Talking Doctor Who / 60th Anniversary Concert

 

It was Doctor Who Night on BBC Four last night - for two and a half hours at least.

Talking Doctor Who is a new documentary, fronted by David Tennant, broadcast in the run-up to the show's 60th Anniversary. Rather than look at all 60 years, it concentrates purely on the original series through the lens of the actors who played the first eight Doctors.

The programme mainly features archive clips of them appearing as themselves on other TV programmes, with only brief snippets from the series itself.

After Hartnell, Troughton and Pertwee we sidestep to Terry Nation talking about the creation of the Daleks - that clip with him being interviewed at home by Alan Whicker.

Tennant then tells us about what scared him as a child - the clown in The Deadly Assassin having a particular impact.

After a section on Lis Sladen, using interview footage from 2003, we then return to the Doctors with Tom Baker.

There's a diversion to look at K-9, including Tennant's memories of him as a child, and again when working with him on School Reunion.

David also enjoys watching the raw studio footage of the regeneration from Tom to Davison.

We then pass through the remaining Doctors, including McGann in the TV Movie which us wrongly dated on screen to 1986. Pertwee, Tom and Davison get the lion's share of the screen time, with the final three Doctors having only very brief coverage.

The doc ends with the closing scene from Survival Part Three.

If you watch the extras on the DVDs and Blu-ray Collection, you'll have seen all of this archive material before.

The focus on the Doctors will disappoint many as the rest of the companions and the monsters don't really get a look in.

The familiarity of the clips, from programmes like Blue Peter, Nationwide, Pebble Mill, made me think of the (More Than) 30 Years in the Tardis documentary. Indeed, the two docs shared a number of the same clips.

That 1993 effort was a superior production in my mind, having a better mix of Doctors, companions and monsters.

Compared with previous musical celebrations of Doctor Who, the Cardiff concert for the 60th was disappointing from a visual point of view. It was intended for audio broadcast on Radio 2 Sounds after all, and perhaps that was where it really ought to have stayed. The musical pieces were all perfectly performed and well chosen, but you missed seeing them put to clips from the series - and those monsters that used to roam the auditorium terrorising the kiddies.

As far as the pieces go, highlights for me were the suite from the original series, Capaldi's driving theme (Am I A Good Man?), and the brand new anthem which will accompany Gatwa's Doctor, which hints at other Doctor's themes. Fifteen is fantastic.

Ruby's theme didn't grab me in the same way, whereas I've loved those for Martha, Amy and Clara in the past. Maybe it will grow on me, or work better in the context of the stories.

Segun Akinola got a suite of his music, including the Thirteenth's theme and the Bond-like Spyfall score. Other than that, it was mostly a case of Murray's greatest hits, with key tracks from the Tennant and Smith eras.

I had already listened to this on Radio 2, and enjoyed it, but the televised version didn't really add anything. (If anything my enjoyment was reduced, as they had lopped off half an hour's material from the audio version). 

Now if they'd only had some Cybermen scaring the bejaysus out of some kids...