The RT Files
40th anniversary special
22 November 2003
- The Whos' Who's Who
- All New Who
- Tom Baker on ...
- My favourite Doctor
- Can't wait for the TV series?
- Sounds out of this world
- Lost tapes turn up
- Who do you do?
- Captured in time
- Docs on the box
- Taking the plunger
- The RT Files
10th (1973) | 20th (1983) | 30th (1993) | 40th (2003) | 50th (2013) | 60th (2023)
- Publication: Radio Times
- Date: 2003-11-22
- Author:
- Page: 5
- Language: English
Right from the start, RT has had Doctor Who covered ...
The RT cover for 23 November 1963 features Kenneth Horne, but also flags up "DR WHO—a new Saturday-afternoon television series of adventures in time and space".
The Daleks make their first cover appearance on 21 November 1964 (below), for The Dalek Invasion of Earth. A feature depicts the invaders trundling across Westminster Bridge, but calls them "robots". They're not, of course: inside the metal casings are living creatures.
Just a few months later, the show gets its first picture cover for Marco Polo (22 February 1964, above).
The 1964 Christmas issue contains an eight-page Lewis Carroll spoof entitled "Barbara in Wonderland", which finds a young girl getting lost in the BBC's studios, before taking tea with William Hartnell's Doctor and two friendly Daleks, one of whom has indigestion. The other Dalek says politely, "Please-sit-down. And-do-not-eat-all-the-cakes."
Within weeks the programme is back on the front page (13 February 1965, below), introducing a new alien world in The Web Planet.
The Daleks return to the cover of Radio Times (5 November 1966) for the second Doctor Patrick opening story, The Power of the Daleks. We know the Doctor is capable of almost anything, but in the story his clothes transform along with his appearance. Brilliant!
Troughton is interviewed in the 15 December 1966 issue as The Highlanders airs. "I'm ready to play anything;' he says. "I like dressing up.
The fearsome Cybermen make their RT cover debut on 2 September 1967 for The Tomb of the Cybermen. "My instincts tell me that terrible danger awaits us," the Doctor writes in his diary for the story preview.
For our "Monstrous World of Doctor Who" story (20 January 1968, below), we talk to the BBC wardrobe and effects people. Daleks' brains, it turns out, are "cellulose wallpaper paste mixed with foam rubber chippings and tinted a restful shade of green". Nice.
Troughton is interviewed in 19 April 1969's RT for his final story. "It's been great fun," he says.
Jon Pertwee's arrival as the Doctor is heralded with an RT cover on 3 January 1970. Inside, we find that the actor's family holidays in Ibiza, where the children "run around like a lot of wild little nudists, babbling in three languages". (What would film star Sean Pertwee make of that now?)
Pertwee shares the 2 January 1971 cover with Katy Manning (Jo Grant) and Roger Delgado (the Master) for Terror of the Autons. Delgado rebuffs the suggestion that his character might become too light-hearted: "I don't think that'll happen. I remember starting 16 years ago in midday matinées. Once I was faced with the unbelievable line, 'Come in and put your feet up on the Algerian poof' If you can handle that then you can handle anything."
Frank Bellamy's gorgeous illustration graces the cover on I January 1972 for the classic story Day of the Daleks.
Jon Pertwee, both his predecessors and an assortment of assistants talk to RT for The Three Doctors cover of 30 December 1972. William Hartnell recalls predicting that the show would run for five years: "I was universally scoffed at."
On a 1973 letters page, one Brenda Hoyle says her son is petrified by Doctor Who's theme tune. Producer Barry Letts is sympathetic but replies: "To produce programmes which upset or offend nobody at all is the surest way of killing all the excitement of television."
Fans go mad for RT's Doctor Who tenth-anniversary special (above; see page 16 for our offer!).
Michael Parkinson and Manfred Mann singer Paul Jones's ten-year-old son Matthew are among those assessing the Doctor's appeal for the 15 December 1973 cover story (below). "One of the best things is the karate—a real chop—zonkreally good," says young Matthew. "I watch it with my brother, though he's in hospital now."
In 1983, RT celebrates the show's 20th anniversary with a stand-alone special. And Doctor Who's birthday story that year, The Five Doctors, is also illustrated on the 19 November cover (above) by Andrew Skilleter, who's one of the top artists associated with the programme (www.andrewskilleter.co.uk).
Inside, for the uninitiated, is a "Who's Who's Who" of the Doctor's companions up until that year, from Susan through to Turlough.
Four years after the series is cancelled, the surviving Doctors appear on the 20 November 1993 cover to promote the Children in Need special, Dimensions in Time.
In 1996, the Who-loving nation holds its breath for its hero's return in the new shape of Paul McGann, for an expensive, feature-length TV movie. RT flies the flag with a corresponding 25 May cover (below) and, inside, a 16-page supplement.
Disclaimer: These citations are created on-the-fly using primitive parsing techniques. You should double-check all citations. Send feedback to whovian@cuttingsarchive.org
- APA 6th ed.: (2003-11-22). The RT Files. Radio Times p. 5.
- MLA 7th ed.: "The RT Files." Radio Times [add city] 2003-11-22, 5. Print.
- Chicago 15th ed.: "The RT Files." Radio Times, edition, sec., 2003-11-22
- Turabian: "The RT Files." Radio Times, 2003-11-22, section, 5 edition.
- Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=The RT Files | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/The_RT_Files | work=Radio Times | pages=5 | date=2003-11-22 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=2 April 2025 }}</ref>
- Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=The RT Files | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/The_RT_Files | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=2 April 2025}}</ref>
