfredo Same Pet and Alien Three, and I remember,
• 1:20:20
  like, quizzing him about Alien Three in the green room behind
• 1:20:23
  it. So it's it's always, it's always
• 1:20:26
  lovely, but it doesn't need to be that way.
• 1:20:27
  It doesn't need to be like showbiz names I think sometimes.
• 1:20:30
  I mean, I I love the chap that played Lucian in Scorched Earth,
• 1:20:34
  and I love love the chap who played.
• 1:20:37
  I've gone blank but the the French officer who's chasing
• 1:20:42
  them in in plight to the Pimpernel I thought was
• 1:20:44
  wonderful as well and you you kind of they they they're always
• 1:20:48
  very good at casting. I've certainly never had one.
• 1:20:50
  When I thought somebody's, you know, underwhelm me or whatever
• 1:20:53
  that I've I've, I've always felt like that's made it so much
• 1:20:55
  better that you've cast the right person, so.
• 1:20:58
  Sheila Sheila Reed absolutely broke my heart in the middle
• 1:21:02
  that tore the end of that story. Oh, Sheila was amazing.
• 1:21:05
  And I think she, I think she relished the fact that this was,
• 1:21:08
  you know, it's an older character, but she gets to be
• 1:21:12
  like gun toting. She gets to kind of spoilers.
• 1:21:16
  But she when she goes to a fair bit of tragedy in that story and
• 1:21:21
  she gets to scream and shoot people at the same time.
• 1:21:24
  So I think she probably thought, this is great fun, this is a
• 1:21:28
  good thing to play. Race that old adage of sort of
• 1:21:30
  character actors having to play sort of dull roles and other
• 1:21:32
  things and then they get to come on to Doctor Who and just it's
• 1:21:35
  out of this world. Yeah.
• 1:21:37
  And and there's no budget. There's no budget constraints.
• 1:21:39
  So you can be can be thrown around the room and you know
• 1:21:43
  climb up buildings and all that kind of thing that that that
• 1:21:46
  they get to do in the middle. You should see how those scenes
• 1:21:49
  are. Those in, you know, the enormous
• 1:21:50
  war suits look like in my head. Absolutely extraordinary.
• 1:21:53
  Marvel beat your heart out. Well, I think, I think in my
• 1:21:57
  head I was kind of basic. I think I'd seen The Edge of
• 1:21:59
  Tomorrow too far. So in my head they're probably
• 1:22:03
  closest to like the suits that they have in Edge of Tomorrow.
• 1:22:07
  But yeah, but the but the nice thing is that's the lovely thing
• 1:22:10
  about audio, isn't it, that it's down to you as to how you.
• 1:22:14
  I mean I think, I think inevitably This is why the
• 1:22:16
  covers are so important because that that is a statement about
• 1:22:20
  this is how this looks. But I think it's great that we
• 1:22:23
  don't have to worry about the budget.
• 1:22:27
  Moving on to Iron Bright, then how much research?
• 1:22:30
  Because obviously that's a historical story.
• 1:22:32
  That's about Brunel. How much research did you have
• 1:22:34
  to do going into that one? Probably too much research.
• 1:22:37
  I think I love it. I very, very fond of them all.
• 1:22:40
  But Iron Bright probably feels more like I'm giving you a bit
• 1:22:44
  of a lecture, an essay on. I think it's even got the
• 1:22:47
  correct number of steps on ladders in between like the
• 1:22:51
  bottom of the tunnel and the the surface.
• 1:22:54
  And I I got lots of books and I went, there's a there's a Brunel
• 1:22:58
  Museum in London and I went on the tube train which goes down
• 1:23:06
  which because you can because the Thames Tunnel is still in
• 1:23:10
  use. You know the tunnel that the
• 1:23:11
  Brunel's made is, is used by tube trains every day.
• 1:23:14
  So I specifically went on the tube train, through that tunnel
• 1:23:18
  and then back. Now that is research and I saw
• 1:23:21
  nothing. I saw kind of dark out of the
• 1:23:23
  walls, so I mean, but I I thought it was the first
• 1:23:27
  historical I did and I had felt, I think it's because I'd just
• 1:23:33
  moved to Bristol and Brunel is everywhere in Bristol.
• 1:23:36
  And I thought, I don't know that much about Brunel beyond the
• 1:23:39
  obvious stuff. And looking into his life, I
• 1:23:42
  thought, oh this is interesting. You always hear about this kind
• 1:23:46
  of cigar chomping older chap who looks a bit like Alec Baldwin.
• 1:23:50
  And then this whole part of the story as a younger man.
• 1:23:53
  The Thames tunnel was genuinely fairly disastrous project where
• 1:23:57
  lots there were floods and people died and and it was
• 1:24:00
  father and son working together when nobody knew who the son
• 1:24:03
  was. And they seemed to have had a
• 1:24:06
  falling out and then not spoken again afterwards and Brunel was
• 1:24:09
  injured in a flood and then moved to Bristol not long
• 1:24:12
  afterwards. And you're like, oh, this is a
• 1:24:14
  bit like, like what what they, I guess like what they did on
• 1:24:19
  Doctor Who with like Unicorn and the Wasp, when you take Agatha
• 1:24:23
  Christie having been having disappeared for a week or
• 1:24:26
  whatever the real life story is and you say, oh, that's a space
• 1:24:29
  where a Doctor Who story could go.
• 1:24:32
  And so that was, that was the beginning of iron.
• 1:24:35
  Bright, really. And and of course, I can't stick
• 1:24:38
  to that. So it kind of ends up being like
• 1:24:41
  and there's an alien place and there's a, you know, and you
• 1:24:45
  always get people say, I wish this could have just been a
• 1:24:47
  historical story. And I I think the Doctor
• 1:24:49
  whoishness always takes over and I go, well, what if it then
• 1:24:52
  became this and then became that?
• 1:24:54
  And I I don't want it to stop still for too long.
• 1:24:57
  That's. The joy of Doctor Who, isn't it?
• 1:24:59
  So you can start in history and then go into the future.
• 1:25:04
  Do you? Because obviously you have
• 1:25:05
  written a number of stories set in the past.
• 1:25:08
  Now is that your preference or it's not so much a preference?
• 1:25:14
  I'm I'm a big history nerd and and I I think there were
• 1:25:20
  benefits to both ways of doing. I think there's a joy if you're
• 1:25:23
  writing something like the middle or war zone or or
• 1:25:28
  basically like kind of like like the unit when I did host of the
• 1:25:31
  women, even though it's not space or whatever way, you can
• 1:25:34
  basically just you can, it sounds awful.
• 1:25:37
  You can kind of invent anything as long as it's consistent
• 1:25:40
  within that world. So that's a great joy and a
• 1:25:44
  great way of thinking of feeling unbound in terms of the story
• 1:25:48
  that you tell. But at the same time, you have
• 1:25:51
  no framework. You know, the frameworks
• 1:25:53
  entirely self driven. So you sometimes feel like, oh
• 1:25:57
  God, I'm just making up stuff. This is, this doesn't feel
• 1:25:59
  solid. So then you you, I think it's
• 1:26:02
  lovely to go to a historical way.
• 1:26:03
  You're thinking, OK, well I now have a framework.
• 1:26:05
  This thing happened and around this is where my story exists.
• 1:26:09
  And then you'll inevitably then get frustrated that you can't
• 1:26:12
  just invent something and so you go off and do a science fiction
• 1:26:15
  story instead. So I think they, I think I'd
• 1:26:18
  like to be. I enjoy doing both, and
• 1:26:23
  sometimes you're looser with history than others.
• 1:26:25
  I've just done one where I've taken the very broad strokes of
• 1:26:30
  history at a time that we don't really, you know, we don't know
• 1:26:32
  the detail of what happened anyway.
• 1:26:34
  And I've kind of embellished it a lot more than say I am bright.
• 1:26:39
  But I I really enjoy both ways in in that sense.
• 1:26:44
  And I and I think I I'll certainly look at history and
• 1:26:47
  read books or listen to podcasts and be on the hunt and say, oh,
• 1:26:52
  that's a good, that's a good Doctor Who.
• 1:26:55
  I'd love to see what would happen if Doctor Who was in
• 1:26:57
  there. And there's a number of
• 1:26:58
  historical incidents that I haven't quite figured out how to
• 1:27:02
  do yet. Where I'm like, this is really
• 1:27:04
  dark. Where would a Doctor?
• 1:27:05
  Because it's a tonal thing, like you can't put the TARDIS, can't
• 1:27:11
  arrive into Hitler's bunker in 1945, probably, you know, the
• 1:27:16
  Doctor can't save the gurbles children from poison or
• 1:27:19
  whatever. You know, he might not want to,
• 1:27:21
  I don't know. But you, you there's a tonal
• 1:27:23
  thing that means the closest you can go is like let's go Hitler,
• 1:27:26
  when it's kind of not really about what's happening in
• 1:27:31
  Germany at that point. I'd love to.
• 1:27:33
  I've always wanted to make something about the Donna party
• 1:27:35
  in America and what happened with you know that that group of
• 1:27:40
  families and pioneers that got got got stuck in the mountains
• 1:27:45
  which is an incredible story of of heroism and also incredibly
• 1:27:50
  dark and and awful and it's like how can can that exist with
• 1:27:54
  Doctor Who is that what Torchwood's for You know is that
• 1:27:57
  was what kind of other strands of Doctor Who are for to to go
• 1:28:00
  to these places like could could Doctor Who do countryside you
• 1:28:04
  know and have somebody saying I I like eating people because it
• 1:28:08
  makes me happy. You know the it's tricky but but
• 1:28:12
  I I certainly do look for those opportunities and I think some
• 1:28:17
  of it's down to taste. It's like I toyed with the idea
• 1:28:21
  of doing something about I don't think I'll ever do this.
• 1:28:23
  So I can probably tell you that I, I went through a stage of
• 1:28:27
  being obsessed with Antarctic explorers And.
• 1:28:31
  And I thought maybe you could do a Doctor Who story where you've
• 1:28:35
  got Captain Scott's tent and obviously there's the famous
• 1:28:39
  thing about Oates kind of leaving the tent and saying I'm
• 1:28:42
  going out and maybe some time and then his body is never
• 1:28:45
  found. You know, like like legitimately
• 1:28:47
  his body is never found. We only know what happened from
• 1:28:50
  Scott's diary that was found. And and I thought, well, what
• 1:28:56
  happens if Oates goes out into the snow Blizzard and then
• 1:29:00
  suddenly finds himself in a different kind of white?
• 1:29:03
  And it's the white of the TARDIS console room.
• 1:29:05
  And there's the hum of the TARDIS.
• 1:29:07
  And it's like the 7th Doctor turns around and says, who who
• 1:29:10
  are you? Or the 1st Doctor turns around
• 1:29:13
  and it and it. But then you kind of come up
• 1:29:15
  against this tonal thing, not just tone but taste of thinking.
• 1:29:19
  Is that OK? Because Oates did die, you know
• 1:29:24
  Oates didn't go off on an adventure.
• 1:29:26
  This isn't like HG Wells going off and having a fun on time,
• 1:29:29
  Lash or whatever this is. This person died and they've got
• 1:29:32
  relatives who mourned him and this is like 100 years ago, just
• 1:29:37
  over 100 years ago. So I don't know if tonally
• 1:29:40
  that's OK, but then you can make the film Titanic and invent
• 1:29:45
  romantic leads and that's about in distance of time.
• 1:29:48
  So it's really, it's it's really, it's always a really
• 1:29:51
  interesting balance. But I am drawn to the more
• 1:29:53
  morbid bits of history and thinking, is this something that
• 1:29:57
  could work? Which is why, you know, we come
• 1:29:59
  back to to the Second World War a fair bit because it's so rich
• 1:30:03
  with human drama and tragedy and you know, writing The Friendly
• 1:30:09
  Invasion, writing scorched, you know that it's it's it's very
• 1:30:14
  rich still those kind of periods.
• 1:30:16
  What's great is I don't think you ever go for the obvious.
• 1:30:19
  So it would be obvious to tell either the D-Day landing or the
• 1:30:22
  big events in the Second World War and instead you explore the
• 1:30:26
  friendly invasion. It's the the actions of one
• 1:30:30
  person and the impacts that they're going to have in
• 1:30:32
  history, which I knew nothing about at all.
• 1:30:36
  So I learnt a great deal listening to that one and then
• 1:30:39
  in Scorched Earth it's post and it's the aftermath and all the
• 1:30:42
  emotions that are still there again, that that's none of
• 1:30:45
  that's been explored before. That's what I love about your
• 1:30:48
  historicals. Please keep writing them.
• 1:30:51
  Thank you. Thank you.
• 1:30:53
  There's another one. There's one that we've done
• 1:30:57
  which hasn't been recorded yet but which is set in history
• 1:31:02
  which again is me pilfering the family archive which is all
• 1:31:06
  about basically all about my great grandfather who was
• 1:31:09
  involved in the First World War and and I won't say anything
• 1:31:13
  more about that but but but you know I think I I I think every
• 1:31:16
  family is like that. I think any anybody could look
• 1:31:18
  at their own family tree and think you know because your
• 1:31:22
  family would have been through that kind of drama and and would
• 1:31:25
  have had these lives. So I I think it's nice to root
• 1:31:28
  it in something to say I have a reason for coming to this idea
• 1:31:33
  it's come to me in in some natural way but no I I I I'm
• 1:31:39
  glad you've enjoyed. That's good.
• 1:31:42
  Coming away from sort of stand alone stories then, Now Warzone
• 1:31:46
  is a stand alone story in its own right, but obviously it's a
• 1:31:49
  part of the that sort of mark, mark Ark shall we say.
• 1:31:55
  Was that all plotted out? So was your part in that journey
• 1:31:58
  all plotted out or did you just, were you given your part of the
• 1:32:02
  story and say, right, run with it?
• 1:32:03
  Yeah. Well, I think, I think, I think
• 1:32:05
  Warzone was a real collaboration actually because that was a
• 1:32:07
  situation where you had Scott Hancock and Guy Adams I think
• 1:32:12
  were looking after that range and and they literally came to
• 1:32:16
  me and said we don't have time to write this.
• 1:32:19
  I think it was it was that we're we're doing the Mark Ark and Guy
• 1:32:24
  was always going to write conversion.
• 1:32:26
  And I and I don't know if Guy would have also written War Zone
• 1:32:29
  or whether Scott was going to write it but they had this kind
• 1:32:30
  of rough idea of we want to do a 2 parter that is like a tough
• 1:32:36
  Mudder. You know, like an endurance race
• 1:32:40
  foot race but evil, you know, but but deadly, you know kind of
• 1:32:45
  a Doctor Who version of a tough mother.
• 1:32:47
  And they knew that. They knew obviously that it was
• 1:32:51
  that TARDIS crew. They knew that.
• 1:32:55
  What did they know? I think they did know.
• 1:32:58
  Yeah they they they knew that it was.
• 1:33:00
  I mean, I have to lay a lot of credit for that one at their
• 1:33:02
  door because they they knew it was going to be the Cybermen
• 1:33:07
  spoilers. Sorry.
• 1:33:08
  Hope you if you put up like spoiler warning for all of us.
• 1:33:11
  That's not easy and. It's been a few years now.
• 1:33:15
  I think they were really good. I think they laid out, we think
• 1:33:18
  that Mark should get injured somehow and Tegan should somehow
• 1:33:24
  try to fix him. And that's the thing that begins
• 1:33:27
  some kind of cyber process and we want Peter to get, we want
• 1:33:33
  the 5th Doctor to get angry about that and that and and I
• 1:33:36
  think that was it. But actually that's a lot that's
• 1:33:39
  a lot more of a framework that I that I probably had on any of
• 1:33:42
  the other ones. And I was obviously really happy
• 1:33:45
  to do that because I thought that sounds great and I think
• 1:33:47
  they'd come to me because I bang on and probably more so then
• 1:33:52
  than now but I should do more now.
• 1:33:53
  But I I bang on on social media about running and I do marathons
• 1:33:56
  and half marathons and that culture I know quite a bit
• 1:33:59
  about. So I think they'd thought Chris
• 1:34:03
  might work for that. And I really like the idea with
• 1:34:07
  that one that I could kind of spoof like the the kind of park
• 1:34:14
  run, Tough Mudder, that kind of that type of event that I love
• 1:34:19
  doing. But I like the idea that that's
• 1:34:24
  all about self improvement and we talk about PBS and personal
• 1:34:28
  bests and making yourself better.
• 1:34:30
  And that's the kind of ethos of the Cybermen as well.
• 1:34:33
  And at one point I said to Scott, could we call it PB or
• 1:34:38
  could we call it personal best? They were like, we shouldn't
• 1:34:40
  call it that, Chris, because some reviewer will say this is
• 1:34:42
  not a personal best leaving an open goal for.
• 1:34:46
  Probably me you know with War Zone but it but it but I thought
• 1:34:52
  what was nice was to kind of I think what I did bring to it was
• 1:34:57
  to kind of see that insidiousness of the cyber
• 1:35:00
  threat from the beginning. I I I don't think it had been
• 1:35:04
  seen before as you know that that this is all one and the
• 1:35:07
  same this is all part of you know the the ethos that we have
• 1:35:11
  as as runners as the same ethos that the Cybermen have and that
• 1:35:14
  this is happening accidentally on the planet.
• 1:35:16
  This isn't a cyber plan. This is a cyber ship that's
• 1:35:19
  crashed and this is what it does it it affects a local population
• 1:35:23
  to encourage an approach in a certain mindset.
• 1:35:29
  And so no, I really enjoyed writing that one and I thought,
• 1:35:32
  I thought Scott directed that and the performances he got.
• 1:35:36
  I mean particularly out of Janet and and Peter in particular I I
• 1:35:41
  thought was brilliant and it was very wise of Scott to try and
• 1:35:45
  link into the the whole Adric thing that that to make it a
• 1:35:49
  virtue that they don't turn around and time flight and have
• 1:35:52
  a heart to heart. That that is the doctor bottling
• 1:35:54
  up something and not dealing with it rather than just a
• 1:35:57
  missed opportunity, you know that you might say if you were
• 1:36:00
  being mean, but it's but it's lovely that that whole Mark arc
• 1:36:03
  is really about Padrick sort of and and I thought they did a
• 1:36:08
  great job with it. I've always felt with anything
• 1:36:11
  that Scott Hancock's done with Big Finish, be it the torch
• 1:36:14
  would be when he goes into the main range.
• 1:36:17
  There's an intensity to it, even when it's the Doctor Who's and
• 1:36:20
  it's really about getting under the character skins.
• 1:36:23
  So with a Right Like you, they're so good at doing it.
• 1:36:26
  It's like a marriage made in heaven That is unforgettable,
• 1:36:28
  that story. And the developers in it, Sorry,
• 1:36:31
  I did say I was going to gush a little bit.
• 1:36:33
  I'm sorry. You know it it it was really
• 1:36:36
  fun. It was really fun.
• 1:36:37
  And I think I like the fact that episode one feels like a bit of
• 1:36:40
  a romp feels like we're going to this is a fun story.
• 1:36:44
  It's kind of a high concept strange, weird world.
• 1:36:48
  And then episode 2 is quite a bit nastier than episode one.
• 1:36:51
  So I'm. Lying.
• 1:36:52
  I was all into a full sense of security.
• 1:36:55
  It's nice that people knew that Cybermen were in conversion, but
• 1:36:59
  I don't think they knew they were War Zone.
• 1:37:01
  You think War Zone's just going to be a silly story before the
• 1:37:04
  cyber story, and it was quite nice that that maybe that crept
• 1:37:08
  up on a few people. That was that was nice.
• 1:37:10
  I've just listened to the Great Cyber War and it was no great
• 1:37:13
  revelation. When the Cybermen turned up at
• 1:37:15
  the end of that, it was done. Brilliantly.
• 1:37:17
  But yeah, this time it was a complete surprise.
• 1:37:19
  And it is really nice when that happens because I sort you sort
• 1:37:23
  of get used to old monsters popping back in Big Finish
• 1:37:26
  always. Because a lot of what they do is
• 1:37:27
  nostalgia. So when it can be a genuine
• 1:37:30
  surprise like that, it's great. Well, I was going to ask you
• 1:37:34
  what inspired you to write about The Scarlet Pimpernel, but
• 1:37:38
  you've kind of asked that one already.
• 1:37:40
  Yeah, that was literally that was the doctor saying, I quite
• 1:37:45
  fancy meeting the Scarlet Pimpernel, please, and Big
• 1:37:48
  Finish and myself being happy to oblige.
• 1:37:50
  I think the interesting thing with that was that immediately
• 1:37:53
  you kind of go, oh, Scarlet Pimpernel.
• 1:37:55
  Right. OK.
• 1:37:56
  And I've not. I've not read the books I I had.
• 1:38:01
  My experience was through bits of movies and television.
• 1:38:05
  The first thing I went and watched actually deliberately
• 1:38:07
  was the carry on film was I think it's carry on, don't lose
• 1:38:12
  your head. Oh, fabulous.
• 1:38:14
  Yeah. No, is it, Karen, Don't lose
• 1:38:16
  your head, is that. Yeah, it is that one, isn't it?
• 1:38:17
  Yeah. Lose your head.
• 1:38:20
  And I guess coming to that immediate realization of
• 1:38:23
  thinking, oh, this character is purely fictional.
• 1:38:26
  I mean, I knew, I knew it was a fictional character, but I
• 1:38:28
  thought maybe this is based on somebody who might have existed.
• 1:38:31
  Maybe this is like a Robin Hood thing where there might have
• 1:38:34
  been a real inspiration and there you go, Oh no, this is
• 1:38:39
  completely fictional. So how can the Doctor meet a
• 1:38:41
  fictional character if we're not doing the whole mind robber
• 1:38:45
  thing and and I think this came off the bat what I what I try
• 1:38:52
  and do. I think this is healthy.
• 1:38:54
  It might not be healthy what we're saying about being careful
• 1:38:59
  about feedback and criticism and reviews and so on.
• 1:39:02
  I I do read that stuff a fair bit.
• 1:39:05
  And sometimes I think you can see a seed of something that
• 1:39:08
  you're like, oh, they're actually, they're on to
• 1:39:09
  something here. And it was interesting that part
• 1:39:13
  of the feedback that came to Scorched Earth was that there
• 1:39:18
  were a couple of misunderstandings about one of
• 1:39:20
  the characters in it which were, which was my fault because I
• 1:39:23
  thought, oh God, no, that's not what I mean.
• 1:39:24
  I should have made that more clear.
• 1:39:26
  So I should have fixed that. But some some people thought I
• 1:39:29
  was a couple of people I think thought I was trying to
• 1:39:31
  rehabilitate or I was trying to say the the Nazis are the
• 1:39:34
  goodies. You know, the baddies are the
• 1:39:35
  goodies in that story. I'm really not saying that.
• 1:39:40
  I'm saying that these guys are broken and tortured and feel
• 1:39:43
  that they that they should die for their sins.
• 1:39:46
  They basically say at the beginning and it's not that we
• 1:39:49
  let them get away to live a happy life at the end, it's just
• 1:39:52
  that they have 5 minutes of driving in a car and they they
• 1:39:55
  will be captured off camera in 5 minutes time and somebody had
• 1:40:00
  put it together. Apologies if you are this
• 1:40:02
  person. I'm sure you meant this, went
• 1:40:04
  this well and I took it hopefully in an interesting way.
• 1:40:08
  They, they'd said. Oh, wait.
• 1:40:10
  This character talks about driving into Berlin and if they
• 1:40:14
  if they'd been driven into Berlin, then they must have been
• 1:40:16
  a high up officer and so they must have been aware of the
• 1:40:19
  Holocaust and that that they're implicit so they don't deserve
• 1:40:22
  to be forgiven. And I'm like, God, I really
• 1:40:25
  don't mean let's not get it. I I when I when when I was
• 1:40:28
  writing that character, I was literally writing it thinking he
• 1:40:31
  is the chauffeur. He is the the stooge who is
• 1:40:33
  driving a car. I'm not saying he's officer
• 1:40:36
  class, all this kind of stuff. And and but it was interesting
• 1:40:39
  that that critique, which was completely fair because I just
• 1:40:41
  hadn't made those points clear enough in the story to to avoid
• 1:40:46
  that critique. But part of the critique was,
• 1:40:49
  you know, part of the thinking was that some people don't
• 1:40:53
  deserve forgiveness. And I thought maybe I can write
• 1:40:57
  a story to kind of see how far that goes.
• 1:41:01
  You know what? What would it take in me if I've
• 1:41:02
  just written a story about basically having forgiveness for
• 1:41:07
  to everybody who is not just a complete monster?
• 1:41:11
  How far would I go? What would it take for a
• 1:41:13
  character to be irredeemable in a world written by me where I
• 1:41:17
  kind of want to find hope for people and that's where the
• 1:41:20
  character thread and plight of the Pimpernel comes from that
• 1:41:26
  that that that that basically Sir Percy we learnt against
• 1:41:30
  borders but we learned that that's that's not he's not
• 1:41:33
  really Sir Percy but he but I wanted to write something about
• 1:41:37
  a character who you think is is brilliant and the other
• 1:41:41
  characters love and they bond with and actually he turns out
• 1:41:44
  to be the worst person in the world the worst person in the
• 1:41:46
  universe and and how that would feel to for that betrayal to
• 1:41:51
  happen. So it was kind of torturing
• 1:41:53
  myself slightly and saying you think that there is hope but in
• 1:41:57
  this case there is not hope and and that that you know whether
• 1:42:00
  or not that works is up to the the listener.
• 1:42:02
  But but I did want to write something where the Doctor and
• 1:42:06
  Perry lose faith in some I think we thought we loved you and
• 1:42:12
  actually we really don't We really don't And I I
• 1:42:15
  particularly enjoy like like Perry's role in that that she's
• 1:42:20
  kind of got these warning bells going off from towards the
• 1:42:24
  beginning that this guy is not telling us the truth though is
• 1:42:26
  he doctor. So should we be still be chummy
• 1:42:30
  with this person. And then the Doctor, you know
• 1:42:34
  with out of love out of faith says, you know I think there's
• 1:42:38
  still good in this man and I'm going to stick with my friend
• 1:42:41
  And is is ultimately disappointed.
• 1:42:44
  And Perry's there not to tell the doctor off and say I told
• 1:42:47
  you so, but to turn on the person that's done it and say
• 1:42:51
  you, you know, that's my friend and you I I can't can't even
• 1:42:55
  look at you. And so I really like the way
• 1:42:57
  that that Nicola plays that and that kind of anger with him at
• 1:43:01
  the end of the story, but it. But yeah, it was, it was, I
• 1:43:04
  guess it was me trying to work out a few.
• 1:43:07
  It was me like on the on the on the psychiatrist, on on on, on
• 1:43:11
  on the couch for that one, I think.
• 1:43:12
  Give Colin and Nicola sort of strong material like that as
• 1:43:17
  well. It just flies, doesn't it?
• 1:43:20
  I I feel like Nicholas, especially I I feel like
• 1:43:23
  sometimes she's got a bit of a bomb deal on the TV show for
• 1:43:27
  whatever reason, but ever since she landed in Big Finish, they
• 1:43:31
  were just given her this astonishing opportunities.
• 1:43:33
  And that's right towards the end of the main range, isn't it?
• 1:43:36
  Plaid. The Pimpernel, Yes.
• 1:43:38
  Yeah. I was in like the last three or
• 1:43:39
  four. She's still being challenged in
• 1:43:41
  brilliant ways. Well, I I think that they're
• 1:43:45
  into play. Colin and Nicola I think are
• 1:43:47
  beautiful together. And I, and partly it's partly an
• 1:43:50
  internal bias for me because I might literally my first Doctor
• 1:43:53
  Who memory on telly is them walking through the autumnal
• 1:43:57
  woods of Ravalox at the beginning of the mysterious
• 1:43:59
  planet Part One. And and famously they had kind
• 1:44:02
  of retooled their relationship. But just between the two of them
• 1:44:05
  they'd kind of said actually we don't want to fight all the time
• 1:44:08
  and the script is still kind of having us do that.
• 1:44:11
  But we're going to play it as the oldest, best friends in the
• 1:44:15
  universe. And so that that physicality
• 1:44:17
  between them where she's kind of she's kind of lolling on his arm
• 1:44:21
  as they come through the woods. And it's very you know it's it's
• 1:44:24
  completely it's it's platonic but it's very it's kind of
• 1:44:28
  almost romantic At the same time there's something very sweet and
• 1:44:30
  tender about the way they they look at each other that I find
• 1:44:35
  very endearing and and and so literally that's that's the
• 1:44:39
  version of them that I was trying to to use in in Plight of
• 1:44:42
  the Pimpernel. I've I've been able to write for
• 1:44:46
  them both since and and and I've gone back to that and it's I
• 1:44:50
  think they're lovely together and it's lovely in Pimpernel to
• 1:44:53
  be able to lean into that and and to say actually there is
• 1:44:56
  something they've been through a lot, those two, they've been
• 1:45:01
  through a lot together and it's been rough.
• 1:45:03
  And out of that has come this amazing trust and friendship
• 1:45:09
  that will mean that Perry will stand up for the Doctor just in
• 1:45:12
  the same way that the Doctor will save Perry, that Perry will
• 1:45:15
  turn around and save the Doctor. And I think so.
• 1:45:18
  I'll always love writing for them.
• 1:45:19
  I will. Right up until Tales of the
• 1:45:22
  TARDIS that we've had recently where that is still there and
• 1:45:25
  it's all those years of Colin and Nicola knowing each other
• 1:45:28
  from then to now all in that. So that you say that how they
• 1:45:33
  look at each other in those scenes when they're acting those
• 1:45:35
  scenes? Oh my God, there's something
• 1:45:37
  great here. Can we have a spin off for them
• 1:45:39
  please? No.
• 1:45:41
  And it's it's lovely and I and I've been really lucky that I
• 1:45:44
  think I've written for Colin like six or seven times or
• 1:45:47
  something and I'm I'm somebody said are you typecast?
• 1:45:50
  And I think I don't care this is great this this is lovely.
• 1:45:54
  So I I I'm really glad that they're both still doing it
• 1:45:57
  because they're they're always, they're always lovely to work
• 1:45:59
  with. Not to sort of throw shade on
• 1:46:01
  anybody else, but I always feel like Colin is the most
• 1:46:03
  considered and I've heard in lots of interviews and that he
• 1:46:06
  really sort of examines the scripts before coming in.
• 1:46:10
  So he's very prepared and it just, it shows in the
• 1:46:13
  performances every single time. Yeah.
• 1:46:15
  Yeah. No, no, he's.
• 1:46:17
  What's nice actually, is that I've interviewed them both.
• 1:46:20
  They've the the the writing and the documentary workers kind of
• 1:46:25
  dovetailed together that I will often shoot something with them
• 1:46:29
  and be able to say I've just written a new script for you.
• 1:46:32
  So and obviously often it won't come to the actors until quite
• 1:46:36
  soon before the recording and they'll tell me we've recorded
• 1:46:39
  that, we really don't and they're always very nice.
• 1:46:43
  But it's nice that we of all of the Doctor companion pairings,
• 1:46:47
  we've probably done the most together.
• 1:46:49
  You know, we we've, you know, even down to filming cookbook in
• 1:46:52
  Nicola's kitchen. You know, it's been a recurring
• 1:46:56
  theme, so it's been nice. Well, bringing us sort of up to
• 1:46:59
  date then, The friendly invasion which I've heard very, very
• 1:47:05
  recently, was this a desire to write Doctor Who in a single
• 1:47:09
  location? I feel like you've got like the
• 1:47:11
  the the entire universe to explore, an order to go, and
• 1:47:14
  we're basically in a pub, aren't we?
• 1:47:16
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:47:17
  Well, I I mean, it kind of comes from me being in a pub.
• 1:47:20
  I think I was researching. I don't know if it was if I just
• 1:47:24
  went for fun or whether it was when we were preparing the
• 1:47:27
  Season 8 box set. But I went to Aubourne and I
• 1:47:31
  went to the real life Cloven Hoof, which is the Blue Boar pub
• 1:47:35
  in Aubourne, which is a beautiful pub recommended to
• 1:47:37
  anybody. And if you go into that pub, I
• 1:47:39
  thought there's going to be lots of Doctor Who paraphernalia
• 1:47:41
  around. But instead on the wall of that
• 1:47:44
  pub are a number of framed, almost like scrolls, like kind
• 1:47:49
  of minutes from meetings that have happened.
• 1:47:51
  They're very ornate and detailing the fact that Easy
• 1:47:57
  Company, which is the the regiment that's that's
• 1:48:00
  documented in the TV series Band of Brothers from the early
• 1:48:04
  nought it well for like 2000 or so.
• 1:48:06
  Wasn't it that basically when the American GIS were over here
• 1:48:10
  and what was coined as the Friendly Invasion and you had
• 1:48:13
  American GIS coming over to support us and giving the girls
• 1:48:17
  kind of chocolate and stockings and being called Yanks by
• 1:48:20
  locals. And there's a film called Yanks
• 1:48:23
  with Richard Gere that was a bit of an inspiration as well for
• 1:48:26
  that. And.
• 1:48:28
  And I just, I thought reading the stuff on the wall of the pub
• 1:48:32
  in Auburn, you could see you got a sense of these characters and
• 1:48:36
  the comedy inherent to like basically a group of men as
• 1:48:41
  these minutes depicted who are about, you know, who were
• 1:48:44
  meeting just before they went to Normandy.
• 1:48:47
  So have this awareness of that, that the thing that they've been
• 1:48:51
  brought into this country to do is it's on its way, it's
• 1:48:54
  happening. And then heartbreakingly,
• 1:48:57
  underneath that, it has they had photos and description of what
• 1:49:01
  happened to the men out there in France and which which men came
• 1:49:04
  home and which men didn't, and the pilgrimages that family
• 1:49:10
  members from America have made since then.
• 1:49:12
  So I've read all this thinking. I think Alborn's famous for
• 1:49:15
  Doctor Who because I'm a Doctor Who fan, actually, this is a far
• 1:49:18
  more significant thing to be famous for.
• 1:49:21
  And I just thought that that that would be a really nice
• 1:49:23
  setting for Doctor Who story. And interestingly with this, and
• 1:49:26
  maybe this is me again not being clear enough, I've seen some
• 1:49:31
  reviews that have thought because I kind of wrote it
• 1:49:34
  thinking again, this taste thing.
• 1:49:37
  I thought, I don't know if I can make this easy company because
• 1:49:41
  those are real men with real families who make real
• 1:49:44
  pilgrimages and IAI need the characters to do things in the
• 1:49:48
  story, that I need a character to sacrifice himself and that to
• 1:49:52
  be the big thing. I need the story.
• 1:49:54
  The story needs a few things to happen for it to work.
• 1:49:57
  And also, I'm kind of saying that one of these guys isn't
• 1:50:00
  really himself and is somebody from the future who's time hop,
• 1:50:03
  and this is a real guy with a real family.
• 1:50:06
  I don't know if that's OK to do that.
• 1:50:09
  And so during the writing process I thought this is really
• 1:50:13
  famous. You know got a band of others
• 1:50:14
  really famous. I So it becomes dainty company
• 1:50:17
  it you know and it's not old born.
• 1:50:19
  It's it's kind of, I think it's literally Westbourne and it's
• 1:50:22
  the old boot pub. And I thought you know this is
• 1:50:24
  this I'm doing my own spin on this and people will know what
• 1:50:27
  I'm getting at. But I did see a few people did
• 1:50:29
  say oh I and this is based on dainty company from Band of
• 1:50:33
  Brothers. I was like, Oh no, no, I don't
• 1:50:34
  want you to think these aren't real characters.
• 1:50:37
  This isn't. I'm not depicting real people.
• 1:50:40
  I'm inspired by the reality and that's maybe a clarity.
• 1:50:44
  Maybe I shouldn't have been so clever as to call it a name.
• 1:50:46
  Dainty and easy. That was so similar.
• 1:50:49
  I thought I was being smart. Maybe I was being stupid but but
• 1:50:53
  it's it's intended to honour those men and to celebrate them
• 1:50:56
  And and I thought I like the idea that with A2 parter you
• 1:51:02
  have to kind of don't bore us get to the chorus.
• 1:51:05
  You have to kind of you have to jump in maybe not at the TARDIS
• 1:51:09
  arriving and so to have those men meeting And then there's a
• 1:51:14
  strange man on the table next to them listening to their
• 1:51:17
  conversation with a big scarf and a lady dressed strangely and
• 1:51:22
  and the barmaid is telling them what What?
• 1:51:24
  You know, shut up. You know.
• 1:51:26
  And that the barmaid is undercover.
• 1:51:28
  You know that it's almost like the.
• 1:51:30
  I guess the way that a new series episode would to bring
• 1:51:32
  David Tennant into school reunion.
• 1:51:34
  He's already undercover. He's already a teacher.
• 1:51:37
  You're not saying he finds out something weird is happening in
• 1:51:39
  the school and he goes to investigate.
• 1:51:42
  But no that was really fun And and and written like years ago
• 1:51:45
  like, I think we've recorded that with Tom in about 2019 or
• 1:51:48
  so. Oh wow.
• 1:51:49
  Long time ago. So it was weird knowing that it
• 1:51:52
  was on the schedule, but I was just over the moon to be writing
• 1:51:55
  for Tom and for Louise and and for Nevis, I thought.
• 1:51:59
  Extraordinary. The the sequence where the the
• 1:52:02
  fellow asked them are coming home and she lies and then they
• 1:52:07
  said that you were lying And then her performance at the end
• 1:52:10
  of that where she's like, you know we saved him only just for
• 1:52:13
  him to go off to his death. That's the only one of the
• 1:52:16
  Margaret Run I've heard and I'm desperate to hear more now after
• 1:52:22
  hearing that performance. I think, I think she's across
• 1:52:25
  that whole set. She's really heartbreaking and
• 1:52:27
  it's lovely that that they've her character journey as a
• 1:52:31
  companion is really unusual I think as well because because
• 1:52:34
  she realises that time travel isn't isn't necessarily for her
• 1:52:38
  and that's quite refreshing to hear.
• 1:52:41
  But no, that's that's my favorite scene really in The
• 1:52:44
  Friendly Invasion is the one on the train station at the end was
• 1:52:47
  what we were building towards. And it's always tricky to you
• 1:52:50
  know, whether there's, you know you look at those two parters
• 1:52:53
  and think yeah is the one too many elements in this or or no
• 1:52:57
  it's always a squeeze. But I hopefully having one
• 1:53:00
  location and a relatively small set of characters is is the way
• 1:53:05
  around that. I think kind of.
• 1:53:06
  Barnaby Edwards plays about eight of them, doesn't he?
• 1:53:08
  Or something? I think it was super clever to
• 1:53:11
  tell what was actually a very big story, sort of historically
• 1:53:14
  and as a science fiction story all in one place.
• 1:53:18
  Yeah, you'd have submitted that script to the classic series
• 1:53:21
  producers. They would have absolutely loved
• 1:53:22
  you. I'm.
• 1:53:23
  I'm I'm sure, I'm sure. The other thing to mention is
• 1:53:26
  that it's, it was also a chance to kind of to doff my cap to
• 1:53:30
  probably my favorite film, which is A Matter of Life and Death,
• 1:53:33
  The Powell and Pressburger movie and A Matter of Life and Death
• 1:53:37
  is basically in my headset in the same world as The Friendly
• 1:53:40
  Invasion. All the characters in The
• 1:53:41
  Friendly Invasion are named after evokes or actors or behind
• 1:53:45
  the scenes people from Matter of Life and death and and in that
• 1:53:50
  film with David Niven they kind of portray relations between
• 1:53:54
  American GIS and and and the British troops and it was kind
• 1:53:59
  of it was kind of going for a kind of a similar tone.
• 1:54:02
  It will never be as good as a matter of life or death, but
• 1:54:05
  that was kind of minds, partly partly an inspiration as well.
• 1:54:08
  You always know when Tom Baker's having fun with the script and
• 1:54:12
  when in the interview he goes, and at some point in this.
• 1:54:15
  I became the landlord of a pub and that's when the story got
• 1:54:18
  really good. So he got, he's so happy.
• 1:54:21
  Yeah, I was delighted. Well, I just thought that that
• 1:54:24
  feels very right for Tom's doctor and it's building on, you
• 1:54:27
  know, it's building on Android Invasion.
• 1:54:29
  You know how natural it feels to see him in a pub environment.
• 1:54:33
  But I could absolutely imagine the 4th Doctor being the
• 1:54:35
  landlord of a pub and it meant we got to do lots of puns about
• 1:54:38
  people being barred and, you know, kind of him offering bar
• 1:54:42
  snacks and things like that in very inappropriate moments.
• 1:54:45
  So that was all that, was all and just just genuinely, it's a
• 1:54:49
  delight to write for any doctor. But Tom was, you know, one of
• 1:54:52
  the first reasons that I became a fan back in the VHS days.
• 1:54:56
  And and to to hear Tom do your dialogue is kind of a bit nuts,
• 1:55:00
  really amazing. I'm so glad that he's done.
• 1:55:03
  He's had this phase of his career that he's done Big Finish
• 1:55:05
  and he's really embraced. That has been lovely.
• 1:55:08
  The way he goes from sort of being a bit facetious during the
• 1:55:12
  pup scenes and then he's confronting the fella that's
• 1:55:15
  trying to prefer history and he just, he spits out his dialogue,
• 1:55:19
  doesn't he? In a way where I'm like, I'm
• 1:55:20
  very pleased. I'm not that person facing Tom
• 1:55:23
  Baker right now and and and I mean he's amazing and and and
• 1:55:27
  and and I guess I was trying to do that almost like that Seeds
• 1:55:30
  of Doom era where he can go. He can be really silly and funny
• 1:55:37
  and bouncy and then go quite dark and quite angry and quite
• 1:55:43
  grumpy and you never quite that. That's the delicious thing about
• 1:55:46
  Tom's doctor is you never quite know what you're going to get
• 1:55:49
  with him. The last story I'd like to ask
• 1:55:52
  you about is part of what has been my absolute favorite thing
• 1:55:57
  that Big Finish has done in the last couple of years, and that
• 1:56:00
  is the purity sense. For a lot of reasons, yeah.
• 1:56:05
  It's sort of skewing continuity and really here actually,
• 1:56:10
  weirdly, oh. Fabulous, fabulous.
• 1:56:13
  And you know, you got a really pivotal part of that story,
• 1:56:17
  which was kind of detailing Patricia McBride's all those
• 1:56:23
  points in her life that took her from sort of academic to despot.
• 1:56:29
  How do you even start like? That's a that's a part of a big
• 1:56:34
  sort of 12 part storyline. I know we've asked this
• 1:56:37
  question, but how do you start plotting that out?
• 1:56:39
  No, it's really hard. I think what the main people
• 1:56:43
  have to worry about that are Rob Valentine and Jacqueline Rayner
• 1:56:47
  and they were both very, they were really great.
• 1:56:52
  They kind of brought me on board and they said we've got this arc
• 1:56:57
  and I think they must have sent me the scripts for maybe water,
• 1:57:01
  for the beginning of Waterworld, for the rotting, rotting deep,
• 1:57:04
  isn't it the first one? Heebie.
• 1:57:07
  And they were the same. But we you don't get to write
• 1:57:09
  for heebie because by this point is she's disappeared from time.
• 1:57:13
  She's been erased seemingly from time.
• 1:57:15
  And they knew that they wanted to really develop this, this
• 1:57:20
  interesting, immoral, seemingly immoral figure, Patricia
• 1:57:24
  McBride. But it was really open,
• 1:57:28
  actually. They wanted this to be the story
• 1:57:29
  where there's a kind of chase through time and we see what
• 1:57:33
  McBride is doing with the suit that is causing problems with
• 1:57:38
  time. And we want they wanted it to
• 1:57:40
  lead to a moment when she adopts the name Purity and and that the
• 1:57:46
  art kind of, I guess makes itself more clear.
• 1:57:49
  But how how you do that? It was really open and I kind of
• 1:57:53
  looked at it for a while. I thought, you've got the slight
• 1:57:56
  problem that you don't know what the story, the stories around
• 1:57:59
  you don't exist yet. So I didn't know what was coming
• 1:58:03
  before or after. Oh, I know you just kind of
• 1:58:05
  trust to Rob and Jackie. They will worry about that.
• 1:58:09
  I've got two parts. So again, it has to be a story
• 1:58:12
  that moves at a fair lick and maybe jumps in.
• 1:58:17
  And then I kind of knew that it wasn't the beginning of the
• 1:58:20
  story. It was a middle bit but it still
• 1:58:22
  needed to work So needed to be kind of and Empire Strikes Baki
• 1:58:25
  kind of situation. I I wish and with that I think
• 1:58:32
  it was me trying to work out. I was thinking Patricia's
• 1:58:36
  changing history in the way that the suit is telling her to.
• 1:58:41
  So the suit can see the the patterns of the web of time and
• 1:58:46
  is adjusted is taking her perspective and her prejudices
• 1:58:51
  and her desire to make the world better in a very sociopathic way
• 1:58:56
  that doesn't care about you know people like Hebe that it that it
• 1:58:59
  might destroy. And the suit kind of converts
• 1:59:01
  that into a plan and into oh OK, well if you want to do that,
• 1:59:05
  you're going to have to do this and this and this and this.
• 1:59:08
  And the kind of internal logic for me was I wanted those to be
• 1:59:11
  really small things and not like that was the.
• 1:59:15
  Beauty of it, Not big world changing like will stop JFK
• 1:59:19
  being killed or will will kill kill kind of kind of baby despot
• 1:59:23
  or whatever it might be. So really small things.
• 1:59:27
  And for my own sanity I did it. That those things happened
• 1:59:30
  chronologically, that they go back to the earliest point in
• 1:59:33
  time and then work their way forward.
• 1:59:35
  And that leads to he be not being there in the future
• 1:59:38
  because if they jump around, it's going to be a fucking
• 1:59:41
  nightmare to kind of know what what has changed since the last
• 1:59:45
  change that we made. And nothing's changed about
• 1:59:47
  1950. If we've changed something in
• 1:59:49
  90. All right.
• 1:59:50
  I just thought let's go back the furthest and then work our way
• 1:59:53
  forward and do so gradually. And that's where the idea for
• 1:59:57
  the beginning comes about. That I thought again because I
• 2:00:00
  was obsessed. I'm obsessed with Antarctic
• 2:00:03
  explorers. So I thought I'd love to do a
• 2:00:05
  Scott story. It's a bit obvious to do a
• 2:00:07
  Doctor Who's Scott's story. We haven't really done it, but
• 2:00:10
  I'll do one. But then it's not about Scott.
• 2:00:12
  It's about like a cabin boy. And so the the assumption that
• 2:00:16
  the doctor makes and the viewer makes, the listener makes is
• 2:00:19
  that, oh, Patricia must be attempting to Scott stop the
• 2:00:22
  Nova Scotia, the the Terra Nova disaster.
• 2:00:28
  And actually she's not. It's just to say to somebody
• 2:00:30
  here's a tenor bugger off home and it's as simple as that.
• 2:00:34
  And then it becomes about a meet cute about like helping that boy
• 2:00:39
  to fall in love with a random woman in Newcastle, which is
• 2:00:43
  kind of set on Grey Street in Newcastle in my head where I
• 2:00:45
  close to where I used to live. And then it's avoiding their
• 2:00:50
  child being killed by bombs in Hull in the bombing in World War
• 2:00:54
  2 which I was like, oh, I didn't know that they dropped bombs on
• 2:00:56
  Hull in World War. It's in World War One.
• 2:00:58
  Sorry, actually the end of the First World War that they
• 2:01:00
  dropped bombs from from kind of airships from zeppelins.
• 2:01:04
  And then it becomes about that daughter becoming whether she
• 2:01:08
  gets into Cambridge and it's Patricia that gives her the
• 2:01:10
  nudge to say you can do this. You know you're you're good.
• 2:01:13
  You can do this And then it then that daughter sets up her own
• 2:01:16
  political party and you know and and and it was kind of nice to
• 2:01:20
  do like little ripples and the pebbles in the in the water kind
• 2:01:26
  of create something bigger. So that so that was fun and I
• 2:01:30
  think it does. There's a lot in that.
• 2:01:31
  You know there's a lot in that for like an hour of of radio.
• 2:01:35
  But again I thought that I thought Colin and and Bonnie, it
• 2:01:39
  was really fun to write for Mel. And I really I enjoyed listening
• 2:01:44
  to that. I did, definitely.
• 2:01:45
  I did you did you sort of go back and listen to the?
• 2:01:48
  The whole thing. So how it fits in.
• 2:01:50
  Yeah I I did. I was like, oh, right, OK, it.
• 2:01:52
  Slips in beautifully, doesn't it?
• 2:01:54
  Like I? I could never have told that
• 2:01:56
  this was written independently of the others.
• 2:01:58
  I know we're genuinely it's it's lovely actually to to to do it
• 2:02:01
  that way and then you then you kind of see the puzzle come
• 2:02:03
  together and I've not actually heard the most recent set Yeah I
• 2:02:06
  need to get hold of the most recent one but I loved working
• 2:02:09
  with Rob and Jack and we've done something since then together
• 2:02:13
  again and and and I think it's I think Jack's just got a really
• 2:02:18
  you know she's got a sensitivity for that doctor it goes all the
• 2:02:21
  way. You know, I remember listening
• 2:02:22
  to Doctor Who and the pirates and having the most ever
• 2:02:25
  listening, but you know that cliffhanger at the end of
• 2:02:27
  episode 2 when you when when Evelyn's like, Oh no, you're
• 2:02:32
  going to sing, aren't you? And then then you burst into the
• 2:02:35
  the, the pilots of Penzance. The worst danger ever known to a
• 2:02:38
  Doctor Who cliffhanger? Colin Baker's about to sing, you
• 2:02:41
  know? Hell, you're about to sing.
• 2:02:44
  Yeah, So. So I'm.
• 2:02:46
  I'm glad that Jack's doing that stuff because she's really,
• 2:02:48
  she's got a really good sense for the 6th Doctor.
• 2:02:51
  Plus, you've got to do the thing in that set that happened again
• 2:02:54
  and again. I just got better every time.
• 2:02:56
  And that's having Colin and Imogen Stubbs against each
• 2:03:00
  other. And that is just gold.
• 2:03:02
  Like every single time. You won't be disappointed with
• 2:03:05
  that last set. It's brilliant.
• 2:03:07
  I need to listen. But no I mean an image and I
• 2:03:09
  think was great and we I think I was trying to make sure she
• 2:03:12
  wasn't just evil that that she was you know and and I think all
• 2:03:17
  the other writers do a really good job of of helping helping
• 2:03:20
  flesher out but no it was fun that was a because almost
• 2:03:24
  getting to cherry pick kind of where could they go next.
• 2:03:27
  And you know that there not being any reason why they
• 2:03:29
  couldn't go anywhere really as long as it worked towards what
• 2:03:32
  happened to he be happening. For me, like with a A Big Finish
• 2:03:36
  story, generally speaking, I'd kind of know where they're
• 2:03:39
  going. I know the structure of a Doctor
• 2:03:41
  Who story is an alien invasion story, a historical story.
• 2:03:44
  With that one, I was, I can't say it tomorrow.
• 2:03:46
  Where is this going? I can't.
• 2:03:47
  I know. And then it all comes together.
• 2:03:52
  It was. Oh, it was terrific.
• 2:03:54
  Oh, thank you. I'm glad.
• 2:03:55
  I'm glad you enjoyed it. I think sort of looking at your
• 2:03:58
  scripts overall, there's always been a moment where in the
• 2:04:02
  memory bank. I started thinking about what
• 2:04:08
  can I remember, I've lost my mum.
• 2:04:09
  What can I remember about my mum, you know, in Scorched
• 2:04:13
  Earth? I it reminded me of a moment
• 2:04:15
  where me and a friend had a falling out over a thorny moral
• 2:04:20
  issue you know. And in purification I started
• 2:04:24
  thinking, my God, it is just a small moments in my life that
• 2:04:27
  actually sort of. They've been massive tangents,
• 2:04:30
  you know, and there's always something in one of your scripts
• 2:04:33
  that really gets me thinking above.
• 2:04:34
  Just enjoying the story in itself there.
• 2:04:37
  There's a depth to them that I think is admirable.
• 2:04:41
  Oh, that's that's kind of you. Yeah.
• 2:04:42
  And I get, I get. I mean, I do think a helpful way
• 2:04:46
  to start a Doctor Who story is, is to have like a feeling that
• 2:04:50
  you're like you're maybe struggling with yourself or
• 2:04:53
  you're trying to figure out and that core thing, you know to to
• 2:04:58
  then find a Doctor Who framework.
• 2:05:00
  It can go through I or or if you've done it the other way to
• 2:05:03
  kind of try and find what is that thing kind of how can I get
• 2:05:06
  back to what that central feeling is that we're exploring.
• 2:05:09
  I think then you can always convince yourself it's not just
• 2:05:14
  A is happening, B is happening, C is happening.
• 2:05:16
  You know, it's not just kind of they're escaping and being
• 2:05:18
  recaptured and escaping or whatever there is.
• 2:05:21
  There is something you're trying to get at.
• 2:05:22
  Hopefully you know, you always look at it and you find the
• 2:05:25
  problems in it. But that's that's hopefully what
• 2:05:27
  what what should happen, at least?
• 2:05:29
  Certainly from the I I seek out quite a lot of reviews of
• 2:05:33
  people's work as well because that's what I do.
• 2:05:35
  So it's always nice to read other people's opinion and see
• 2:05:37
  if we're sort of in agreement. And you know, there is a, I'd
• 2:05:41
  say, overwhelmingly positive response to a lot of what you
• 2:05:45
  do. Do you do you get to see any of
• 2:05:47
  that? Like, are you?
• 2:05:49
  I mean, I do, I do, yeah. I I good.
• 2:05:52
  I'm pleased because I guess, I guess the the reason that you're
• 2:05:55
  writing it is, is for an audience.
• 2:05:57
  And if you write something for really, you know, if you were
• 2:06:00
  writing something for a big telly audience, you'd see that
• 2:06:02
  response in lots of places. And if it's for for audio, I I I
• 2:06:08
  do, I want to know that it's worked.
• 2:06:09
  I'm not just writing it for me and I don't have to listen to
• 2:06:12
  that. I don't have to take that review
• 2:06:14
  on board or or whatever. But but I'm certainly interested
• 2:06:17
  and I and if and if if I was making these and there was some
• 2:06:21
  kind of consensus that they were rubbish it it would matter to me
• 2:06:26
  because you're not. I'm not just making it for
• 2:06:28
  myself I do want it to work for an audience so it is lovely when
• 2:06:32
  things work out and and equally you know if if if feedback was
• 2:06:37
  if it was trickier than that I'd I'd try and figure that out as
• 2:06:40
  well I'd try and think well what can I what can I learn from that
• 2:06:43
  and and make that a positive next time around or explore a
• 2:06:47
  different topic you know like we're saying with Scorched
• 2:06:50
  Earth. So I think I think it's nice to
• 2:06:54
  see that feedback. I'm very happy to to read
• 2:06:56
  whatever anybody thinks. My last question about Big
• 2:07:01
  Finish, and I know they frowned upon this sort of thing, but
• 2:07:04
  it's not going to stop me asking.
• 2:07:06
  And that is, what can we expect from you in the future, I think.
• 2:07:10
  What's coming? I think the the last thing was
• 2:07:15
  the Friendly Invasion. So there is there were 12344
• 2:07:26
  scripts that can't out yet. I think that's everything and
• 2:07:33
  three of them are Doctor Who scripts and one of them is not a
• 2:07:36
  Doctor Who script and that's about it.
• 2:07:39
  I think that's about all I. Don't get yourself into trouble,
• 2:07:42
  all right? I want you writing more, OK?
• 2:07:44
  I think that's right. I think that's right.
• 2:07:49
  Yeah. And and and I think one of I
• 2:07:50
  think two of them are due to be recorded shortly and I'm I'm
• 2:07:54
  just trying to figure out when so I can hopefully go along at
• 2:07:57
  least listen in since COVID it's easier to kind of remotely
• 2:08:01
  listen in to these sessions but nothing beats kind of turning up
• 2:08:04
  if you're free on the day nothing beats kind of into the
• 2:08:06
  studio. Well then that's just, it's been
• 2:08:10
  a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much for your time.
• 2:08:14
  Yeah, thank you. And this is probably going to go
• 2:08:17
  out in the in the next couple of weeks.
• 2:08:20
  So I will certainly let you know when it happens.
• 2:08:21
  But Chris, thank you very much. It's been a pleasure.
• 2:08:24
  Thank you, Joe. Thank you for all the nice
• 2:08:26
  things you've said. I appreciate it.