"Phil won't leave his room" - A Doctor Who Production History

Teaser
"Well, that's the introductions out of the way. Derrick, how did you choose your new Doctor."

"Well, it was a very fraught process..."

"Ah, the truth comes out. I thought you liked me!"

"I didn't mean it like that. I was very lucky finding you, but getting there wasn't easy. I'd thought we'd have a funny Doctor like Pat had been, so I started in that direction."

"He asked every actor in Britain before he asked me. Some of them twice"

"It was not like that and you know it! But yes, a lot of the funny types I asked were busy or not interested. I had all these photos of actors in front of me and there was one of Harry Worth that had been sent over from the Radio Times, I think. It was a still from the one you were in, you were playing a Russian, weren't you?"

"Something like that. I got a lot of Russian parts in those days. Once I got cast as Doctor Who, I said goodbye to those roles. Just as I was finishing my first series on Doctor Who, I bumped into an actor who thanked me personally for freeing up those kinds of parts so he could be in...Codename I think it was."

"Who was that? Vladek Sheybal?"

"No, it was Iain Cuthbertson."

"Oh! Hahahaha! Whatever happened to him? Anyway, yes I suddenly decided to go in a different direction from the more comedic actors I was looking at."

"Jon Pertwee was one of them."

"I wasn't going to reveal any names!"

"He didn't mind; he told me himself. Told me every time we met up, actually. Lovely man. If he'd accepted, I don't know where I'd be. I probably wouldn't have had the chance to be such good friends with him."

"Well, he found his niche dashing around in a velvet smoking jacket and a frilly shirt being all heroic, so it's a good job he didn't get to play Doctor Who."

- From the commentary track of Doctor Who: Spearhead From Space
 
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Part 1
The role of Lycus was originally to have been played by Phil Silvers but, when he fell ill, he was replaced by Jon Pertwee.

- IMDB Trivia for A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum
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"I got a message from my agent 'Richard Lester wants you to fly to Spain because Phil Silvers is ill or crazy or both'. Talking to some people on the set, I got the impression he'd had some disagreements with someone behind the camera, but I don't know if that had anything to do with his illness. He certainly didn't make a recovery in time to prevent me playing Lycus. It opened up a whole new phase of my career and I don't think it didn't any harm to Phil's career. I did try and avoid him ever after, though." [1]

- Jon Pertwee, Hiding In Limelight, 1984 [2]
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"You recently revealed on a DVD commentary that Jon Pertwee was one of the people you considered for The Doctor..."

"I didn't reveal it! A certain someone decided to blurt it out. Yes, Jon was near the top of my list but he was working in the States at the time. He was doing something with Lucille Ball, I think, and thought that was better than coming back over here and playing Doctor Who for some reason."

"And then you thought about asking Harry Worth?"

"No. The Harry Worth thing was someone trying to be helpful. I had a desk full of photos of actors and...well, not being able to get the part cast had been keeping me up late. I was looking at the picture of Harry Worth I'd been sent from...somewhere within the corporation. I'm not saying anything against Harry Worth but he was a capital C 'Comedian' and was one the BBC's biggest comedy stars, even if someone asked him to be Doctor Who he'd have turned it down. As you all know, there was someone else in that photo and he's a captivating fellow, isn't he?"

- Derrick Sherwin, personal appearance at Doctor Who Convention, 2000
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A picture of Harry Worth, Stefan Gryff and Roger Delgado from a copy of Radio Times

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A NEW WORLD OF HEROISM FOR DR. WHO

"I have had a long career playing villains or Arab sultans and occasionally, villainous Arab sultans. Being Doctor Who is a new challenge for me. I've never been the hero before." Roger Delgado's dark eyes twinkle as he considers his new vocation.

- The Daily Express 23rd June 1969
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One question I'm asked by every interviewer and fan is "Did you ever think when you started that eventually you'd still be talking about the show today?". The answer is YES! Deep down, I knew that the show was going to last forever. It had been a success for six years without me and I like to think that I had something to do with keeping that popularity going. So when I'm invited to a convention in America to tell my stories to hundreds of people, I'm not the least bit surprised. Doctor Who is wonderful and I hope the next actor or actress in the part is fully prepared to join a worldwide family of delightful people.

And I had a new family onscreen. While Caroline John is a skilled actress (she does the most convincing crying acting I've ever seen) for the part of Liz Shaw, she mostly just had to allow her own vast intelligence to shine through. I came to depend on Nicholas Courtney, as he had experience of working on Doctor Who. He'd worked with the formidable William Hartnell playing some sort of space spy and then gone onto do two stories with Patrick Troughton as Brigadier Knight. [3] Now he was back as a regular part of the show and with help from John Levene, who could steal a scene with one line, the family was complete. But then, for a moment, it seemed like it was all over.

No sooner had I started work with Derrick Sherwin than I was being introduced to our new producer Barry Letts. Not that I had any doubts about Barry, we'd worked together in the days when Barry was an actor. But despite what you might hear from my co-stars, I can worry with the best of them. Barry's attitude - brisk, confident and businesslike - helped set my mind at ease and his praise for my performance did wonders for my fragile ego, but I still feared that the-powers-that-be were going to bring the axe down. By the time I came to be introduced to a third producer, my ego was sufficiently robust that I felt I could just about manage to keep the show going exuding a little bit of my own confidence. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

- Roger Delgado, "Scornfuls, Spaniards, Sleuths And Spacemen", 1999
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[1] Here's the POD. IOTL, Silvers made a "miraculous recovery" upon hearing that Jon Pertwee had been drafted in to replace him, but ITTL, he genuinely comes down with something that prevents his playing Lycus.

[2] His first autobiography has changed title, too. IOTL it was called Moon Boots And Dinner Suits, not a reference to Doctor Who, but clearly happy to convey that impression. ITTL the events leading to the title never occur and it wouldn't have the same meaning anyway. The publisher has come up with something suitably actorish, but far less fun.

[3] Our POD has caused one big shuffle of actors. In some cases I've left things as OTL, mainly because a little bit of parallelism will help keep me oriented as much as any of you reading this (at least to begin with). Anyway, ITTL David Langton was available to play Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart and Nicholas Courtney played Captain Knight, as was originally planned. When it comes time to pilot UNIT with The Invasion, Douglas Camfield will call upon Courtney to return (I'm sure I read somewhere that Courtney returned because Camfield liked him). There'll be a few lines in The Invasion detailing Captain Knight's unusual recovery and remarkable promotion.

Next time: Mike Yates gets tough and where does Jo Grant do her shopping?
 
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I'd love to know who you were expecting.

Just a few words to let you know what to expect. I've got the first eight parts of this already written, I'll put them up every Friday. If this goes according plan, we'll get up to the 30th anniversary and the 7th Doctor. The butterflies are also going to be felt outside of Doctor Who and there's going to be a fashion for a strand of drama that didn't really happen IOTL. You'll find out what Pertwee and Baker the Elder are doing outside of Doctor Who. Also, someone from Star Wars will play The Doctor.

I leave you with a badge.

Doc3b200.jpg
 
I'm saying no more.

By the way, there won't be any episode guides or plot breakdowns of specific episodes. It's outside my skill set and I quite like leaving things like that to the imagination.
 
Part 2
Barry Letts: "Playing the hero meant a lot to Roger and it made him so happy, so confident, he managed to carry the viewers along for the ride. The only time I saw him less than happy was when it was time to replace Caroline."

Delgado: "Yes, I caused a bit of a fuss, I'm afraid. I was very insecure. Derrick being replaced with Barry had made me worry a little bit. The prospect of Caroline being replaced made me panic. Caroline took me to one side and said she was going to have to leave anyway. Unfortunately, I'd already shouted at Barry by that point."

Letts: (laughs) "It just goes to show how reasonable Roger is that he seems to consider that a tantrum. I've had actors throw tantrums at me, Roger just stated his position very firmly."

Terrance Dicks: "What had upset Roger is that Barry and I didn't want a companion who was as clever as The Doctor, which Liz Shaw was. Roger thought that wasn't a good enough reason to replace Caroline. We offered to let him have a say in casting a new companion and he said he'd be very happy to be involved. The next time it came it up for discussion he said 'Oh, anyone you pick will be fine' and that was the end of that."

- DVD Extra, Terror Of The Autons
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Jo got a quick, confused impression of a spacious room with several laboratory benches. Perched on a stool at one of the benches was a dark skinned man with a pointed black beard. He might have been a Sultan or a Maharaja. But while the elegant white suit he was wearing suggested a warm climate, it was much more the suit of a English gentleman. Before him on the bench lay a complex piece of electronic circuitry. Leaning forward he made a careful adjustment. The electronic circuit began to glow, turning a fierce cherry-red.

Jo Grant might have been inexperienced, but she knew how to cope with an emergency. On the wall nearby was a fire extinguisher. She grabbed it from its bracket and dashed into the laboratory and squirted a jet of white foam on to the circuit.

There was a bang and a flash, and the apparatus belched a cloud of dense black smoke. The Doctor caught the full blast and doubled up coughing and choking. 'It's all right,' said Jo kindly. 'No need to worry, I've dealt with it.'

The Doctor looked his experiment, completely buried beneath white foam. Resignedly he plunged his hands into the foam, extracting a charred and sticky tangle of blackened circuitry. 'That's certainly one way of putting it. I'm more inclined to say you've ruined it. Steady-state micro-welding always creates intense heat. It's perfectly safe. This was three months' delicate work. Now then, may I ask who you are?'

Jo sighed. 'My name's Jo Grant,' she said. 'I'm your new assistant.'

The Doctor looked down at her in speechless astonishment. He saw a very small, very pretty girl with brown hair and green eyes, who looked as if she should be at a fashion show or a party full of pop singers and movie stars. 'I'm sorry, my dear,' he said gently. 'I really don't think you'd be suitable.'

'I'm a fully trained agent,' said Jo eagerly. 'I've just finished the training course. Codes, safe-breaking, explosives...'

The Doctor's face broke into a suddenly wry smile. 'Fire fighting?' he added gently.

Jo looked so crestfallen that the Doctor couldn't help feeling sorry for her. 'You see,' he explained, 'I really need a very experienced scientist, someone who could help me in my work.'

'I took “O” level in science...'

The Doctor shook his head sadly. 'You'd be wasting your other talents. I need a very specific set of skills. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a great deal to do.'

- Doctor Who And The Auton Invasion by Terrance Dicks, Target Books [1]
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Letts: "I've had a few conversations, some of them with people who should know better, where people talk about casting as if it's just picking a name off a list. But if you look at Doctor Who, it shows exactly the kind of decisions that have to be taken. I'd had some idea about an exotic companion, but Roger was exotic, so I had to go in the opposite direction. We made the new companion very, very English. Well spoken, well-connected, shopped at Biba. You get the idea. Gabrielle Drake gave us exactly what we wanted.

"We decided she needed a love interest in UNIT, but we couldn't go with someone too 'officer class', we needed to contrast with Jo Grant's finishing school manners. Ray Lonnen fit the bill perfectly. He's just well-spoken enough, but there's something a little tough about him. It wasn't unusual for him to be cast as heavies."

- DVD Extra, Terror Of The Autons
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Captain Yates stuck his head into the laboratory and called, 'Doctor?' He broke
off as he saw an overalled figure busy in the corner. 'Hullo,' he said, 'what's
going on?'

The man spoke without looking up. 'Telephone mechanic, sir. Just finishing.'

The engineer packed away his tools and prepared to leave. 'Got your pass?'
asked Yates suddenly.

The man bristled. 'I've had this pass checked so much it's worn to a frazzle,' he said testily.

'Pass!' Yates repeated firmly. The man produced a grubby pass from his overall pocket. Yates examined it.

'That's fine. Thank you very much.'

The man gave him a reproachful look, took back the pass, and went off.

There was something oddly familiar about the look, thought Yates. It was the look some of the officers gave him when he was a private and then an NCO. It was the way some officers looked at him now, even though he had pips on his shoulder. Yates had worked his way up to the rank of Captain and sometimes he'd find himself up against someone who was born to 'officer class'. Fortunately, Brigadier Knight, for all his immaculate manners, was a true soldier who respected hard work and good results. Yates tried to shake himself from his revery, but there was something about that phone repair man he did not like.

- Doctor Who And The Auton Invasion by Terrance Dicks, Target Books
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Letts: "After all that, we decided to give The Doctor an arch-enemy. Now for an arch-villain there was one obvious choice, but unfortunately for us, he was playing The Doctor. So, The Doctor is somewhat exotic. Jo Grant is very English, very upper-middle class. Captain Yates is more down-to-earth. So for The Master, we went to the very top."

Dicks: "Mac Hulke has to take some of the credit for that one. Never on the side of the ruling classes if he could help it; Mac suggested the new baddie should be a public school bully type. We were discussing it in the office, Roger was there, he overheard us and said 'Toby Meres' and it clicked into place. There was this spy show at the time called Callan and one of the spies was this sneering bully. Eton, Sandhurst and the Guards. Born to rule and he knew it! We had a long list of names, but at the top was Edwin Richfield and we cheered when he said 'yes'."

Letts: "Edwin Richfield had the most wonderful sneer. It let viewers know that he was up to no good the moment they saw him. It also meant that we didn't have to have him do anything too terrible to get the idea across that he was an especially bad bad guy.

"Edwin was a very actorly actor. I wouldn't say he took himself too seriously, but he did take the work seriously and Roger responded to that. Roger was himself a very meticulous actor and with Edwin treating it as seriously as if he was playing Uncle Vanya at The Old Vic, Roger developed a sense of when to play with Edwin or against him. Roger was able to bring some anger, a little shade to his performance."[2]

- DVD Extra, Terror Of The Autons

A mock-up cover for a copy of Starburst magazine. The cover features Edwin Richfield as The Master in black jacket and black turtleneck sweater.


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"That's enough about The Master because...there she is! Gabrielle Drake as Jo Grant, looking like the ideal English rose."

"Though she was actually born in India."

"And I was born within the sound of Bow Bells, but I never get Cockney parts. As an actor, you are what you look like. Actually, one thing I loved about being Doctor Who was all the letters I'd get from Indian and Pakistani children saying how much they loved seeing a goodie who looked like them. Some of them went on to become famous actors themselves. That's why shows like Doctor Who are important. They reach children and give them something to value. Sorry, Barry, you were about to say something."

"Just to say that having Roger as the lead did no harm to overseas sales."

"So everywhere they look like me, they bought Doctor Who?"

"You could say that."

"I do keep getting cheques from places I can't pronounce. I got one yesterday, just enough to put the first downpayment on a packet of cornflakes. Look at Gabrielle, isn't she beautiful? She's almost as beautiful as me."

*chuckles*

"You may laugh but that's why Christine gave me that white suit. It was to contrast with, and I quote, my 'dark good looks'."

"That's Christine Rawlins, costume designer for Season 7 of Doctor Who."

"Oh, everyone listening to this already knew that. They know more than we do."

- Roger Delgado and Barry Letts, commentary track for Terror Of The Autons
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[1] This is, of course a huge chunk of the actual novelization, paraphrased a little and with changes to help convey the differences between TTL's and OTL's Third Doctors.

[2] This is me winging it. I base the reference to Richfield being "actorly" on an interview I saw on YouTube where he spoke seriously and passionately about his theatrical work.

Next time, Jon Pertwee as a dashing dandy dedicated to derring-do
 
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Gabrielle Drake was considered for Jo Grant and I think she was on the final shortlist. I've heard clashing stories about how involved Jon Pertwee was in picking Katy Manning but I've allowed his absence to change the choice.

I was going to butterfly Nick's untimely passing, but apart from one unavoidable example, I'm not going to tackle that kind of thing.
 
Part 3
"THE INCREDIBLE ROBERT BALDICK"

by Terry Nation

Well, that title had to go for a start. Maybe it was my background in comedy, but the title struck me as pure Carry On and this was meant to be my big break in drama. Terry Nation protested that it was the name of a friend of his and he had permission to use it [1], but once I'd called into question, everyone else followed. Later on, I received a script entitled:

"THE INCREDIBLE GABRIEL BAINE"

by Terry Nation

Much better.

- Jon Pertwee, Hiding In Limelight
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Gabriel Baine is a flamboyant Victorian adventurer, scientist and investigator into the unknown and uncanny. He is visited at his manor house by a clergymen friend who asks his help in investigating the murder of a young woman in the crypt of a ruined church. Baine travels to the scene of the crime in his personal, armour-plated train "The Tsar", with his scientific assistant and burly gamekeeper. There will be a "gothic horror" feel around the production and science-fiction elements of a "Jules Verne" kind will also be present.

The programme is written by Terry Nation and directed by Cyril Coke. Rehearsal and recording will take place in TC8 [2] July 3rd and 4th.

- BBC Drama Early Warning Synopsis
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"There was a question about Gabriel Baine. Someone's done their homework, I was involved a little bit in that, but not enough to have my name on it. Jon Pertwee was already cast when I came along. He'd come back from America and done a couple of horror movies. *looks to host* Craig? Right, The House That Dripped Blood and Scream And Scream Again. I think those had put him in someone's mind. I know Shaun Sutton, who was head of drama, was very keen on the casting.

My involvement was only a few meetings. They were making a pilot as part of the Drama Playhouse strand. Terry Nation had this idea about a Victorian science-fiction detective and he really thought it could be a hit series. I think he was still living down the disappointment of not being able to get his Dalek spin-off made. Anyway, I was brought in as prospective series producer and Terry wanted to script edit the series, which we all agreed was a bit too much. But Terry came out of the agreement with a script supervisor role and approval on any script used. That would be fine, but the hope was this was going to be a co-production. I hope I'm not boring you with all this office politics. No? Well, co-productions can be a nightmare.

I'd left Doctor Who to help Peter Bryant on Paul Temple. That was a co-production and the co-producers wanted to sack Valerie Leon as Mrs Temple and the BBC wanted to keep her [3]. The BBC won that one. That was enough of a headache with two production companies, with Gabriel Baine, there'd be the BBC, the co-producer and then Terry Nation all having different ideas. As the transmission of the pilot got closer, there was a meeting. It was agreed that if it took off, it could be really good for merchandise and certain parts of the Corporation were smiling on that prospect. I managed to persuade the powers-that-be not to assign me to Gabirel Baine. I was considered to have distinguished myself on the relaunch of Doctor Who and on Paul Temple and therefore the BBC owed me an easy job. I was asked who should replace me and I said Barry Letts, not because he'd replaced me on Doctor Who, but because as current Doctor Who producer, he'd know how to handle Terry Nation and that was going be the number one task for any producer of Gabriel Baine."

- Derrick Sherwin, Doctor Who Convention appearance
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The Incredible Gabriel Baine (BBC-1) stars Jon Pertwee, who seems to have given up gurning and funny voices for good and, on this evidence, he's made a sound decision. It's a kind of take-home Hammer film wrapped in silver foil and should rate like mad. The well-heeled hero is a piece of nineteenth-century fuzz, dedicated to fighting evil in its more occult manifestations. He steams about in a special train — which should add the railway nuts to the horoscope consulters and swell the ratings even further. Precociously democratic, the Incredible has a pair of polymath servants who ask 'Doctor, what are we up against?' and when he answers 'All in good time, all in good time.' gaze at him wondering worship instead of crowning him with the fire-tongs.

- Clive James, review, The Observer, August 27th 1972 [4]
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"I was brought in because everyone was anticipating a headache and thought a Doctor Who producer might be the best person for dealing with Terry Nation. As it turned out, it was relatively smooth sailing. Terry had learned his lesson with the attempts to get a Dalek spinoff off the ground. Some of the backing for that was coming from a toy manufacturer and the closer they got to production, the more and more rights they seemed to want [5]. With Gabriel Baine, Terry had secured interest from a television company, Metromedia, who wanted a television series to sell first and foremost. Merchandising rights were discussed, but Gabriel Baine, as popular as it is, is hardly the stuff of colouring books."

- Barry Letts, The Cult Of Gabriel Baine, BBC4 2006
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The BBC has announced it is to go into co-production with Metromedia Producers Corporation on The Adventures of Gabriel Baine, after the success of a Drama Playhouse pilot on BBC-1 earlier this year. Jon Pertwee is set to star. Baine's servants Wingham and Selling have been recast from the pilot and will be played by Ian Marter and Neil McCarthy respectively. Unusually for a BBC drama, the series will be shot entirely on 35mm film.

- The Stage, November 1972
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A mocked up title screen for The Adventures Of Gabriel Baine. Title in Art Nouveau lettering, Pertwee's face in an inset in the centre, train on viaduct in the background

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"I've had a wonderful time in the States, but one thing I missed about Britain is that decisions seem to get taken quicker here. In the US, there's a lot more studio politics and the man who tells you 'yes' today might not be there tomorrow. Over here if someone like Lew Grade or Peter Rogers says you're in, you're in."

And after Gabriel Baine, what else is Jon Pertwee up to? "I'm going to do a guest appearance on Doctor Who," he says "I've been mates with Roger Delgado since he came to the premiere of There's A Girl In My Soup and had us all in stitches at the party afterwards. I'm going to be playing the President of the Time Lords and I send the other Doctors, Bill Hartnell and Pat Troughton, to help Roger."

- Jon Pertwee interview, Radio Times, 1972

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[1] This is true. I OTL the pilot for The Incredible Robert Baldick went out on October 2nd 1972 starring Robert Hardy as Baldick. The full story can be found here http://www.the-mausoleum-club.org.uk/Index/Gazette/Incredible Robert Baldick.pdf

[2] Studio 8 of BBC Television Centre, which is the same studio that was used IOTL.

[3] Another little shuffle of actors and a reversal of circumstances, just for giggles. IOTL, Ros Drinkwater played Paul's wife Steve and the BBC wanted her dropped, whereas co-producers Taurus Films wanted her kept. Taurus won that argument.

[4] Mostly directly transcribed from James's OTL review of Robert Baldick

[5] The Dalek spinoff came so close that studio time was booked. As detailed here


Next Time, a new producer, a new companion and Mrs Whitehouse
 
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Part 4
A couple of things I was planning on doing this week aren't happening. I've had time to get part 4 into shape, so here it is ahead of schedule.

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"Roger and Pat had very different working styles. Roger was always very meticulous. He'd be word perfect and have a lot of performance ideas mapped out in his head beforehand whereas Pat would experiment. Pat would convey the meaning of the lines, but change the actual words. He'd try different moods.

"One day at rehearsals, Jon Pertwee took Roger aside and said 'Why do you put up with this? You're the star.' But Roger had worked with Pat several times before and said 'If I put up with him, then maybe the next Doctor will put up with me'. I knew something was going on in Roger's mind.

"As much as Roger loved and still loves playing The Doctor, I had an inkling that he was considering when to move on as early as Season 9. After Season 8 had finished, he went off to Spain that Summer to be in Charlton Heston's film of Antony And Cleopatra. Roger's not boastful, but he kept mentioning it a lot and I did wonder if he feared missing out on more work like that, but I also know he worried if he quit Doctor Who, he'd be back playing the 'scornfuls and Spaniards'.

"I bumped into him after he'd done The Man Who Would Be King and I could tell he was half-delighted to be in a film with Sean Connery and Michael Caine and half-deflated that he'd got a part that an Indian actor had dropped out of.

"Obviously, we know now that it worked out in the end. He got the perfect role for someone of his background and he got to be the hero again."

- Barry Letts, DVD Extra, The Three Doctors
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I was torn. I wanted to be The Doctor forever, but I still had ambition to demonstrate my acting range in other roles and since I'd proved that I could be a hero, my agent told me I might be able to get something more than the 'scornfuls and Spaniards' that had dogged me for so long.

The change came during the story called The Three Doctors. Patrick Troughton and William Hartnell had been able to come back to the series. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to work with William on the story. He had to be pre-filmed and the only time all three of us got to be 'The Three Doctors' was for publicity photos. But working with Patrick was wonderful. At least, it was wonderful for Patrick and myself, poor Lennie Mayne the director and Barry Letts were tearing their hair out. Pat and I have a similar silly sense of humour and for every one line of the script we said, we'd add twenty utterly unusable ones in rehearsal.

The moment that stuck with me was when Patrick was in dress rehearsal, looking at his costume and said 'There's no such thing as an ex-Doctor Who is there? Time travellers can always come back.' And it was then I realized that I could leave the show, take up other acting engagements but still be Doctor Who.

- Roger Delgado, "Scornfuls, Spaniards, Sleuths And Spacemen", 1999
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"I am glad that Roger decided he'd do one more series before he'd quit. Gabrielle and Ray were leaving at the end of Season 10 and I knew I was going to hand off to a new producer and script editor as Terrance and I moved onto Gabriel Baine. A change of Doctor might have been too much all at once. I did the casting for the new companion, left some notes of ideas I had, but ultimately let the new team work out the specifics of her character."

- Barry Letts, DVD Extra, The Three Doctors
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Actress Jenny Twigge, above, is to play Dr. Who's new assistant when the BBC-TV series returns in December.

Jenny, 23, will appear as a student from the 23rd Century.

- The Daily Mirror, June 27th 1973
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"As Paddy Russell moved into the Doctor Who production office and I moved out, I just said 'You have a year to find a new Doctor and watch out for Mrs Whitehouse'. She said 'You leave Mrs Whitehouse to me'."

- Barry Letts, DVD Extra, The Poisoned Earth
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"Most of the men in the TV industry didn't know how to talk to Mary Whitehouse, which gave her an advantage." Paddy Russell recalls. "They treated her as a housewife who should have stayed at home, or as an old battleaxe, or they were too scared of appearing to bully her. She didn't have that advantage with me."

It's typical Doctor Who irony that the period of the show that most fans agree was the scariest is the one Mary Whitehouse had the least traction on attacking.

"We didn't show anything horrific," Paddy explains. "It was all done with atmosphere. As much as I'd like to take credit for that, I had the perfect script editor for spooky atmospheres."

- Paddy Russell interview, Doctor Who Magazine, 1996
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"Personally, I think she was taking a hell of a risk, I'd never even written for Doctor Who before, but she liked my work of Ace Of Wands and I had done script editing at the BBC before, Z-Cars and other things. Maybe it was working with Pamela Lonsdale at Thames that swung it. I had no problems working for a woman. Not that I think that was a problem for anyone else. That might be why she picked me over some of the more obvious names.

The most obvious name was Robert Holmes, but he'd been offered the script editor job on Doctor Thorndyke, so he was out and eventually, I was in.

The first job was deciding what sort of companion Jenny was going to be playing. There'd been talk of having a companion who was a women's libber but I had the idea of taking it a step further. Have her be someone plucked from the future and stranded in the 70s. Someone for whom women's liberation was the norm. The attitudes of the 70s were occasionally laughable to her, especially when they were being presented as modern.

There was the potential problem of her having too much future knowledge. Paddy suggested we get round that by making her a student of Medieval history. She could have just enough knowledge of previous times that we didn't have to have everything explained to her, but she didn't know everything that would happen before it happened. We could pick and choose what she knew between the Renaissance and the 23rd Century."

- PJ Hammond, DVD Extra, The Time Thieves
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"Hi, guys. It's me, Elijah, again. Welcome to part two of my look at the companions of Doctor Who.

"Let's start with Kay Gee played by Jenny Twigge from 1973 to 1975.

"After Jo Grant and her endless procession of floaty dresses, Kay Gee was the ultimate sensibly dressed Doctor Who girl. Kay was a student of Medieval history with the twist that she was studying it in the 23rd Century. She regarded her 1970s redbrick university as a venerable old seat of learning and the first we see of her, she's having to explain to a fellow student that, no, the 20th Century doesn't count as Medieval, even though it was hundreds of years ago.

"Thanks to Kay's curiosity, Doctor Who had its first pure historical in 7 years with The Taking Of The Tower seeing the Doctor and Kay get involved with the Peasants' Revolt. Nowadays, however, Kay's more noted for her devoted following in the LGBT side of Doctor Who fandom, particulary the L-part.

"Kay was from a future time when the battle of the sexes, as they called it then, was well and truly over and women dressed any way they liked. She went in for hard-wearing, practical, demin outfits and one time caused quite a stir by wearing a man's dinner suit to a formal dinner. Let's just say that she helped a number of girls in the 70s come to personal realizations.

"If you're wondering about her name. In an early pitch meeting for the new companion, Kay was meant to be a humanoid robot from the 'KG' series of androids, which got turned into a proper name by the humans around her. While that part got thrown away, the name stuck."

- Elijah Explains Classic Who, YouTube, 2017
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"Roger is a very intelligent actor and in that last series of his, he turned up the warmth and that twinkle in his eye. I have no doubt that he was doing it deliberately in reaction to the direction Peter and I were taking the show. Sorry what was that? Did he have a problem with the way the show was changing? No, I think if that was the case, he'd have come to me and told me openly."

- Paddy Russell , convention appearance, 1990

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"Paddy gives me too much credit. I think it was unconscious on my part. I suppose I had noticed that it was becoming, what was it you called it, Gary? M.R. James for middle-schoolers. I do like that.

She's right, if I had a problem, I would have told her. If anything, I was more comfortable in that last series. So much done by suggestion and yes, I supposed I knew that The Doctor could put himself between the scary things and the audience. Paddy had a rule 'scares, not terror' and I think the show lived up to that.

Do I regret leaving when I did? Yes and no. It was a lovely family and a wonderful, wonderful role, but I did have that actorish thing of wanting to do new things and, let's face it, I needed to be free for my trip to Egypt, didn't I?"

- Roger Delgado, convention appearance, 1990
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"I think all the Victorian detectives did have an influence on casting a replacement for Roger, yes. But only insofar as I wanted to cast against that type. Sexton Blake, Dr. Thorndyke and I suppose Gabriel Baine, too, were all so…sexy! I didn't want Doctor Who to get lost amid all the dashing adventurers. Now, I'm not for one moment suggesting Iain is unsexy, but he doesn't trade on sex appeal.

He'd caught my eye playing Dr. Arnold in the BBC's classic serial version of Tom Brown's School Days. He had that wonderful avuncular quality that would set itself nicely against the scaries in Doctor Who. If needed, he could be a big teddy bear, but he'd had a lot of experience playing some very bad bad guys, so we could always bring out an edge. A bit like Roger, we could show him scaring the monsters, but he'd be like a favourite uncle to the companions and the children at home."

- Paddy Russell, DVD extra, Genesis Of The Daleks
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Who's Who: Budgie and The Borderers star Iain Cuthbertson will be taking over the role of Dr Who in the BBC's long-running science fiction series at the end of the year. Glaswegian Cuthbertson is probably best known for playing Soho "businessman" Charlie Endell on ITV's Budgie.

- The Guardian, February 16th 1974

Next time: The Third Doctor's last word as he faces the Army Of Hate

Thanks to Andrew Hickey who supplied the title and idea for The Taking Of The Tower
 
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Do I regret leaving when I did? Yes and no. It was a lovely family and a wonderful, wonderful role, but I did have that actorish thing of wanting to do new things and, let's face it, I needed to be free for my trip to Egypt, didn't I?"

- Roger Delgado, convention appearance, 1990

I remember reading some interesting anecdotes once about that trip to Egypt!

Great work as always. :)
 
Change of plan, I've been restructuring the timeline a little, so part 5 will be by me as usual and Andrew Hickey's guest post has been moved to part 6.
 
Don't forget that the good Doctor's adventures are available as part of a range of BBC DVDs*

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*some stories may not be available in your timeline
 
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