Background
“An Adventure in Space and Time” was a British television docudrama commissioned to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the science fiction series “Doctor Who”, and which tells the story of its creation. It is written by the “Doctor Who” and “Sherlock” writer Mark Gatiss. Details of the film were announced by the BBC on 9 August 2012, with the programme airing on BBC Two in the United Kingdom on 21 November 2013.
“Doctor Who” first appeared on BBC1 television at 17:16:20 GMT, eighty seconds after the scheduled programme time, 5:15 pm, on Saturday, 23 November 1963. It was to be a regular weekly programme, each episode 25 minutes of transmission length. Discussions and plans for the programme had been in progress for a year. The head of drama, Canadian Sydney Newman, was mainly responsible for developing the programme, with the first format document for the series being written by Newman along with the head of the script department (later head of serials) Donald Wilson and staff writer C. E. Webber. Writer Anthony Coburn, David Whitaker, a story editor, and initial producer Verity Lambert also heavily contributed to the development of the series. The programme was originally intended to appeal to a family audience, as an educational programme using time travel as a means to explore scientific ideas and famous moments in history.
[Wikipedia]
Geoff Fletcher
I watched this epic, and was appalled at the representation of the Lime Grove studio and gallery, and also at the mistakes in working methods at that time. It seems I was not alone.
I joined in October 1963 and as far as I recall, Lime Grove had one studio still using CPS Emitrons with focus on the left and the wrist wrenching lens change in the centre of the camera body at the back: not Marconi MkIIIs as seen in the drama.
The mistakes were many – the dolly seen in use was a film dolly, floor managers communicated with the gallery via a boom or else a mic on a stand with a button, shot cards on the right instead of the left, never known a red light and bell system used in all my years at the BBC, director calling shot numbers instead of the PS, gallery bearing no resemblance to any BBC galleries (TC, Riverside, Lime Grove, and TV Theatre) in position relative to studio floor and layout, etc.etc. I could go on and on. The studio looked like a broom cupboard, and everything seemed to take place in it, including the farewell party for Verity L. I never knew of such a party being held on a studio floor – surely they all were in hospitality rooms (eg B209), or at the various BBC Clubs, or R3. With so many of us still around, you would think the makers could have tried harder to get it right!
This lunchtime I had a drink with Spencer Chapman who was a designer on “Dr Who”. He was equally annoyed, especially at the depiction of the design department. He told me that the interior design for the Tardis was completed well in advance of the required time. He also told me that he had contacted the production team making this epic and offered his input in the interests of accuracy, but was informed that they were making a drama and not a documentary, so they were not concerned about getting the technical details correct. If this is a true reflection of their views, then I don’t think much of it!
Alec Bray
I joined in January 1963 – Lime Grove Studios D, E and G all had CPS Emitron cameras and H had the three tube IO colour cameras.
Bill Jenkin
I have some sympathy with the production. It must be a nightmare dramatising events ‘in living memory’ if you have a load of ‘experts’ hanging round your neck at every turn, especially when they start advising on the production itself as in ‘I think if we were in a real operating theatre we would have zoomed into a close-up by now’. – This is apocryphal.
John Hoare
I mainly agree with Bill – series one episode 2 was my third day in studios, so it must be my 50th Anniversary too!
I think they made a good attempt in difficult circumstances – the most visible error was that the studio was on the fourth floor, which they might have ignored because it was easier to stage some of the scenes as on the ground floor. I remember the studio as being more cramped than they showed it, and of course the CPS Emitrons were focus on the left. I have a vivid memory of the antique mechanical dimmers spread around the studio floor with Kliegl connectors (110 volt). Most of this doesn’t get in the way of recreating an impression of the era, though.
But the rubbish studio gallery and ‘red light and bell’ errors are REALLY ANNOYING! (Just like ‘The Hour!)
I remember William Hartnell doing a speech on the studio floor and apologising for being touchy roughly as portrayed – I think this was when Carole Anne Ford left.
Dave Plowman
I can understand the wrong cameras being used – as I doubt enough of the real ones survive. But not the ‘red light and bell’ nonsense as it added nothing, and wasn’t a cost or availability thing.
Peter Hider
I did countless episodes of Dr Who with Tom Baker.
There was zero research done on the operation of television studios of the early 1960s. I worked on Carnival Films’ ‘Poirot’ and, if we had made that number of factual errors, we’d have been locked up in the Belgian equivalent of the Bastille.
The lack of accuracy in the drama “An Adventure in Space and Time” ruined what could have been a really good piece of television. The make-up girls’ costumes were wrong, ‘Outside rehearsals’ would never have taken place in a studio, Warris’ directions to the vision mixer were completely wrong, the director would never have given actors direction or had a discussion with them using Loudspeaker talkback.
One notable exception to this rule was during a “Play of the Month” when a well known Director thought he’d pressed the key to speak to the Producer in the booth behind the gallery and the whole studio heard him say "Please tell that ******* actor he will never ******* work in television again”. The actor in question looked incredulously at the lighting grid as if God had spoken.
To counter all these criticisms of “An Adventure in Time and Space”, I thought the performances were good and the reconstruction of scenes were clever. Brian Cox was believable as Sydney Newman and David Bradley was excellent as William Hartnell. It is interesting that he did 143 episodes during his tenure as the Doctor.
Ian Hillson
The cars drove (!) me mad – the Anglia parked outside TVC had a bit of black tape stuck over the F of the registration (1968/69) so at least they noticed that one was wrong. William Hartnell’s Singer Gazelle right from the start was a D suffix which meant it couldn’t be earlier than 1966.
Tony Crake
William Hartnell was some three years before my arrival at TVC. There seemed to be an awful lot of reaction to this "dramatic representation" It merely tried to represent the "ethos" of the situation?
Everybody has seen the "Kings Speech". In NO way does the scene depicting the BBC transmitting station actually stand up to any technical scrutiny in the slightest. It is just a mock up more akin to Battersea Power Station! But it gives the ‘feel’ of the Empire transmitting station at Daventry as it probably looked in those dim and distant times!! (It helps having spent 1962-66 on such related equipment.)
An old aunt of mine, who has lived all her life in the Lake District, was outraged beyond belief that most of the Beatrix Potter film was shot in the I.O.M. "It wasn’t the real cottage !" she was won’t to rant.. She seemed to have forgotten it is really very small and highly inaccessible to a vast crew.
There was no point in me arguing with her! But everything about that film displayed the very essence of the story line.
A lot of the torrent of comment on the "Place and Time" seemed a little on these lines….
I was on Crew 2 when I arrived and each evening about 1800 hrs I went to collect Frank Wilkins’ A40 car and bring it in to the Centre car park… Well they got that bit right! There IT WAS in greeny-blue outside reception, though I don’t think for one minute I would have been allowed to park it there!!
I even got to meet Verity Lambert! After some long and difficult drama production Crew 2 were invited to her house in Shepherds Bush to an ‘end of show party’. She was very like her portrayal, though I cannot vouch for the size of the wine glasses!
Clive Doig
May I just add my ha’porth to the “Adventure in Space and Time” critiques: Mark Gatiss actually came to see me a couple of times, as I had worked as the vision-mixer on the pilot, as well as the titles experiment ‘video howl round’ recording, and then from the first remake of Episode 1 with Warris Hussein and Verity, through from November 1963 until a few Patrick Troughton episodes in 1966. I believe I was still in Tech Ops when it all started , but soon moved to Studio Management with all VMs. (Incidentally Rachel Blayney, who was VM on Crew 4, Snowy Lidyard White being the VM2, with me as ‘standby for the standby’ VM, always said that she had operated on cameras at Ally Pally, just after the war).
A lot of good those meetings with Mark did the authenticity of the programme! I think most of you have detailed the anachronisms, and I counted many more. My only gripe is that the famous Clive Doig, (He of ‘getting round the gallery without touching the floor’ fame and other apocryphal stories) was portrayed in Episode One as a girl! Operating some awful spangle board in Merton Studios rather than the mind-bending equally awful two banks of hard little buttons and one fader (priority on bottom bank) installed as the vision-mixer in Lime Grove Studio D. She was also told to “Switch to 1, Switch to 3 etc.” . I was also flabbergasted that Warris supposedly was calling shots!! Did they even have a PA?
However I thought David Bradley was superb as Bill Hartnell, and the play hundred times better than the travesty of a programme, “Doctor Who Live: The Afterparty!”, on BBC3, which was truly awful. Embarrassing – YES, entertaining – NO! How on earth they couldn’t sort out the sound delay with that idiot pop group in USA I have no idea! Even some of my friends who appeared, such as Sylvester McCoy and Peter Purves were appalled at how dreadful it was. Give me anachronisms and proper drama any day than that cr*p!
By the way “Where were you when Kennedy was shot?” Who out there remembers that we were in the gallery in Studio D, recording No.3 of the first Dr Who story (Number 1 was due to be shown that night) when the news came through! I remember someone remarking at the time, “Better him, than Kruschev being shot!”
Soft-soled shoes!! As far as I am aware, as one of the few JPTOs on JPTO Course No.1, who are still able to stand up, even when I joined in 1958 it was order of the day, as were suits and ties working in the theatre and NO JEANS!. Such was the BBC Staff Instruction booklet ingrained in my mind, that I went on to only ever wear carpet slippers in TV studios when I directed!
Also thank God for the tech store in each studio, where one could join Jim for a snout!
Graeme Wall
There were two mistakes that struck me, people smoking in the studio and Verity walking about the studio floor in high heels!
Peter Combes
I remember the footwear rule was instituted at TC after the state-of-the-art floor covering was damaged by stiletto heels, but were not early episodes of Dr. Who made at Lime Grove, with its old-fashioned floors?
Dave Plowman
Typical cameraman!It was because of noise – not the floor. Soft soled shoes were a requirementall my career, which started before Dr Who.
Ian Perry
I can confirm that when I joined the Beeb in the 60’s I was asked to fill in my "Soft Soled Shoe Allowance".
This continued annually for over 20 years until I left "Studios" and worked on "Location", when it was replaced by various "wet weather" type allowances.
If you were caught wearing "ordinary" shoes in the Studios then you were hauled up to the Office for severe knuckle wrap.
Hugh Sheppard
I can put the soft-soled shoe allowance back to Lime Grove and AP in April 1958, when I was a probationary Technical Operator.
Dave Mundy
I seem to remember that the claim form was called ‘MOBP391′ – i.e. Maintenance of Broadcast Plant 391’! I have often wondered what the other 390 things were that we could have claimed for!
