Dicks: A Retrospective

[Pip Madeley]

Bet you thought this thread should've been in the Temple eh.

The National Media Museum in Bradford is honouring former Doctor Who script editor and prolific author Terrance Dicks with a career retrospective later this month. Dicks, whose work on the show stretches back to The Invasion in 1968 and who was script editor throughout the Jon Pertwee era, will be at the museum to discuss his time in TV and work as an author.

The Terrance Dicks: Three Decades in Television and Beyond event takes place on Saturday, November 24. The museum says the interview will be illustrated with rare photographs from its collection plus clips from shows Dicks has been involved with, such as The Avengers, Moonbase 3, Space: 1999, Jane Eyre, Oliver Twist, Vanity Fair, and Doctor Who.

The discussion will be followed by a screening of his 1980 Doctor Who story State of Decay, from Tom Baker's final season.

http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.u...n/TV_Event.asp

Saturday November 24th @ Cubby Brocili Cinema from 1pm - tickets are £6 each, £3.30 concessions. It's tempting!

[SiHart]

I'm sure that'd be great, especially seeing State of Decay on the big screen, but it's just too far to go from here!

Si xx

[Andrew Curnow]

I expect it'll be fascinating, although the only thing I would say is that I think "State of Decay" is an odd choice - I'm sure I've read somewhere that he wasn't 100% happy with certain changes made to it (bizarrely my favourite bit, about the Brothers Grimm, turns out not to have been Terrance's). I would have thought perhaps "The Five Doctors" would have been a better choice?

[Captain Tancredi]

Booked... I can even knock off work at 12 and get there in time...

On the other hand, given that this is in the booking t & c email I've just had, this may be a version of 'State of Decay' we haven't seen before...

5. All material shown, except where expressly stated otherwise, is unclassified by the British Board of Film Classification. Films may include, variously, nudity, offensive language and depictions of violence or sexual activity, and delegates are asked to check before each screening if they are likely to be offended by any of the material therein.

[Stuart Wallis]

This might be the version where Camilla demands a bit of S&M from Romana, who, shall we say, enjoys it with great abandon.

This is why the BBC stopped The Witch Lords from being broadcast, never mind comparisons to Dracula. I didn't know Uncle Terrance had it in him!

[Captain Tancredi]

Just come back from what turned out to be a very enjoyable afternoon and well worth £6 of anybody's money- the introduction by the Curator of Television (himself a fan from Canada) gave proceedings a veneer of scholarly respectability, but in the end the atmosphere wasn't unlike a small convention with a few folks wearing Who t-shirts and Tom Baker scarves, not to mention the slightly scary woman with Robots of Death eye make-up. The first half consisted of Dicks being interviewed by Tim Neal (I think) with clips from a couple of classic serials, various Who adventures (the NMM's print of 'The Invasion' is decidedly ropey!) and a bit of 'Moonbase 3', described (quite correctly as it turned out) as a lot of people counting- the sort of "vector 2897003456 by 39576284, pressure 289405672645" dialogue you get, except it then cut to a rocket launch which went 5,4,2,1... Dicks himself is still a great raconteur with the ability to make any anecdote hilarious even if you've heard it seventeen times before, and he's become a little indiscreet in his old age, not to mention the occasional Freudian slip about going to Cardiff to meet Russell Grant.

After a break for a few copies of The Target Book to be signed (I get the impression that a few members of the in-crowd were around, as David Howe and Andrew Pixley were namechecked in a way which suggested they were in the room), we returned to the cinema for the screening of 'State of Decay', which, it was pointed out, had been selected for screening precisely because it isn't out on DVD. There's something about watching Who on a big screen with stereo sound which takes me back to Local Group days about twenty years ago, except the Cubby Broccoli Cinema's sound system is on the powerful side, and the "beep" over the countdown at the beginning of each episode nearly deafened everybody in the room. All that it missed was a short introduction from Dicks, which might have been interesting to hear from his perspective as all the E-Space and Adric stuff is presumably Christopher H Bidmead. I always seem to forget just how unsettling 'State' is towards the end, Emrys James in particular, and it's even more effective when you walk out of the museum and there's the tower of Bradford City Hall in front of you.

Good fun, then, and certainly not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

[Pip Madeley]

not to mention the slightly scary woman with Robots of Death eye make-up

Did she look like this, by any chance?



Sounds like you had a good time anyway, I had considered it but I'm about to go to a 21st do in a mo and I wouldn't have been able to get back to Manchester in time.

[Dirk Gently]

Mandy! I remember her.

[Captain Tancredi]

It's not impossible, I suppose, but this woman had dark hair and looked a bit older (and had lots of badges on her coat).

I think my favourite Terrance Dicks saying from today was "Writers are unreliable, treacherous devious buggers and I speak as one myself".

[Nathan]

One of my favourite Dicks stories was when he was rung up with the "good news" that Moonbase 3 had been recovered.

"Oh ****" was the reply .

I once took part in a sponsered 24 hour Doctor Who video watch for charity which Terrance joined us in for a few hours. He was most put out when I told him that Fang Rock was my favourite story of his (he didn't like it), and he told me that his favourite was Five Doctors (which I don't like). Quite an awkward conversation that was

[Captain Tancredi]

One of my favourite Dicks stories was when he was rung up with the "good news" that Moonbase 3 had been recovered.

"Oh ****" was the reply .

He told that story too (except in more diplomatic language) and also mentioned who'd rung him up, which just made it funnier.

[Pip Madeley]

also mentioned who'd rung him up, which just made it funnier.

Barry Letts?

[WhiteCrow]

That museum in Bradford is a great place even at the dullest of times. When I lived in Keighley, I spent too long there.

I imagine this was a great event.

[Captain Tancredi]

Barry Letts?

No- it would be totally unreasonable for me to reveal the identity of the person concerned. Uncle Terrance then continued by saying "and then there was this sort of hurt silence down the phone..."

[Andrew Curnow]

OMG!

Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed it, Ian, it sounds like it was a very entertaining afternoon.

[Stuart Wallis]

No- it would be totally unreasonable for me to reveal the identity of the person concerned. Uncle Terrance then continued by saying "and then there was this sort of hurt silence down the phone..."

"...and to make up for it, I regaled Terrance of tales of how I'd rescued other televisual gems. He was much more interested than Verity, he only fell asleep twice..."