Doctor Who Cuttings Archive

Why I Should Have Been the New Doctor Who: The Case for a Marxist in the Tardis

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For many children and young adults throughout the world their first exposure to science fiction is via Doctor Who.

Early Saturday evenings after the giant kipper ties and weird haircuts of "World of Sport" and "Grandstand," the youth of Starship Britain would watch Hartnell or Troughton or Pertwee or Baker—the loner, the individualist, the eccentric—triumph over pan-galactic evil armed only with the eccentricities of the wardrobe department, his brains and a sonic screwdriver.

It seemed as if the show could go on forever, constantly regenerating and never slipping into that terminal phase which is often signalled in American series (such as "Happy Days" or "Mork and Mindy") by mawkish story-lines featuring blind people, sick puppies and spin-offs into other series.

It was obviously time for Tom Baker to go and in true Doctor Who fashion he lay on the floor while the vision mixer faded him in and out, mixing him with the new face, the face of PETER DAVISON!

Peter Davison! I was nearly sick on the spot. Peter Davison! Before that awful day each Doctor Who had been a masterpiece of inspired casting, the result of hard work scouring fringe theatres and actors's drinking clubs. However at the time of his casting Peter Davison was already appearing simultaneously in seventeen different sit-corns on TV. These included "Whoops I'm A Vet," "My Wife The Vet Next Door," "That Vet's Got No Trousers On" and "Oh Crikey! Where's My Trousers." He was also appearing in twenty-eight different TV commercials plugging coffee, saucepans (with his simpleton wife who adopts a squeaky American accent to appear interesting) and Cheese Spread For Choosy Dogs. He was also guesting on seventeen thousand game and quiz shows. Presumably the casting director, too drunk or too lazy to go out, had merely switched on the TV, seen Davison on all four channels and booked him on the spot. Or was it something more sinister? Perhaps part of a right-wing putsch in the BBC Children's Department? Would Derek Jacobi soon be reading extracts from Milton Friedman on Jackanory? Would Blue Peter be showing you how to make a Panzer Division out of old yoghurt cartons?

Whatever the reason Doctor Who the individualist, pacifist and eccentric became Doctor Who the TV Personality, charity show-biz eleven dick-head. K-9, the show's most perceptive Marxist theoretician, got the chop at the same time and the programme also moved to Tuesdays and Thursday when everybody knows I go to my non-sexist quilt-making workshop.

Slowly Doctor Who slipped from my mind. Occasionally I would tune in to have my worst fears confirmed—increasingly tacky story-lines, wonky special effects and more frequent appearances of the Time Lords—obvious right-wing authority figures.

Then suddenly there was a ray of hope! Davison was to go! Could the rumour be true—that K-9 hadn't been dismantled but was instead waging a guerrilla war from a stronghold in the accounts department of Television Centre?

This was my chance. As an actor, comedian, Marxist and favourite with the kiddies I would become the new Doctor Who and would lead the kids down the twin shining paths of socialism and science fiction. I tried everything—wining and dining, whining and crying, death threats. I bribed children to rush up to me in the BBC canteen shouting "Oh Uncle Alexei, we love you. Why are you not on the telly more often, as Doctor Who for instance, perhaps, maybe."

But then disaster! It was announced that the new Doctor would be some jerk called Colin Blake who'd already been in the programme while playing a tedious Time Lord. Again the casting department hadn't done much scouring to come up with him. What's more when I saw photos of him he looked like bloody Davison.

So now there's nothing for it. I've tried peaceful means, but they've pushed me too far. I'm collecting a force together, mercenaries, unemployed Daleks, revolutionaries. One night soon we'll storm Studio 8 at TV Centre. Our laser guns will be set to "kill." We will show no mercy and in the morning I will be installed as the people's Doctor Who and Saturdays will never be the same again.


Jonathan Benison graduated in English from Sussex University and has an MA in the sociology of literature from Essex University—his thesis being a study of Jamaican reggae seen as cultural politics and semiotics. He has taught English periodically in northern Italy and since 1982 has been working on a PhD at Essex, from which arises the following article (as well as a companion essay on "J. G. Ballard and the Current State of Nihilism" included in Just the Other Day: Essays on the Suture of the Future edited by Luk de Vos, Oregon, 1984).

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.: Sayle, Alexei (November 1984). Why I Should Have Been the New Doctor Who: The Case for a Marxist in the Tardis. Foundation p. 23.
  • MLA 7th ed.: Sayle, Alexei. "Why I Should Have Been the New Doctor Who: The Case for a Marxist in the Tardis." Foundation [add city] November 1984, 23. Print.
  • Chicago 15th ed.: Sayle, Alexei. "Why I Should Have Been the New Doctor Who: The Case for a Marxist in the Tardis." Foundation, edition, sec., November 1984
  • Turabian: Sayle, Alexei. "Why I Should Have Been the New Doctor Who: The Case for a Marxist in the Tardis." Foundation, November 1984, section, 23 edition.
  • Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=Why I Should Have Been the New Doctor Who: The Case for a Marxist in the Tardis | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Why_I_Should_Have_Been_the_New_Doctor_Who:_The_Case_for_a_Marxist_in_the_Tardis | work=Foundation | pages=23 | date=November 1984 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=19 April 2024 }}</ref>
  • Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=Why I Should Have Been the New Doctor Who: The Case for a Marxist in the Tardis | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Why_I_Should_Have_Been_the_New_Doctor_Who:_The_Case_for_a_Marxist_in_the_Tardis | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=19 April 2024}}</ref>


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