★★★★☆1/2
► RELEASED OUT NOW!
424 pages Paperback
► Author Paul Hayes
Publisher Ten Acre Films
Few television shows - few things in life - have had their histories dissected in as forensic a level of detail as Doctor Who. As Toby Hadoke mischievously asks in his introduction to this latest addition to a crowded shelf, "There's nothing more that can be written about the early years of Doctor Who, surely?"
Paul Hayes, whose The Long Game charted the show's 21st century resurrection, clearly relishes a challenge. And, armed with access to the BBC Written Archives Centre in Caversham, a cultural historian's eye for context and a detailed knowledge of all things Who, succeeds in turning the facts of a TV legend's birth into a freshly engaging narrative.
Alongside portraits of key and frequently overlooked creative players, there are truly fascinating glimpses of how a premise emerged from the typewritten ether of internal memos and reports: foundational concepts ("time travelling"), soon discarded dead-ends ("scientific troubleshooters") and tantalisingly abandoned backstory ("Lord of the House of Dooclare"). It feels like we're witnessing mythology in protozoic form.
Hayes is also good on the nuts and bolts of how this whole "crazy enterprise" was actually made, in the shadow of the Kennedy assassination. Pull To Open indeed - there's more inside than you might imagine.
Disclaimer: These citations are created on-the-fly using primitive parsing techniques. You should double-check all citations. Send feedback to whovian@cuttingsarchive.org
