Doctor Who Vs. The Monocled Mutineer

Shown over four consecutive Sunday nights
from August 31 to September 21 1986 to ten
million viewers on BBC1, this seminal work
attracted controversy from the right-wing
commentators, who again accused the BBC
of left-wing bias.

The historical drama, written by Alan Bleasdale,

was adapted from the book (published in 1978)

by William Allison and John Fairley. The authors

 also faced criticism from the Tory press.
The BBC had originally approached Bleasdale
in 1981 to adapt the book, which dramatised
the life of Percy Toplis (1896-1920), a British
Army deserter present at the Etaples mutiny
 of September 1917, during the Great War.

The series was only repeated once by the BBC, 

in 1988. The VHS release of 1999 was followed

 by a DVD version in 2007.
As part of the Corporation's commemoration 

of the start of the First World War, Matthew
Sweet examined the impact of The Monocled Mutineer in Free Thinking, broadcast on Radio 3 in April 2014. The

BAFTA winning drama (last repeated on Forces TV in 2017) featured

Best Actor nominee Paul McGann (pictured in his breakthrough role

as Toplis), and twenty-three other Doctor Who cast and crew alumni:

• Penelope [Alice] Wilton (Lady Angela) played Harriet Jones MP in Aliens of London, World War Three, The Christmas Invasion and The Stolen Earth
• Cherie [Mary] Lunghi (Dorothy) voiced Lady Adela Forster for Big Finish's The Emerald Tiger (2012)
• Ron Donachie (Strachan) was a Steward in Tooth and Claw
• Timothy [Lancaster] West (Thomson) voiced Kai Tobias for Phobos (2007), Ronald Turvey for Cuddlesome (2008), and Dr. Magnus Soames for House of Blue Fire (2011)
• David Allister (Asser) was Stimson in The Leisure Hive, and Bruchner in Terror of the Vervoids
• Philip McGough (Woodhall) was Sergeant [Graham] Calder in Resurrection of the Daleks
• Richard [John] Ireson (Ritchie) was Axus in The Krotons, and Soldier in The Mind Robber
• Noel [Philip] Coleman (Sir John) was General Smythe in The War Games
• Malcolm Terris (Johnson) was Etnin in The Dominators, and the Co-Pilot in The Horns of Nimon
• Eric Mason (Sgt. Major) was Green in The Mind of Evil, and CPO Smedley in The Sea Devils
• Anthony Calf (Guinness) made his TV debut as Charles in The Visitation, was Colonel Godsacre in Empress of Mars, and voiced Lord Barset for Frozen Time (2007), and Cal for Zero Space (2018)
• [John] Anthony Carrick (Parry) was Captain Rossini in The Masque of Mandragora
• Jim [Edward] Carter (Spencer) voiced Brother Bernard in The Book of Kells (2010)
• John Owens (C.O.) was Thorpe in The Daemons
• [Rosemary] Rowena Cooper (Miss Cruikshank) was Angela Price in The Sarah Jane Adventures: Lost in Time, then voiced La Concierge for Demon's Quest: The Demon of Paris (2010), Emily Shaw for The Last Post (2012) and The Cloisters of Terror (2015), Jean Bazemore for Jago & Son, Mother Superior for The Unbound Universe (both 2016) and Ruler of the Universe (2017), and Queen Victoria for The Victorian Age, The Torchwood Archive, Jago & Litefoot Forever (2018) and Infidel Places (2022)
• John Benfield [born Jonathan Edmund Fulford Turner] (Extra) voiced Don for Circular Time: Autumn (2007), and Captain Greeg for The Song of Megaptera (2010)
• David Arlen [born Sydney Bough], Terry Paris, Timothy Block and Iestyn Jones were Warrior Guard in The Mutants, Grecian Wrestler in Four to Doomsday, Tanner in Black Orchid, and ISA crewman in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship respectively
• Tariq Anwar was also the film editor on The Sun Makers and The Five Doctors
• Matthew Kuipers was production manager on K9 & Company too
• Graham Brown was also a SFX assistant on Resurrection of the Daleks and Attack of the Cybermen, uncredited VFX assistant 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