Andrew Cartmel on Newsnight - World To End?

[Rob McCow]

From The 'Mel's* Facebook status:

As a result of all these stories in the media, I am now appearing on News Night on BBC2 tonight. (Yes, really.) I'm told it will be the last item on the show, at about 11.05.

But WHAT is this furore about?

According to Newsnight's Twitter page**:

Doctor Who versus Mrs Thatcher - writer Andrew Cartmel on Sylvester McCoy's claims about the cult TV show in the 80s, tonight at 10.30pm

So, the culprit responsible is Sylvester 'Lord Reith will be dancing in his grave' McCoy. Where was this reported?

Why, the Guardian!

Former Doctor Who star Sylvester McCoy has claimed that the staff on the show used the programme to stir up opposition to Margaret Thatcher during the 1980s. The actor, who played the Doctor from 1987 to 1989, said the show's script editor, Andrew Cartmel, put together a team of "angry young writers" to create dissent through its plot. McCoy added: "We were young, politically motivated and it seemed the right thing to do. Our feeling was that Margaret Thatcher was far more terrifying than any monster the Doctor had had encountered." The BBC said it was baffled by the claims, adding: "This is the first we've heard of this and given that 20 years have passed, we find this strange." But is this why the show was exterminated in 1990? Or was it something to do with McCoy's dodgy jumpers?

Bandwagon detected, The Telegraph was swift to follow:

McCoy, who played the seventh doctor from 1987 to 1989, and Andrew Cartmel, the script editor at the time, both admitted the conspiracy, saying that it "seemed the right thing to do".

However, the secret messages remained a secret to all but Doctor Who insiders. Meanwhile the show's popularity went into freefall and it was taken off air in 1989.

McCoy, now 66, who took over as the Doctor three months after Thatcher's third election victory in 1987, said they brought politics into the show "deliberately" but "very quietly".

He said: "We were a group of politically motivated people and it seemed the right thing to do.

"Our feeling was that Margaret Thatcher was far more terrifying than any monster the Doctor had encountered," he told the Sunday Times.

Cartmel said it was almost a job requirement to detest Thatcher.

When asked by John Nathan-Turner, the producer, what he hoped to achieve in being the show's script editor, he recalled: "My exact words were: I'd like to overthrow the government.

"I was a young firebrand and I wanted to answer honestly. I was very angry about the social injustice in Britain under Thatcher and I'm delighted that came into the show."

His script writing team included Ben Aaronovitch, son of the late Marxist intellectual Sam Aaronovitch, and Rona Munro, who later became a scriptwriter for Ken Loach, the left-wing film director. Sophie Aldred, who played the Doctor's feminist assistant Ace, said the crew "weren't very happy" with Thatcher being the prime minister at the time, which she described as "a real bonding process".

One three-part programme, The Happiness Patrol, featured a transparent caricature of Thatcher. Sheila Hancock played Helen A, a big-haired despotic ruler of a human colony on the planet Terra Alpha, whose subjects – called "drones" – worked in factories. The Doctor calls on the drones to down their tools and revolt, an obvious reference to industrial disputes like the miners' strike. A year later Catrmel wrote a speech for the Doctor about the perils of nuclear weapons, which was based on material from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).

A spin-off children's novel called Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma, published under licence by the BBC in 1987, also featured a villain called Rehctaht - Thatcher backwards.

Cartmel lamented that such satire never reached its intended audience. "Critics, media pundits and politicians certainly didn't pick up on what we were doing. If we had generated controversy and become a cause célèbre we would have got a few more viewers but, sadly, nobody really noticed or cared." He said nobody further up in the BBC such as Jonathan Powell, then controller of BBC One, knew about their plan.

A spokesman for the BBC said it was "baffled" by the claims.

So a basic non-story covered in DWM about 10 years ago. Phew! But it'll be a delight to see The Mel on Newsnight proclaiming how the McCoy era was a great time and how awful the Pertwee era was.


*If he was working on the show today, he'd be called 'The 'Mel' in much the same way that Steven Moffat is called 'The Moff'.

** NEWSNIGHT has a TWITTER page?!?!?!

[Andrew Curnow]

Is this for real?! Fantastic - I look forward to lots of clips of Happiness Patrol later on.

[Dino]

...so Ghost Light was an attack on "Victorian Values"?
No wait, that was John Major's line wasn't it?
I'll be watching Newsnight tonight but really... if CND used the "A child looks up to the sky...and his eyes turn to cinders!" line in their promotional material it's no wonder Britain hasn't scrapped Trident!

[Rob McCow]

In his book 'The Script Doctor', The Mel compares Margaret Thatcher variously to the Black Dalek and Hitler. He is also 'depressed' at the election results of June 1987 as the Conservatives rate a landslide victory.

[Andrew Curnow]

I'm a big fan of Who (no, I am honestly) but really... Suggesting that any attempt by the production team to bring down the Government is anything more than just an absurdly OTT perception of show's power is ridiculous. I daresay some idiot on Newsnight will suggest it's an important issue because of the upcoming election, blah, blah... But really, as far as I can see most BBC shows are just biased against policitians in general - I don't think they're that bothered about which party it is!!

[Andrew Curnow]

It's clearly true:

Lovely banner work!

[Captain Tancredi]

I suppose it's one area where the series' unpopularity at the time worked in its favour- remember that Casualty attracted a lot of political flak for its stance on the NHS- on the grounds that a higher-profile show wouldn't have been able to be quite so overtly political. Equally, if JNT had been outed at the time, I don't doubt that he almost certainly wouldn't have been able to continue as producer- the climate wasn't such that a family programme could have been produced by an openly gay man.

[Si Hunt]

This was in the Evening Standard tonight in the Comments pages where they talk about topical issues! It's bizarre! Usual news issues, financial woes, Boris etc. and then an article about "The Happiness Patrol"!

Si.

[SiHart]

This is just utterly odd and bizarre.

I look forward to cursing Cartmel tomorrow! *shakes fist*

Si xx

[Andrew Curnow]

It's the weirdest thing I've heard in ages. What next - are they going to drag the editors of WH Allen over the coals for allowing children's books of the 1980s to contain swear words (yes, Mr Ian Marter I'm talking about you)!

Even if by this time tomorrow we're all totally convinced that actually, yes, the McCoy years weren't about the Cartmel Masterplan at all, but were really about toppling the UK's government... even if it's true, it's 20+ years ago!!

I'm still not totally convinced I'm not still asleep and just imaging the whole thing!

[Andrew Curnow]

Ye gads, it's definitely a 'real' story, Cartmel is on the Newsnight sofa waiting his cue.

[Dino]

Great balls of fire!
It's actually going to happen! And Cartmel's going to have a ding dong with a Tory?

[Jon Masters]

Forget Cartmel - Uncle Tewwance on Newsnight

[Dino]

Forget Cartmel - Uncle Tewwance on Newsnight

Forget Uncle Tewwance! The politician has read DWM!
Well that was the weirdest ten minutes of my life I've spent watching Newsnight... The Mel didn't come off well did he?
A dig at the ratings and to twist the knife further... the new series was described as "the more successful version".
That's! Gotta! Hurt!