Doctor to go private?
- Publication: The Daily Telegraph
- Date: 1989-12-01
- Author:
- Page:
- Language: English
AFTER 26 years of darting from planet to planet, BBC television drama's best-known creation is facing his most hazardous journey yet — into the private sector. Doctor Who, Britain's longest-running drama serial, may be tendered out to independent producers from next year.
To comply with government guidelines, the BBC will soon have to use independent producers in a quarter of its television output. No one expected, however, that this would include what amounts to a Grade I listed programme, first broadcast on the day after President Kennedy's assassination in 1963 and now enormously successful all over the world.
The BBC's head of drama series, Peter Greegan, confirms that the option is being considered, partly as a response to the news that the Doctor is about to receive the full Hollywood treatment in a blockbuster starring Donald Sutherland.
The result, he concedes, could involve major changes to the BBC's traditional formula, which many aficionados believe has become tired in recent years. It is likely to look even more lacklustre once Sutherland's hard-drinking, womanising Time Lord hits the screen. "Inevitably, the Doctor Who of the Nineties will look and sound different," Greegan tells me. "A lot will depend on the film."
Ironically, a move to independent producers might bring the show closer to its roots. Among the companies believed to be interested in taking the programme on is Cinema Verity, founded by Verity Lambert, the first producer of Doctor Who.
Caption: Who: where?
Spelling correction: Peter Cregeen
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.: (1989-12-01). Doctor to go private?. The Daily Telegraph .
- MLA 7th ed.: "Doctor to go private?." The Daily Telegraph [add city] 1989-12-01. Print.
- Chicago 15th ed.: "Doctor to go private?." The Daily Telegraph, edition, sec., 1989-12-01
- Turabian: "Doctor to go private?." The Daily Telegraph, 1989-12-01, section, edition.
- Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=Doctor to go private? | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Doctor_to_go_private%3F | work=The Daily Telegraph | pages= | date=1989-12-01 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=23 November 2024 }}</ref>
- Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=Doctor to go private? | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Doctor_to_go_private%3F | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=23 November 2024}}</ref>
