TV Zone presents a look back at some of the newspaper coverage

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Publication: Starburst
Date: no. 60 (August 1983)
Author: Richard Holliss
Page: 41
Language: English

To coincide with the Twentieth Anniversary of Doctor Who, TV Zone presents a look back at some of the newspaper coverage that the series received over the years. National Press interest usually celebrated the arrival of a new monster to terrorise the cast and most of the fascination for Doctor Who, according to the journalists responsible, centred on the Doctor's biggest adversaries, the Daleks. There were exceptions however and I have attempted to include one or two of them. A majority of the articles are from the William Hartnell era at a time when popularity for the show was at a fever pitch.

One long running magazine called Woman's Weekly carried a short piece on Hartnell entitled "The Frail Little Gentleman is Not as Bewildered as He Seems." It included a potted filmography and made a passing reference to his home life. "Doctor Who lives in a charming cottage in Mayfield, Sussex and loves the country," calimed the reporter, "his feet are firmly set on this planet with hobbies like gardening, fishing, taking his Staffordshire bull terrier Stumpy for walks and browsing round antique galleries and old furniture shops." According to the article, "William's greatest unfulfilled ambition is to play Shylock."

When the Daleks first appeared on television they took the country by storm and newspapers were quick to cash in on the story. Daily Mail reporter John Sandilands discussed what it must be like inside a Dalek with one of the BBC operators Peter Murphy. "It's very hot under the studio lights." said Murphy. "You can't wear more than a T-shirt and lightweight slacks. You also have to pedal the machine like a child's tricycle and work four gadgets at the same time in a tiny space, It takes a long time to master a Dalek and even then they have a tendency to skid. A move in the wrong direction could be disastrous and you have to synchronise the pre-recorded voice with the lights on the head that flash when it speak," Sandilands also spoke with the man behind the Dalek voices, Peter Hawkins. It was also Hawkins that had spoken for Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men, Captain Pugwash and assorted characters in The Woodentops. "I have spoken for as many as four Daleks in one scene and it's a pretty odd feeling talking to yourself in that peculiar voice." One of the main qualifications or being a Dalek, Sandilands discovered, was that you mustn't be any taller than 5ft 5ins but, as another operator Robert Jewell pointed out, 'The prestige is tremendous. People are fascinated when they hear you are a Dalek and certainly my two kids would be far less impressed if I'd been playing something like King Lear at the Old Vic."

In the same Dalek report, Desmond Zwar told of the race to manufacture the Mini-Dalek. Although Mr Zwar was careful enough not to reveal the name of the firm about to unleash a 6in high mini-dalek costing fifteen shillings and eleven pence onto the toy market, he did hint that the company were in Swansea and that they were the original brains behind the Yo-Yo, a craze which swept the World in 1932.

Perhaps the most trivial of Dalek mania was Clive Hirschhorn's report on the Dalek Disc, a Pin record featuring the song 'I'm Gonna Spend My Christmas With a Dalek." composed by Johnny Worth and sung by a Newcastle group called the Go-Go's. What the customer thought of this is anybodys guess but that title must have echoed ever toy dealer's wish that Christmas as they watched masses of Dalek merchandising filtering away across the counter to a tv crazed public. One final report that morning in the Daily Mail was the sad tale of the shops devoid of 5ft Daleks. At £8 each, these replicas of the BBC space creatures had completely sold out. The head buyer of Hamley's in Regent Street told the Mad. "Within a day of the start of a new Dalek story in Doctor Who our whole stock was sold out. Some parents were buying two at a time and if I had hundreds more they would sell."

The company licensed by the BBC to manufacture the Daleks, Scorpion and Auto-modyes, could not guarantee new supplies for Christmas and even resorted to sending out photographs of the Daleks to be used as gift vouchers because some children seemed prepared to wait until the New Year. The company's sales Director Mrs Anne Wright described how on Saturdays thousands of children clamoured at the factory gates asking to be allowed in to play with the Daleks.

The Mail even reported how in 1966 the BBC were planning to market the Daleks themselves. Although this idea was eventually shelved, a spokesman for the Corporation at the time said "It is still to be decided whether they will be in the form of finished models or make-it-yourself kits." As if in retaliation for all this fuss over a few animated pepperpots, actress Carole Ann Ford made the headlines when she dared to poke her tongue out at a Dalek when the creatures put in an appearance at the Daily Mad Schorkboys and Girls Exhibition at Olympia.

John Sandilands even discussed the Dalek phenomenon in great length with series producer Verity Lambert. Miss Lambert, now the head of Film Production for Thorn EMI, made it quite clear that she would stand up to the Daleks and had no plans to resurrect them after the successful invasion of Earth story. How wrong she was. The next invasion was already underway, this time on the big screen.

A short while later, Desmond Zwar chased the creator of the Daleks, Terry Nation, into the seven and sixes at Studio One in Oxford Street to see how he reacted to the first film version. "I found that against my will I am sort of taken over by the Daleks." said Nation. "I am known as the Dalek man." Although he denied being paid as much as £300,000 for the film rights, Zwar pointed out to him that there must be "thousands from the BBC for the Dalek stories, £50,000 from toy merchandising and the liklihood of a second film." What is particularly interesting about this article is that unlike later on, when due to a constant barrage of questions from reporters Nation had claimed he discovered the word Dalek on the spine of an encyclopedia, he tells Zwar "I took a verbal description of a Dalek — I've no idea why I thought of the name — to the BBC." More recently, Nation has even dismissed the encyclopedia story as untrue.

In his review of the film newspaper critic Barry Norman reflected on the fear of the Daleks that children share up and down the country. "I know of other children who will only watch them with the sound turned off or by peering through the crack of a door from the safety of another room."

When the second film finally appeared, entitled Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 AD, film reviewer Cecil Wilson gave it a favourable coverage. 'From the moment Doctor Who (Peter Cushing) is pitchforked by a time and space machine into a stark future and sees their flying saucer landing in what he calls 'the vicinity of Sloane Squah,' I cannot wait for him to annihilate these metal monsters. Mingled with the pleasure of seeing them perish is the chilling thought that they will be back before long, to glide and grunt their devilish way through another Dalek picture."

Next month TV Zone continues its look at Doctor Who through the eyes of the newspaper columnists including more Daleks and other creatures such as Voords, Drahvins, Zarbi and K-9

TV Zone presents a look back at some of the newspaper coverage

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