Flashback: The Eleven Doctors

I've been meaning to write an article on a Doctor Who fan film series I made a few years back in the summer holidays - and with talk rife at the moment, what better time to talk about my own take on 'Eleven Doctors' - featuring the voices of Matt Smith, William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, and all the rest?

I'm sure it won't be news to anyone reading this, but 2013 is a particularly special year for Doctor Who - its fiftieth anniversary, to be exact. At the time of writing - with filming due to start next month - speculations are wild for what the upcoming special story will be like. Will any the old actors who played the Doctor turn up - like in previous years? And what about including ones that are dead, or very old? Could there be other old guest stars, companions, monsters? What does Steven Moffat have up his sleeve?

Well, I don't have any answers*. But I do have my take on what such a special could be like...

It was back in the summer of 2010, and Matt Smith had just done his first 13 week run playing the Doctor (and only 13 week run, come to think of it!). Added to that, for the first time, the earlier Doctors were being released in toy form - fans could get a complete set of all eleven! In this era, where all the early years of the show are readily available and embraced, this sparked a lot of imaginations...

At the time, I'd done a few films with action figures. The Doctor versus the Daleks, that kind of thing, normally stop motion. With some of them, I'd put on voices - and because I'm rubbish at impressions, using sound clips from the TV show. If I was going to do a 'meetup' adventure of all of them - which was irresistable! - I'd have to make them talk to each other, and that meant using the original actors.

Yep, even Paul McGann!

It was ambitious. Actually, it started off as a one-off - a fun, short episode where the Doctors found themselves together, and decided to argue, ending on a cliffhanger. (I often end things on a cliffhanger, and then never resolve it!) I knew a website which handily offered soundbites from the show, so I was able to pick and choose a range of dialogue for the characters to say, and then piece things together, like a giant jigsaw puzzle. As the scale of the adventure increased - a very exciting prospect! - I quickly exhausted the list, and had to source my own clips from the DVDs, a few audios, deleted scenes, extra games, practically everything (with big thanks to online transcripts of the episodes, saving me a lot of time when I wanted something specific, like opening a door!).

Some ideas I'd had from the start. Others came to me whilst I was collating possible voices - for the story has to be driven by what the characters are able to say, or else the whole thing feels manufactured. One thing was certain - I wanted to feature all the Doctors, taking an equal share of the lead role (a hard task in itself - that's eleven lead characters!). Although I didn't have much choice when it came to companions, as many weren't released yet - I chose Amy, as she was the current one, though I couldn't resist featuring K-9 and Captain Jack too. However, all the big monsters would feature, like in previous specials - so thanks to the range of toys, we had Daleks, Cybermen, The Master (with a rather hammy voice), Weeping Angels, Sea Devils, Sontarans, Autons... the works!

And whilst the plot was always going to be weaker than most, I tried to make it as much like a proper new series story as possible - whilst nicking the general 'quest' format from The Five Doctors, and with a few blatant homages to old stories along the way.

As it turns out, the series was really popular. About two months elapsed between the first and the last part (including a holiday, hence a slightly rushed editing on Part Two), with the production getting slicker as it went - the first part, with static figures in a dark room talking, is a little quaint now I look back. The whole thing totals an hour - pleasingly, about as long as a 'proper' episode!

Plus a short scene at the end, in the new TARDIS set - which has just come out when recording the final part!

So, if you haven't seen it yet, why not have a watch? It's made out of six-inch-tall plastic toys by a teenager (on his own!), with various cardboard spaceships and a back garden becoming a rainforest. But it's bursting with imagination - and who could resist pitting William Hartnell against the Weeping Angels?



For more videos, before and since (I was going to follow this up with other invidual Doctor stories - but I only got as far as a dark Tom Baker tale!), see my Youtube Channel - http://www.youtube.com/user/Aquatics64

And Babelcolour's 'The Ten Doctors' is highly recommended - like this, but made out of video clips. Highly accomplished!

(*though I'd expect something like the Doctor visiting his past - possibly solving a mystery, like the Silence stuff - and so we have quite a few references and cameos, but an actual storyline. Think Wedding of River Song crossed with a Who convention!)

The Oscar Wilde Murder Mysteries

On the 30th August 1889, a very auspicious dinner was held. It was an event to discuss forthcoming material for Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, and among the diners were two of the most acclaimed writers of the forthcoming decade, if not the century. One was Arthur Conan Doyle, who contributed his second novel featuring Sherlock Holmes, 'The Sign of the Four'. In only a few years, Sherlock Holmes would become a household name. As would another writer, but for very different reasons: also attending was Oscar Wilde - the Irish poet, playwright, and personality, later writing 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'.

This meeting provides the incredible conceit behind Gyles Brandreth's ongoing series of novels: what if Oscar Wilde, one of the greatest minds of the age, had investigated murders and crimes, in the style of Sherlock Holmes - together with Conan Doyle (and others) as Watson?

What makes the series far more convincing than you might have first thought, is the level of research. Brandreth - a self confessed Wilde afficiando - plunges you into the time of the 1890s, complete with an array of colourful characters, most of which are real people. Due to Oscar's social standing, he mixes with princes, with acclaimed actresses, and with writers like Bram Stoker - yes, he really did know the man who came to write 'Dracula'. And he captures the vibrant wit and voice of the main character, without reducing him to an endless stream of epigrams and quotes from his plays - at times, delving into Oscar's complex morality and conscience. This grey area chimes well with the dark and shady practices that the books are (entertainingly!) full of - the crimes and corruption that form the 'murder mysteries'.

So far, there are six books in the series - and happily, they can be read in any order. Each is set in a clear place and point in Oscar's life- there's a highly researched picture of London as Oscar would have known it, as well as trips to Italy, and his time spent in Paris, back when he first became famous.

The latest book, published late last year, tackles Oscar's darkest period - the two years of imprisonment, spent in Reading Gaol.
Unlike most of the other books, here there is no Watson figure. It was a time when Oscar found himself cut off from his old way of life, and his old friends, and so rightly it has a very different feel to the rest of the series. Gyles Brandreth takes perhaps a risky approach, by telling the story from Oscar's point of view. He narrates his time spent there, and so we hear of his thoughts and feelings. That this approach is successful, shows what a clear voice the author has shaped throughout the books - that he can get into his mind, and eloquently express the trials and anguish of prison life.

It's a very accomplished book, and like the others in the series, a very good murder mystery indeed. Like the best of them, it keeps you guessing, with a cast of suspicious suspects - although, it's probably best to discount those characters that you know really existed!
In a way, the concrete grounding in fact is the series's weakness. Some of the books feel more researched than others, or having more of a historical basis. They say you should never let the facts get in the way of a good story - although the investigations and murders themselves are fictional (hopefully!), a few of the suspects and cameos are minor celebrities, which can upset the deductive process - where anybody might be the killer!
Nevertheless, there have been a few occasions - including with this book, Oscar Wilde and the Murders at Reading Gaol - just how historically accurate they are. I naively assumed that much of the book, with the inner workings of the prison, with its harsh rules and wardens, were fictionalised, by the author reading between the lines, but no - using detailed accounts from the past, with various documents and testimonies, Gyles Brandreth was able to recreate this dark period of Oscar's life with a high level of detail - that it was so readable does him credit.

 The inside cover of the latest novel provides a final delight - an adaptation of the series could be on the cards, produced with the BBC and also Sprout Pictures, part-owned by a certain Stephen Fry... that would be truly exquisite!