Fan Scene - CT 1980 Apr - Jun

 

April

This issue leads with the sad news of the death of David Whitaker who was only 51. As well as his Doctor Who work the obituary mentions his involvement in the Australian film industry and also the Writers Guild of Great Britain. Other programmes he wrote for included Paul Temple, Private Eye and Mr Rose. He had lately agreed to novelise `Enemy of the World` for Target but it remained unfinished.

Meanwhile its reported that next season will be the longest for ten years with seven 4 part stories and that K9’s role will be “considerably restructured”. There’s also talk of a new male companion “a kind of cosmic Artful Dodger”. The DWAS too is looking for new blood as Stephen Payne relinquishes control of the Society fanzine `Tardis`. Requesting volunteers who might like to take over, Chris Dunk says “Applicants should be able to type with reasonable accuracy”! There is also news of the 1981 Annual – oddly Annuals are published in August even though most people associate them with Xmas. Story titles already known include `The Voton Terror`, `Colony of Death` and `Every Dog Has His Day`. 

Poor old Jan Vincent Rudzki seems to have settled into either being peeved about something or else relaying bad news in his column. This time he’s worried about inflation affecting the membership fee and also lack of feedback. “You don’t have to write in” he declares in the middle of complaining that members never write in. Then there’s the planned one day event and the venue they’d hoped to use isn’t available. Perhaps to obtain that elusive feedback he requests “if any of you know anywhere that could seat around 200 people with projection facilities and a meeting area please get in touch.”

The Tom Baker pen pal club are still wittering on about their trip to Newlands Corner- I thought it had already happened? Still nobody explains why they are going there! There is an odd feature down one half of the next page which appears to be promoting the Doctor Who Weekly comic strips but is uncredited and reads almost like an extract from a book. Is it penned by Editorial Director Paul Neary who certainly seems to have provide some of the information? It mainly talks about a story called `Timeslip` which included previous Doctors.

The Season Poll results are here. In the end 361 people voted with two spoilt papers! In last place with 881 points is `Horns of Nimon`. “The Nimon wait for no man” so they probably didn’t hang around for the result. Fourth with 949 points was `Creature from the Pit`, a surprise as judging from contemporaneous fan comments this was the story that went down the best. Perhaps they just couldn’t get that big green proboscis out of their minds! Third with 1,006 points comes `Destiny of the Daleks`. The suspiciously pseudonymous sounding Basil Blackwell comments: “It brought back some of the magic…the Movellans were brilliant.” So in second place surprisingly was `Nightmare of Eden`. A story which Jan Vincent Rudzki slated in his column showing strongly when it came to the season poll often seemed to happen but even I would struggle to find a lot to recommend about this story over the three that came below it in the results. I suspect it would not poll so well these days nor would anyone say they “liked the more adult feel of the story”. `City of Death` was the winner of course with 1,537 points. The story’s reputation would continue to grow over the years and it now regularly features in the high end of story polls.

Fanzines on sale this month include issue 3 of `Galaxy Four` that has a Richard Franklin interview and a feature on science in Doctor Who. Andrew Byford, whom I remember well, debuts his zine `The Space Museum` which includes shows other than Doctor Who, something still seen as fairly outre in 1980 even if the other shows were still sci-fi ones. A mammoth page sized ad appears to suggest you can buy Cybermen for 40p though this is apparently the subject matter of issue 8 of a fanzine curiously called T.F.T.M. It stands for Thanks For The Memories. It’s a striking ad alright but does it tell you what’s in the issue, really? Nope.

Issue 1 of `Invasion` looks a bit nerdy though the ad assures us “this is one fanzine you can’t afford to miss”. `Carnival of Monsters` on the other hand is “the fanzine to beat all fanzines” and it seems to do what it says on the tin and looks at a, erm, carnival of monsters. The fifth “incredible” issue of `Matrix` is also out – it contains a behind the scenes report on the filming of `Nightmare of Eden` and an interview with David Brierly. `Fenhdahl` issue 9 interviews Tony Harding  and while the ad stops short of describing itself as Fantastic Fendahl the text reminds us “remember we are the zine who printed the American books intro, as well as the Tom Baker statement.”  Sounds like its getting rather competitive back there.

 

 

May

There’s an enigmatic announcement on the front page of May’s edition saying that Craig Robins and a group of helpers are trying to organise an event but its nothing to do with the DWAS. What can this mean? Meanwhile the showing of Doctor Who in Italy recently is mentioned though they seem to be some way behind having recently seen `L’Arca Spaziale` and `Experimento Santoran`. So the Italian word for Sontaran is Santoran? Its also reported that next season will have a new title sequence and logo and that the first story will be written by David Fisher. The front page also includes another local group report meeting hosted by, yes, David Howe. He seems to be everywhere in 1980. Inside there’s another report of a exhibition organised in South Shields Library by William Hodgson.

It has to be said that during this period from around 1977- 80 the series in general and its lead actor in particular came under considerable critical attack in DWAS publications and independent fanzines. This topic is address by two of the Exec in this issue. In his Presidential column Jan Vincent Rudzki tries to explain why the DWAS can sometimes be so critical of the recent episodes. “There’s over sixteen years to chose from,” he says, “you don’t need to like it all.” An avowed fan of the Sixties version of the series he takes a reasonable line though can’t resist a comment about the current series not getting the ratings that Wonder Woman does. A similar theme is taken up by John Peel of the Writer’s Pool responding to criticism of Tom Baker in particular when it is argued the actor only says the lines given to him by the scriptwriters.  Peel tries across a number of paragraphs to put forward an argument that if the writers think the current Doctor is comedic they will tailor their scripts accordingly. He reckons that the Sixties teams had “higher standards” and cites Worzel Gummidge and Sapphire and Steel as examples of well produced shows.

Advertising prices are going up at a time when there seem to be more fanzines on sale than ever- this issue has thirteen (!) different titles on sale. Now they’ll need to pay £3.50 for a half a column up to £20 for a full page. There are still new zines starting; `Fury From the Deep` which seems to be publishing its first four issues in one go, `Web Planet` edited by William Gallagher and `The Dr Who Puzzle Magazine`.  Amongst the more established titles on offer this month are a plethora of issue threes -`Spearhead from Space`, `Ark in Space`, `Frontier Worlds` and `Patriach` all hit that mark while releasing its tenth issue `Gallifrey` is almost venerable.  Martin J Wiggins' `Wheel In Space` is not far behind on issue 8, so confident in its reputation that it doesn't even say in the ad what’s in it.

June

Barry Letts’ name is emblazoned across the front of this month's issue heralding what is described as the “unprecedented” news he is returning to Doctor Who after seven years albeit in the capacity of Executive Producer though nobody at the time seemed to quite know what that entailed. There’s also an account of the May Blackpool gathering which took place on the same days as the FA Cup Final (West Ham beat Arsenal one nil in case you were wondering). Chris Dunk describes the weekend in suitably vague terms but its fair to say there were screenings of rare episodes and as his mention of “bleary eyed faces” suggests a lot of drinking. Somewhat hidden away in Chris’ editorial is the reveal of the title of the first story of the next season `The Leisure Hive` which tallies rather well with the Blackpool account! Randomly we’re also informed that Edward Arthur, TV’s Adam Colby (from `Image of the Fendahl`) has been appearing in a theatre in Colchester.

Jan Vincent-Rudzki is talking about his preferences for the future of Doctor Who this month perhaps because a new production team is now running the show and with the fun that hindsight allows its interesting to see how his wish list was half met. He’d prefer an older Doctor next; “if he gets any younger he’ll be too close to the conventional hero”. Oops. He wants more six part stories. (er…) Oh he does want more companions (tick) and “not ones as clever as the Doctor” (double tick!). Over on the next page some fiction seems to have leaked into CT. Normally corralled by another DWAS publication `Cosmic Masque` fiction was a niche area in those days though I suppose fictioneers had the last laugh when the series was cancelled. Here we have `The Edge of the Mountain` penned by David Auger. It only takes a few paragraphs to include an unlikely aspect of the series’ past, in this case the Moroks and has a cliffhanger in which a Quark appears!

Talking of fiction DWASFilms “has come a long way over the past few years” says Mark Sinclair. This issue they announce their latest project Criark, subtitle “Where robots rule”. The set up they have sounds quite impressive; they own an outside broadcasting unit with VT systems and can offer editing and transcription services. Criark is planned as a full four episode Doctor Who story written by Nick Sarrial. The Doctor will be played by Reg Spillett while several DWAS members will be helping out including Kevin Davies (title sequence), Sue Moore (masks), Paul Tams (set design) and none other than Mark Ayres supplying the music. I wonder if this was his first incidental music job? DWASfilms by their own admission had become a part of the society “that had disassociated itself with the members”. They used to be called the Drama department which an exec member once told me was an accurate name in every respect!

Just in case anyone was wondering Jon Pertwee was abroad this month. Glyn Jones was at the Derby Playhouse. Nice to know. Meanwhile an ex-DWAS exec member was launching his new project. Like a guitarist who leaves a band and forms a new one Cybermark Services was Jeremy Bentham's new outfit eight months after his walkout from the DWAS. Just like an errant guitarist his new project is basically similar to what he was doing before except he’s in charge! A full page ad heralds a synopsis of `An Unearthly Child` -  no, he’s not got the title wrong, this is just about the first ever episode. For 25p! `The Tribe of Gum` is out in July. Yikes how long is it going to take him to catch up?! At the foot of the ad he advises people intending to collect the set to purchase an A4 ring file. I rather think they’d need more than one Jez. Truth be told it’s a wordy messy looking ad but JJB was such a big name at the time it hardly mattered. Meanwhile his replacement in the DWAS, David Howe offers an equally ambitious ad heralding `Plotlines`, “the most complete reference works ever in the history of Doctor Who”. Fight!!

Other ads this issue include issue 10 of `Fendahl` (35p) with Longleat exhibition account and Martin Wiggins on `Racism in Doctor Who`. `Spotlight on Who` issue 6 (50p) has an incredible scoop even for the day with a Robert Sloman interview and also some Martin Wiggins content. Extra 15p justified, Timothy Bradley. Issue 6 of `Matrix` is out (50p) and includes stuff about the 1960s TV Comic Doctor Who strips  but no Martin Wiggins. In `The Doctor Who Review` no 5 (35p) Innes Lloyd Speaks. Not sure what about. Finally there’s an ad for Interface 1 a new style one day meeting devoted to the first Doctor with a guesting Carole Anne Ford and Heather Hartnell to be held at the Polytechnic of Central London on 9 August.