Interview: Barry Letts

Interview with the writer, director and producer during Jon Pertwee's tenure.

Find out Barry's thoughts on his brand new Sarah Jane Smith audio adventure, The Tao Connection, Doctor Who's moral impact and writing Doctor Who for radio.

Photo: Ralph Montagu

What have you done to þupdate' the character of Sarah Jane for the new Millennium?

Nothing specific, with one exception (see next answer). When I'm writing a character I know, I just imagine her in the situations of the story and let her speak and act for herself.

In this case, I just imagined the Sarah Jane that Terrance and I created as she would be after growing up for some twenty years.

Did you get any guidance from Elisabeth herself regarding how she wanted Sarah written?

Yes. She was keen that the assertiveness that was already implicit in the character should have developed - even into ruthlessness, should the story demand it.

What can you tell us about The TAO Connection?

My interest in Buddhism has increased since the days of Planet of the Spiders. Taoism is very closely allied to Buddhism. It would be true to say that Chan, the Chinese precursor of Japanese Zen, is a combination of the two. However, I have selected just one aspect of Tao practice, the seeking of physical longevity as a þlaunch-pad' for spiritual immortality, and made it the basis of my story. I doubt if a real Taoist practitioner would approve!

Did you re-watch K-9 and Company before getting to work on your script, and do you think it's a good blueprint for a Sarah Jane series?

No. Lis herself thought that this would not be a particularly good idea.

What do you find are the advantages of writing for audio as opposed to books or for the visual medium?

The old gag: the scenery is better; your not limited in your choice of location; and you can have as many monsters, or whatever, as you want. And one has the feeling that one is speaking directly to the mind of the audience.

Which other companion would you like to see get their own spin-off and why?

I don't know the other companions, apart from Jo Grant, well enough to say. One might be able to write a comedy series for the lovely Katy Manning.

What moral impact do you think Doctor Who has had on the nation, and do you think this current generation are worse off due to the lack of new Doctor Who adventures on television? It's impossible to guess what moral impact the series may have had. Putting on a popular series is very like living your own life. Your behaviour and beliefs are bound to affect the people you meet, but what the results will be is anybody's guess.

Good will always tend to lead towards good, bad towards bad, violence towards violence and so on. Other than that...

Question from Andrew Clarkson

If you were to produce Doctor Who today, what sort of character would the Doctor be? And would his adventures take place mostly on Earth or on other worlds?

Brilliant but fallible; good-hearted but sometimes irascible; moral but ruthless; etc. That is, the mixture as before. Anything else? Show me the actor and we'll discuss it further.

Variety is not only the spice of life, it's the secret of success in telling stories - especially long-running series.

Question from Chris Uhl

Can you shed a little light on your day-to-day role as executive or þcaretaker' producer of Doctor Who in season 18, the first season with JNT as producer?

I wasn't in any sense a þcaretaker' producer. Every series had always had an executive producer, but in my time as producer (in the Pertwee era) he wasn't called that, as he was the þHead of Drama Serials', and responsible for all the shows coming out of that department.

His input was firstly to read the final scripts and make any editorial comments that came up - like Ronnie Marsh telling me that we couldn't have the Master raising Azal, the Daemon, inside the village church, as it would offend too many people; which is why we invented the cavern under the church. He also saw the final edited version of each episode, for similar reasons. Obviously, if he thought the standard was slipping he would say so, forcibly.

Luckily we seemed to be on an upward curve in that respect! He would also be involved in discussing any major casting decisions, like the replacement of the Doctor. But the producer was in charge of everything to do with the making of the show. Now, JNT's taking over happened to coincide with the merging of two large Drama departments, Series and Serials. Graeme Macdonald, my boss, then current Head of Serials, suddenly found himself with a double work load: twice as many shows to oversee, and twice as many people to be a father-figure to.

So he asked me to take on his role vis-á-vis Doctor Who, temporarily. He also felt, that as there was also a new script editor, I could supply an element of continuity. And that was it. John was the absolute producer from the start.

To be honest, if I'd been less egotistical and had just done the job without putting my name on the credits, very few of these questions would have been raised. I know John always felt fed-up that people were apt to assume that he wasn't in total charge during that first year, and I don't blame him.

Question from Brett Butterfield

If you could remake one of the stories you produced, with today's technology which one would you chose and why?

Planet of the Spiders for the scenes on Metebelis, which never looked right. The Green Death for the cavern scenes using Chromakey (the blue-screen process, known to the BBC as Colour Separation Overlay; though on Doctor Who we used yellow, rather than blue).

But most of all, Invasion of the Dinosaurs to get rid of those horrible lumping puppet things. Just imagine what it would have looked like if we had had the resources of Walking with Dinosaurs!

Question from Dallas Jones

How do you go about creating a Doctor Who companion like Sarah Jane-Smith? Is there always a concerted effort to do something new, or does the character just evolve through the actor/actress?

Yes there is, and yes it does. Sarah Jane herself was deliberately made into a feisty independent journalist, not a companion as such, to reflect changing attitudes to women, and to provide a contrast to the somewhat scatty Jo Grant. But as the writers got to know Lis in the character, they tailored their input to suit her.

Question from Guy Lambert

What qualities did you look for when casting for a replacement for Jon Pertwee as The Doctor and what qualities would you look for if casting for a new Doctor today?

A good actor, with enough gravitas to make you believe that he could be a Time Lord. The show could easily deteriorate into a trivial pantomime; a personality and something of an eccentric in his own right, so that you would always want to watch him, even if he hadn't got much to do; somebody willing to commit themselves to the series for at least three years.

Question from Paul Pickford

After your long and successful time producing Doctor Who, was it difficult handing over the reins to Philip Hinchcliffe?

Not at all. I was quite pleased to be moving on after so long, and it was clear that Philip, with Bob Holmes as his script editor, was going to do the job well.

Question from Peter Stevens

Looking back, what do you think of The Paradise of Death and The Ghosts Of N-Space now?

Is this a loaded question? Are you talking about the radio serials or the books, or both?

The Paradise of Death was cited by the publisher, to new writers for the series, as an exemplar for the Missing Adventures; The Ghosts of N-Space was voted in a survey as the least favourite book of the readers of the series!

Both got large audiences on the radio and have sold very well indeed as recordings. I know (being as objective as I can) that they are both well written, so what was all that about?

Well, Paradise was a very straightforward story, very much in the vein of the Doctor Who stories we used to do with Jon Pertwee. Whereas, in Ghosts I had fun, playing around with the concepts of serendipity and synchronicity - fortunate accidents and meaningful coincidences, without any cause - and also had a complex plot structure which hopped around amongst three different periods, quite apart from visiting the after-life. It all seems very clear to me - but Jon and Nick Courtney both said that they hadn't a clue what was going on! Perhaps I went too far for the genre.

One technical point: In Paradise I found a writing device so that, in the radio version, action could be legitimately described by a watcher, seeing through somebody else's eyes. (In The TAO Connection mobile phones give me the same facility). In Ghosts Sarah was reduced to speaking her thoughts out loud, describing for the audience what she was seeing. Not good radio writing.

Question from Phillip Madeley

What were your favourite books, films, and TV shows when you were young?

Books? Wind in the Willows; Professor Branestawm; the Just William books; the Arthur Ransome Books; every sci fi book I could lay my hands on. Films? All the Fred Astaires; Snow White and Pinocchio; The Wizard of Oz; Things to Come.

TV? Don't forget the war. Only a few of the rich had TV between 1936 and 1939. Then it stopped. I saw my first TV programme in 1947, when I was 22 (yes, I'm a real old codger now). It was a production of George Bernard Shaw's play Androcles and the Lion, in which my sister Pauline was playing a principal role. It was done live from Ally Pally.

TV sets were so few and far between that I had to go to a viewing room in Broadcasting House to watch it (very few tickets available). I didn't have access to a TV set for regular viewing until 1957. By that time, I was married with two children and appearing regularly on the box myself.

Question from Sterling Jones