Michael E. Briant - Official Website

[Perry Vale]

Spotted by someone over at Roobarb's, could be quite interesting to some......he invented the Sonic Screwdriver, apparently!

http://www.michaelbriant.com/

[Pip Madeley]

Not Victor Pemberton then?

[Phillip Culley]

Given Briant's story of why they needed the Sonic Screwdriver is completely at odds with what actually happened in the story, I think his memory's cheating here

[Dave Tudor]

We need Nathan, to explain why everything went wrong for Michael Briant when he took the 'E'...

[Nathan]

Do I have the right?

[Dave Tudor]

Ooh, you know you want to!

[Nathan]

Well, it was all lost in the EZBoard crash, but I still have it on my HD.

It's all very 1992 though...

This is a true story (lost since the early nineties), compiled by a source close to the BBC for over twenty years.
Under no circumstances must anyone try to recreate the events described in this document.
It exists merely as a warning as to the dangers of experimentation.
You have been warned...

EXPOSE - THE TRUE STORY OF THE DECLINE OF A TELEVISION DIRECTOR
---------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Briant was a decent young man. He was the type of talented, young director that the BBC needed. Despite the misfortune of working with Jon 'Own Stunts' Pertwee, Michael managed to turn in three well directed Doctor Who stories - Colony in Space, The Sea Devils and The Green Death.

It was during a reception for the Season Ten team that Michael's downward spiral into vice started.

It was whilst trying to avoid Paul 'Paul Bernard' Bernard (who was boring everyone senseless with his drawing of a fridge and telling stories about how there WERE only three Daleks in his classic Day of the Dalek, how he REALLY DID design the Draconian's (honestly), and how he was really LOOKING FORWARD to working with everyone again), that Michael struck up conversation with Barry 'The Postcard' Letts who introduced him to David 'Kaleidoscope' Maloney.

David was a real sixties hangover who was heavily influenced by his dependancy on mind altering drugs. He had turned in a few psychadelic stories in the sixties (The Mind Robber, The Krotons, and The War Games), and had recently contributed to the programme again (Planet of the Rolykins). Michael was overawed. The next few months saw him go with David to a lot of underground parties. It was here that he met Carey 'Scarey' Blyton, who convinced Michael that he, along with his five pals, was the latest "in" thing on the underground music scene. It was at these parities that Michael became hopelessly addicted to LSD and other mind-altering substances, so much so that he became known as Michael 'E' Briant.

Season Eleven saw him direct Terry 'The Alien' Nation's Death to the Daleks in a totally different style to his previous work. Carey Blyton provided a particularly menacing score (to Dick 'Swarfega' Mills, anyway), and Michael eevn paid tribute to his new mentor, and teacher, with a crude kaleidoscope sequence. The model work nearly ended in disaster when he dropped some solvent he was sniffing onto Jim 'Polystyrene' Ward's magnificent (so he said) model city. Luckily he managed to write it into the script. Nobody knows the inspiration behind casting Pavarotti as an Exillon. Presumably it was the product of yet another "E" trip along with the idea of filling the studio with sheep one night!

The outgoing team of Letts and Terrance 'Twelve Chapters' Dicks recommended Michael (and David) to the incoming team of Philip 'Hammer' Hinchcliffe and Robert 'Horror' Holmes. Michael soon found himself working on Gerry 'One Plot' Davis' Revenge of the Cybermen. Any stories you may have heard about supernatural happenings down Wookey Hole are yet more products of Michael's drug habit. Most sequences were (on the advice of his old boss, Barry) simply CSO'd in front of a postcard that he bought from the information centre. One particular night in the studio saw Michael (along with newcomer Tom 'The Hod' Baker) desperately trying to write into the story a cabbage called Wilkin. The plans came to nought however, and so the decided to fill the TARDIS up with old bus tickets instead.

Michael's final Who was Chris 'Filing Cabinet' Boucher's Robots of Death. Once again the cabbage idea proved unworkable and so they cast Brian 'Fillet'o'Fish' Croucher instead. Robots was the most heavily Maloney influenced yet (so much so that Michael bought his own kaleidoscope).

After this Michael was invited by David to join him on his permanent Acid Rave on the third floor of BBC Television Centre. Codename: Blakes 7 actually managed to produce (more by accident than design) thirteen fifty minute broadcastable (on the whole) segments each year.

"It was one hell of a party", said Vere 'Gis'a'job' Lorrimer. "We actually went on tour sometimes and tried to blow-up Nuclear Power Stations, it was incredible!"

We talked to John 'Nathan' Turner, PA on Doctor Who at the time, about this period at the BBC. "I don't know much about it. Graham (Williams) and Pennant (Roberts) used to pop up from time to time, but I was never invited..."

Codename: Blakes 7 ran for three years until in one last drug crazed orgy, Maloney demolished the set. The resulting inquiry at the BBC caused the halt of the Doctor Who production Shada, due to the involvement of Williams and Roberts.

Vere Lorrimer says, "We tried to get it going again after that, but without Dave and Mike it was useless - we couldn't get the gear - I think Dave new a research chemist." Indeed he did, Dave's main supplier was none other than Terry 'Terrorist' Walshe, known in all documentation at the time uder his codename - 'King Star'. "Still", continued Vere, "Paul 'Actor' Darrow knew someone in the licencing trade, so at least we got the booze cheap." Codename:Blakes 7 ran for another year, but even the introduction of Viktors 'Mad Bastard' Ritelis as Events Manager couldn't save the party, and everyone went home.

David Maloney dissappeared after this and Michael was lost without him. He contemplated suicide, but eventually took the hard decision and went on to direct Howards Way.

As for David, he turned up again recently. He spent most of 1990 camped on the steps of Central's Braod Street Studios beggin evry one for a job. New producer Hilary 'General Von Klikerhoffen' Minster (who Maloney had cast in both Planet and Genesis) took pity on him and allowed him to direct episodes of his new soap - Family Embarrasment. Here he got to cast Rula 'Line' Lenska in the role of 'Washed up actress dragged out of semi-retirement in a desperate attempt to get some viewers'.

In an attempt to discover what happened to Michael, I asked JNT, "I don't know what happened to Dave or Mike. Funnily enough though, I did run into Paul Bernard in the BBC Club the other day. He showed me a drawing of a frigde and asked me for a job..."

The search continues...