Doctor Who has been nominated in the Best Television category of the British Fantasy Awards. Now in their 38th year the awards are presented by the British Fantasy Society and Guy Adams is the Chair of the organisation. He's written books about Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes and Torchwood but talked to us about the awards and why Doctor Who still retains the power to zap him back to being an 8-year old...
You must have followed the revival of Doctor Who very carefully since 2005. Why do you feel it's proven so successful?
Guy Adams: Because it's so incredibly good! It's happy to terrify us one minute and make us laugh the next. It can be grimy and claustrophobic or beautiful and expansive. That's pure storytelling, that combination of wonder and the mundane, the day to day that we can relate to coupled with the fantastic that we would love to experience. It's a very human show, equal parts spectacle and intimacy.
What's been your favourite Doctor Who story since its revival?
GA: Probably Midnight, for all my love of the panoramic and breathtaking, sometimes you just can't beat a bunch of people shouting at one another in a little room. It was just such engaging, creepy stuff.
You've just introduced a category for television programmes in the British Fantasy Awards. It's over 50 years since The Quatermass Experiment! What took you so long? Seriously, why have you chosen this year to introduce the new category?
GA: I'm a great fan of good television and often think there's a ridiculous snobbery about it, people thinking that TV is a "lesser" form of entertainment and not worthy of celebration. So, when I took over as Chair of the society last September one of the first things we did was to add a television category just so that snobbery was wiped out. Great stories come in lots of different forms, books, films, comics, radio, TV... fiction doesn't care what media it's in so neither should the awards.
Battlestar Galactica is another nominee for Best Television. What would you say are the big differences between UK and US science fiction/fantasy?
GA: I don't think the differences are tangible anymore. The extreme cliché would have it that Americans take themselves far more seriously, only creating epic drama, the sort of stories that need big kettle drums being beaten all the way through. Whereas English sci-fi and fantasy is more whimsical, little, kooky stories that speak quietly and gaze at their shoes trying to be clever. I'm not sure it's ever really been true, there are shows that conform to that pattern but there are just as many that break it.
Which is the best? And no sitting on the fence pretending you don't have an opinion one way or the other!
GA: Doctor Who. I love Battlestar Galactica but watching Doctor Who makes me feel like I'm eight years old, constantly on the verge of some great emotional outburst. Honesty, I literally regress as soon as I hear the theme tune, much to the considerable embarrassment of my partner and teenage stepsons (who are both FAR more grown up than I on a daily basis anyway...)
Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale (nominated in the Best Non-Fiction category) offered a surprising look into the Russell T Davies' world. How did your members react to it?
GA: They loved it, as did I. On a selfish level the book was a relief to me, it was good to know I wasn't the only idiot writing for a living that left everything until the last minute and then agonized over it.
Fans of Doctor Who tend to be a creative bunch. The BFS run short story competitions, don't you? Is it a good way to start writing or is it for established authors?
GA: It's an excellent place to start, as is submitting work to one of our magazines. Writers learn by writing, simple as that. Anything that gives you the motivation to write for an audience (and then have it rejected and then try it again... repeat until successful) is a good thing. You learn nothing knocking out words in isolation.
With thanks to Guy Adams
