We have a knock-out show
- Publication: Radio Times
- Date: 2023-11-18
- Author: Paul Hayes
- Page: 8
- Language: English
Doctor Who turns 60 on Thursday 23 November and Radio Times has been a part of the show's history from the very beginning. In July 1963, months before the first episode was even shot, the magazine was invited to a special "preliminary promotion meeting" with BBC Drama Department executive Donald Wilson at which the premise and promise of this unusual series were explained for the first time.
Back then, RT was still a part of the BBC and a vital promotional tool. A front cover was hoped for, and that September photographer Don Smith was on hand to take pictures of the show's stars (William Hartnell, William Russell, Jacqueline Hill and Carole Ann Ford) in the basement photo studio at BBC Television Centre - the very first occasion on which Doctor Who's initial cast had all actually met.
However, closer to the programme's debut in November there had been a rethink at RT. Three weeks before the first episode, Wilson learnt that the magazine had decided not to give Doctor Who the cover, so he fired a memo to editor Douglas G Williams pleading for a change of heart. "I believe that we have an absolute knock-out in this show, and that there will be no question but that it will run and run," he said, prophetically.
Doctor Who eventually attained its first PT cover in February 1964 for the Marco Polo serial - but as with the series itself, things really got moving with the arrival of the Daleks. In the second cover nine months later, the Doctor was nowhere to be seen - the Daleks were the sole stars, dominating proceedings for the first of many return appearances.
That relationship between Doctor Who and RT has remained close ever since, with all the major milestones of the 21st-century version being honoured with a cover - more often than not, featuring a Dalek or two (the most recent Dalek cover star was in December 2020).
Indeed, among all of its other records, Doctor Who now holds the title of the most-featured programme on the cover in the history of Radio Times - and in terms of front pages, the Daleks themselves rank not far behind the likes of the late Queen, Sir David Attenborough and a chap called David Tennant... Donald Wilson would surely have been pleased with that!
Paul Hayes is the author of Pull to Open: 1962-1963: the Inside Story of how the BBC Created and Launched Doctor Who. A special remastered and colourised version of the very first Dalek story from 1963/4 airs on BBC4 this Thursday and will be available on BBC iPlayer
Captions:
1966 These days they're such familiar creatures, it's difficult to imagine the huge impact that the Daleks made on the public imagination when they debuted in the early William Hartnell episodes of Doctor Who in 1963. Come 1966, they adorned the cover of Radio Times (photographed by Don Smith) in a bid to launch the newly changed Doctor, played by Patrick Troughton, while keeping his full transformation under wraps.
1972 Throughout Jon Pertwee's tenure as the third Doctor (1970-74), each new season was heralded with an RT cover - perhaps most strikingly in 1972. With the Daleks returning after a five-year absence, the revered illustrator Frank Bellamy provided a suitably dramatic image of the Time Lord facing his archenemies.
1999 Doctor Who's appearances on the RT cover dwindled in the late 1970s and 80s, with the "classic" series ending in 1989. During the 90s, however, the Time Lord was remembered with increasingly nostalgic affection, and in November 1999, to mark a Doctor Who Night on BBC2, a Dalek blasted onto the RT cover - photographed by none other than Lord Snowdon. It was an image shared with a Royal Mail stamp celebrating British entertainment. Snowdon said subsequently, "When I was first approached, I thought I was being asked to photograph some garlic... which I thought odd."
2005 Doctor Who came fully back into favour with an enormous bang with Russell T Davies's revival in 2005 - earning three RT covers in the space of a year. The second of the three featured - what else? - the return of the Daleks, and even trumped that week's general election. Art-directed by RT's Paul Smith, the resulting "Vote Dalek!" fold-out design was later voted the magazine cover of the century at the Professional Publishers Association's centenary celebration.
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- APA 6th ed.: Hayes, Paul (2023-11-18). We have a knock-out show. Radio Times p. 8.
- MLA 7th ed.: Hayes, Paul. "We have a knock-out show." Radio Times [add city] 2023-11-18, 8. Print.
- Chicago 15th ed.: Hayes, Paul. "We have a knock-out show." Radio Times, edition, sec., 2023-11-18
- Turabian: Hayes, Paul. "We have a knock-out show." Radio Times, 2023-11-18, section, 8 edition.
- Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=We have a knock-out show | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/We_have_a_knock-out_show | work=Radio Times | pages=8 | date=2023-11-18 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=23 April 2025 }}</ref>
- Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=We have a knock-out show | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/We_have_a_knock-out_show | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=23 April 2025}}</ref>
