Doctor Who Vs. Scandal

This British drama is a fictionalised
account of the Profumo affair that
rocked the British government in
1963, and premiered at the Cannes
Film Festival.
The theme song Nothing Has Been
Proved was penned and produced
by Pet Shop Boys and performed

by Dusty Springfield.
Dr. Stephen Ward (depicted here
by John Hurt) courted the rich
and famous at his London practice,
and even moved in royal circles.
He lived on the Astor's family estate
of Cliveden, and in 1961 at a party
there, Ward introduced married Tory
minister John Profumo (portrayed by
Ian McKellen) to showgirl Christine Keeler (Joanne Whalley).

They embarked on an affair, but Keeler was also sleeping with a

known Soviet spy, Captain Eugene Ivanov (Jeroen Krabbe), and

Ward observed there was the potential to start 'World War Three'.
Profumo (1915-2006) was forced to resign after lying in Parliament,

but Ward became the scapegoat for the scandal. Having supplied the

 social elite with prostitutes, he was charged with living off immoral

earnings.
The most famous moment of the osteopath's Old Bailey trial came

when his former mistress, Mandy Rice Davis (Bridget Fonda) gave

evidence. When told that Lord Astor (Leslie Phillips) had denied

paying her for sex, she replied "Well, he would wouldn't he?" When

Ward was found guilty, the accused lay in a coma following a suicide

attempt and he died days later.

The first television retelling of the story, The Trial of Christine Keeler,
was shown on BBC1 in December 2019. Originally developed for TV

 in the mid 1980s, Scandal was rejected by the BBC then Channel 4,

but was eventually released by Palace Pictures  in early 1989 - it 

featured eleven other Doctor Who cast alumni:

• McKellen provided the voice of the Great Intelligence for The Snowmen, and had a cameo in The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot
• Paul Brooke (DS John) voiced Toby for Big Finish's Year of the Pig (2006)
• Carry On actor Phillips voiced Robert Knox for Medicinal Purposes (2004), and Assassin in the Limelight (2008) - he worked with Hurt again in King Ralph
• Ronald [Gordon] Fraser (Justice Marshall) was Joseph C in The Happiness Patrol
• Iain Cuthbertson (Lord Hailsham) was Garron in The Ribos Operation
• Sarah Prince (Secretary) was Karuna in Kinda
• Raad Rawi (Aziz) voiced Prince Haasan Al-Nadyr for Who Killed Toby Kinsella? (2016), Bishop Nicholas for Ravenous 2 (2018), and Tubal, Maygo and King Hiarbas of Tunis for The Phoenicians (2019)
• Malcolm Terris (Gent) was Etnin in (episode 1 of) The Dominators, and the Co-Pilot in The Horns of Nimon
• Tariq Yunus (Khan) was Cass in The Robots of Death
• Tina Simmons (Critic) made her TV debut as an Inferno Customer in The War Machines (1)
• camera operator Simon Archer was the cinematographer on The Lodger

Doctor Who Vs. Quatermass II

My first exposure to the work of Nigel Kneale

was viewing the rerun of the third episode of

this classic thriller. The Food was repeated as

part of BBC2's The Lime Grove Story in August

1991.

The second Quatermass serial is the earliest to
survive in its entirety in the BBC archives, and
was commissioned to directly challenge the

new ITV network - launched in September 

1955.

Here, Professor Bernard Quatermass (now
portrayed by John Robinson) investigates a

secret plant in Northern England - he uncovers

the alien infiltration of the highest levels of the

British government.

Kneale (1922-2006) was influenced by the

damaging effects of industrialisation and

government corruption by big business, foreshadowing globalisation.

The writer again collaborated with director Rudolph Cartier (1904-1994), and since The Quatermass Experiment in 1953, they had

adapted Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Kneale's own The

Creature (both starred Peter Cushing).

This location filming was the most ambitious ever undertaken for a

British TV drama, and the new production was transmitted live from

Studio G at Lime Grove. The six-part sci-fi epic was again shown on

Saturday nights in October and November 1955 - it featured Roger Delgado, and sixteen other Doctor Who cast and crew connections:

• Cyril [Leonard] Shaps (Assistant) was John Viner in The Tomb of the Cybermen, Lennox in The Ambassadors of Death, Professor Herbert Clegg in (part 1 of) Planet of the Spiders, and the Archimandrite in The Androids of Tara
• [John] Brian Moorehead (Guard/Paratrooper) was Guard in State of Decay (3), Gundan in Warriors' Gate (3), and Guest in Snakedance
• [Robert] Michael Bilton and [George] Reginald Jessup (Technicians) both appeared in The Massacre, as Charles de Teligny and Servant respectively - Bilton was also Collins in Pyramids of Mars, and Time Lord in The Deadly Assassin, whilst Jessup was Lord Savar in The Invasion of Time
• Patrick Carter (Ambulance Man) was the Bosun in The Chase (3)
• Harry Brooks (Guard/Sergeant) was both Cybermen Krang and Talon in The Tenth Planet
• Melvyn Hayes [born Hyams] (Frankie) voiced Wilkin for Shada (2003), and the titular aliens for Big Finish's The Scorchies (2013)
• Michael [Brabazon] Rathbone (Worker) was a Taxi Driver in The War Machines (2)
• Denis [Joseph] McCarthy (Doctor) provided the voice of Controller Rinberg in The Moonbase (2)
• John Herrington (Riot Extra here, Stall Owner in Quatermass and the Pit) was Rhynmal in The Daleks' Master Plan (5), and Holden in Colony in Space (2)
• George [William] Tovey (Worker) was Ernie Clements in Pyramids of Mars
• for Malcolm Watson, Jack Kine, Bernard Wilkie and Michael Leeston Smith see The Quatermass Experiment
• design assistant Darrol Blake was director of The Stones of Blood

Doctor Who Vs. The Second Coming

This acclaimed Northern morality tale was

written by executive producer Russell T

Davies, who cast Salford-born Christopher

Eccleston in the lead role of Stephen Baxter.

Long-serving Doctor Who composer Murray Gold provided the music here too. Both he

and Davies were nominated for Royal

Television Society awards, whilst Eccleston
earned a BAFTA Best Actor nomination.

Originally commissioned by Channel 4 in
1999, and later turned down by the BBC,
The Second Coming was eventually made

by Red Productions for ITV over the summer
of 2002. 

Following a drunken night-out in Manchester,
Baxter disappears for forty days and nights.
He is found wandering Saddleworth Moor,

and claims to be the 'second coming' of

Jesus, the Son of God. After performing a

modern-day miracle at Manchester City's

Maine Road stadium (turning night into day), he proclaims to the

world's media that he has just five days to find the human race's

 Third Testament, and avert the Apocalypse.

Granada's Liverpool-based drama Springhill, also penned by Davies,

ended it's run in 1997 with a recital of The Second Coming by WB

Yeats, and was essentially a story of good-versus-evil too.
Screened over two consecutive nights in February 2003, this drama

also featured Tim Woodward, Peter Wight, and thirteen other Doctor

Who cast and crew connections:

• Lesley Sharp [born Karen Makinson] (Judith) played Sky Silvestry in Midnight  - she also worked with Eccleston on Clocking Off and The Shadow Line, and with Davies on Bob & Rose)
• Mark Benton (Tyler) was Clive Finch in Rose and Big Finish's The Dimension Cannon (2020), and voiced Ellis for Invaders from Mars (2002), and Jack Coulson for Energy of the Daleks (2012)
• Rory [Michael] Kinnear (Dillane) voiced Samuel Belfrage for Industrial Evolution (2011)
• Ace [Ahsen Rafiq] Bhatti (Gupta) was Haresh Chandra in The Sarah Jane Adventures
• Jennifer Hennessy [born Hayes] (Reporter) was Valerie in Gridlock, and Moira in The Pilot and Extremis
• Angel Coulby (PC Fraser) was Katherine in The Girl in the Fireplace
• Ray Emmet Brown (Nurse) voiced No. 16 for House of Blue Fire (2011)
• Denise Black [born Dixon] (Rachel) voiced Eva Jericho for Damaged Goods, Control for Rise and Shine (both 2015), and Mrs. Mountford for The Haunting of Malkin Place (2017)
• stunt co-ordinator Gareth Milne was George Cranleigh in Black Orchid, an Attendant in Vengeance on Varos, and doubled for Peter Davison in Warriors of the Deep
• Rick English was a stuntman on Tooth and Claw too
• Davy Jones was also make-up designer on fifteen adventures (from Rose to Cold Blood)
• associate producer Des Hughes was line producer on eight stories (from The Snowmen to The Time of the Doctor), and had a cameo in The Five(ish) Doctors
• SFX supervisor Graham Brown was a SFX assistant on Resurrection of the Daleks and Attack of the Cybermen, uncredited VFX assist- ant on (part 4 of) Full Circle, The Five Doctors, The Caves of Androzani (4) and Revelation of the Daleks (2), then VFX designer on The Curse of Fenric

Doctor Who Vs. A Very British Coup

Published in 1981, this novel by Chris

Mullin (Labour MP for Sunderland South

from 1987 to 2010) explored the term

of beleaguered left-wing Prime Minister,

Harry Perkins. The story was first adapted

by Alan Plater for Channel 4 in 1988.

Here, against all the odds, working-class

MP for Sheffield Central and leader of the

Labour party Perkins (portrayed by Ray

McAnally) becomes Prime Minister.

Elected on a mandate of open government,
Perkins vows to dismantle Britain's nuclear
deterrent and media monopolies, but is soon
faced with an Establishment coup planned
by MI5, the CIA and right-wing press barons.

The book was written at a time when Tony
Benn (1925-2014), a fierce opponent of the Conservative regime, looked likely to become Labour's deputy leader.

The storyline was also informed by rumours (only confirmed in 1986)

 that the security services had plotted to depose Harold Wilson in the

mid-seventies.

This landmark political drama was reworked as Secret State in 2012,

and Mullins is working on a sequel. The original three-part series won

four BAFTA awards and an International Emmy (was finally released

on DVD in 2011), and featured Caroline John, Geoffrey Beevers,

Keith Allen, and seventeen other Doctor Who cast connections:

• Bernard [Frederic Bemrose] Kay (Page) was Carl Tyler in The Dalek Invasion of Earth, Saladin in The Crusade, DI Crossland in The Faceless Ones, and Caldwell in Colony in Space, then voiced Major Dickens for Big Finish's Night Thoughts (2006)
• Hugh Martin (Sampson) was Munro in Terror of the Zygons, and the Priest in Vengeance on Varos
• Tim McInnerny (Fiennes) was Halpen in Planet of the Ood, and voiced Admiral Dolne for The Well-Mannered War (2015)
• Christine [Mary] Kavanagh (Liz) was Aram in Timelash, and voiced Patience for Cold Fusion (2016), Dora Muse for Muse of Fire (2018), and Magog and Juno for The Iron Legion (2019)
• David McKail (Robertson) was Sergeant Kyle in The Talons of Weng-Chiang
• Shane Rimmer (US Secretary of State) was Seth Harper in The Gunfighters
• Clive [Robert] Merrison (Interviewer) was Jim Callum in The Tomb of the Cybermen, and the Deputy Chief Caretaker in Paradise Towers, and voiced George Augustus for The Contingency Club (2017)
• Philip [Arvon] Madoc (Fison) was Eelek in The Krotons, the War Lord in The War Games, Dr. Mehendri Solon in The Brain of Morbius, Fenner in The Power of Kroll, Brockley in Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 AD, then voiced Victor Schaeffer for Master (2003), and Rag Cobden for Return of the Krotons (2009)
• Jeremy Young (Alford) was Kal in 100,000 BC, and Gordon Lowery in Mission to the Unknown
• Stephanie Fayerman (Editor) was McLuhan in Dragonfire
• Jim [Edward] Carter (Newsome) voiced Brother Bernard for The Book of Kells (2011)
• [David] Roger Brierley (Andrews) was Trevor in (episode 8 of) The Daleks' Master Plan, and voiced Drathro in The Mysterious Planet
• Preston [Rginald Herbert] Lockwood (Fain) was Dojjen in Snakedance
• Barbara Ward (Reporter) was Ruth Baxter in Terror of the Vervoids
• Jessica [born Judith] Carney (Maureen) is the grand-daughter of William Hartnell and the author of his 1996 biography Who's There? (she was depicted in An Adventure in Space and Time by Cara Jenkins)
• Julian Fox (Porter) was Peter Hamilton in Death to the Daleks
• Zulema [Noel] Dene [born Walliker] (Vision Mixer) voiced Danna for Soldier Obscura (2018)
• Ernest Vincze was also the cinematographer on thirty-eight adventures (from Rose to The Waters of Mars)