Doctor Who on the Radio 23 June

[SiHart]

Coming soon to Radio 4:

On the Outside it Looked Like an Old Fashioned Police Box
Tuesday 23rd June - BBC Radio 4 - 11.30am-12.00pm

Mark Gatiss, Doctor Who writer and fanatic, presents a feature exploring the hugely popular Doctor Who novelisations of the 1970s and 80s published by Target books.

In an age before DVD and video, the Target book series of Doctor Who fiction was conceived as the chance for children to 'keep' and revisit classic Doctor Who. They were marketed as such, written in a highly visual house style.

Descriptive passages did the work of the TV camera; the scripts were more or less faithfully reproduced as dialogue. They were as close to the experience of watching as possible and were adored by a generation of children who grew up transfixed by the classic BBC series.

Target Doctor Who books became a children's publishing phenomenon selling more than 13 million copies worldwide. From 1973 until 1994, the Target Doctor Who paperbacks were a mainstay of the publishing world.

From humble beginnings they grew into a list running to 156 titles, shaping the reading habits of a generation.

Sounds really good! Especially for the many of us who grew up with the Target books (and are rediscovering them via the audio versions)

Si xx

[shada pavlova]

Or will this just be them playing disc three of The War Games up close to a microphone?

[Pip Madeley]

Why do they always put these things on when you're nowhere near a radio?

I love iPlayer.

[Jonno]

Yes, this will definitely be one to catch up with on I Player.

[Andrew Curnow]

Superb, sounds really good.

[Simon R]

But they said it really loud, they said it on the air, on the radio whoa oh oh.

One imagines it'll be on some Doctor Who at the BBC CD before too long.

[Dave Tudor]

Oh wow! That does sound superb. It's funny, that sort of documentary would have been a bit of a niche thing years ago, but now they're putting it on Radio 4.

Of course, it will provide a nice plug for the audiobooks, too...

[SiHart]

Don't forget this is on this morning! On the Outside it Looked Like an Old Fashioned Police Box

Si xx

[SiHart]

There's a mlovely article related to this on the BBC webiste today: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8113603.stm

Si xx

[Zbigniev Hamson]

I quite liked it. Wish I hadn't read that article first though because it's basically just an edited transcript of the programme.

[Pip Madeley]

Was nice to hear people like RTD talking about them. As someone who hasn't much interest in the Target books (never actively collected them) I thought it was a nice, informative guide.

[SiHart]

I thought it was a lovely little tribute to the books. I certainly progressed from Dicks to Dickens. And once Escaped to danger. Maybe.

Si xx

[Pip Madeley]

Must admit, I thought the announcer before/after the programme was hilarious - was he putting on that voice?

[Rob McCow]

Wish I hadn't read that article first though because it's basically just an edited transcript of the programme.

Like a Target novelisation of the program, perhaps?

The announcer did have a bit of a fruity voice, he must be in competition with Mark Gatiss. (Hurrah for the GIF Animation Engine btw Pip!)

I was impressed they got Achellios and everyone talking about it. Sounds like Mark's struck up a bit of a friendship with good old Terrance Dicks too! The show was very witty and nostalgic, plus being a great advert for the new talking books range.


Although I thought Hinchcliffe's reading was pretty awful.

[SiHart]

Although I thought Hinchcliffe's reading was pretty awful.

He's no Barry Letts.

Si xx

[Captain Tancredi]

I suppose that in his defence, everybody you heard reading apart from Hinchcliffe was a professional actor, although in all honesty I couldn't initially tell when he'd gone from talking about the book to reading from it.

Apart from being a convenient plug for the audiobook range, it more or less did what a 30-minute Radio 4 documentary should do- summed up its subject matter neatly and informatively with plenty of enthusiasm from the presenter. Books that boys will read without prompting are still one of the holy grails of publishing so the people who wrote them can justifiably be pleased with the recognition.

[Andrew Curnow]

It was jolly enough, and certainly made me smile - I particularly liked the way Anneke Wills referred to people destroying Patrick Troughton's work in the same way one might refer to burning Shakespeare's original manuscripts!

Oh and David Troughton's reading of the Doctor was just so eerily like his dad wasn't it. Even if his Jamie sounded more like Anton Rodgers as Alec Calendar, rather than Frazer Hines...

[Pip Madeley]

By the way, this is a good listen, broadcast last night:

Matthew Sweet talks to Russell T Davies

Matthew Sweet talks to Russell T Davies, the television writer and producer credited with making family television cool again by reinvigorating Doctor Who for the 21st century. As he leaves British television for a career in Hollywood, he tells Matthew that Susan Boyle from Britain's Got Talent has proved that the best stories are now coming out of reality TV and that scriptwriters must rise to the challenge.

[Mr BHT]

Was nice to hear people like RTD talking about them.

As someone who has never been in awe of Russell T Davies and his new golden age, I can't take away the obvious knowledge and enthusiasm the man has for the 'whole' show. In his DWM Production Notes he talks about the novels and the audios with a lot of respect and kindness, and it's good to see the Target's getting some of that here.

I thought it was a lovely little documentary, and it took me back to my childhood too, when the Target's were the only record of past glories. I'm sure I'm not the only one who found that the television version fell short of greatness after reading one of the novels first. Brain of Morbius, Face of Evil and Planet of Evil were all cracking stories that never felt the same on TV. Morbius in particular disappointed me with it's studiobound setting, when I'd envisioned creepy night filming in windswept forests, and old stone buildings containing sisterhoods and brains of long dead Time Lords!

It's making me want to get some of the audiobooks I'd put on the back burners, in particular The Abominable Snowmen. David Troughton sounds brilliant on it. As I'm a bit strapped for cash at the moment I might have to have a run through of some of the others I already own - The Crusade, The Myth Makers, Brain of Morbius, The Green Death and The Daleks I think.