Simon Guerrier's Blog, page 91

Vision On: Bleach for Kids

M'colleague Web of Evil shared with me the wonder that is Vision On - A Book Of Nonsense With Some Sense In It, an annual tied in to the TV show Vision On, published by the BBC in 1970 and on sale for 12s 6d. (My edition, obviously, came from the wonder that is Abebooks.)

It's edited by the show's producer Patrick Dowling, with contributions from presenters Tony Hart and Pat Keysell. The first page explains that,

"This is a sort of alphabet book for anyone who likes painting or drawing". 

But, just to be different, it's not in alphabetical order and starts with L (for lightning). Over 60 pages, it takes the precocious child reader through everything from photographic effects to sign language, with all sorts of things to experiment with rather than copy and a lot of terrible jokes. The black-and-white photo-strips of a tortoise called Humphrey being grumpy with a small girl called Susanne are chillingly surreal.

The book is a fascinating snapshot of another world, and there's loads to enjoy in its range and the effort that's clearly been put in to being both concise and extraordinary. The design is unsophisticated compared to modern kids' publishing, but they've struggled to make the most of the cut-and-paste layout and (mostly) two-colour printing.

I love the full page portrait of Winston Churchill made from Ms, Vs, 1s, &s and full stops.

"In fact this picture was made by computer ... The computer input scans a photograph deciding how grey each tiny area is, choosing a letter to match, and then the outline printer rattles it off." 

How mad that the subject for this display of cutting-edge technology is the late and reactionary Prime Minister. But best of all is page 36, which encourages readers to experiment with bleach.


More about Vision On at It's Prof Again.

On writing Blake's 7

The tyrannical forces from the Horizon website have interrogated me and posted my full confession about writing Blake's 7. I am just off to be shot.

Virgin Media Shorts Award 2012

On Thursday, the nice people at Virgin Media organised a showbiz soiree and awards ceremony for those of us what got shortlisted in the Virgin Media Shorts competition 2012. First, director Tom spent the afternoon at the BFI schmoozing with the other directors, getting good tips and free booze. Here is an exclusive photo he took from that part of the day:


Me, Adrian Mackinder and Mrs Tom had special pink VIP tickets for the evening do (which I think meant we had to queue longer than the people with bog ordinary tickets, but anyway). We were given nice booklets with interviews with each of the shortlisted directors, including Tom doing his best impression of Sir Roger Moore:


NB That interview talks about what we hope will be our next project, though I prefer "Coronation punk" to "atompunk". The main ticket area of the BFI sported cool displays of props and behind-the-scenes photos from the 13 films.



Above our heads were the amazing posters produced to promote our films. Here is our one:


Then us pink-ticketed VIPs were called to take our seats for the awards ceremony. You can see that I took the instruction on my ticket to "dress to impress" more seriously than the other two layabouts. I mean, Tom isn't even wearing a tie. (It took me half an hour to knot that bow tie, as I think I may have told everyone.)


While we waited for the rest of the audience to show up, we drank small bottles of Champagne through straws. This would later turn out to be something of an error, but it seemed good fun at the time. Adrian's colleague took the below photo. Excitingly, she turned out to be the granddaughter of Colin Douglas who played Reuben in The Horror of Fang Rock . She was very impressed that I knew this. Or perhaps a little scared. And this was only the beginning of my amazing Doctor Who-related celebrity spotting.


Danny Wallace did the hosting, and Tom was called down with the other directors to receive a fancy, framed version of the poster for our film. The nice lady in green is Jennifer Sheridan who won the competition with her splendid film, Rocket .



Then they showed the 13 films.  The Plotters  was on first and got some good laughs. Mostly from Adrian, beside me.



Then Chief Judge Julie Walters announced the winners of the three prizes. She accidentally didn't say The Plotters and named some other films instead, but we didn't like to make a fuss.


Then it was out again into the ticket hall for booze and schmoozing and perhaps even some dance moves. I got to meet a bunch of the other directors, and said hello to Big Finish's own Lisa Greenwood who - showbizly - I'd last seen in LA, Joe Millson and Andrew and Hannah off of Primeval . I think I spotted Nina Toussaint-White from Let's Kill Hitler there, too, so it was quite a high-scoring night.


And then, oh God, there were cocktails...

Radio Times letters: the end of Blake's 7

M'colleague M handed me a yellowed copy of the Radio Times letters page of 16-22 January 1982, with comments on the shock finale of Blake's 7 . "These letters are typical of an unusually large number we have received - around 200 - following the final episode of Blake's Seven", says the editor. Neatly, they've chosen to print seven of the 200.
Radio Times letters page, 16-22 January 1982There's so much to be thrilled by: the (Mrs)s, the passive aggression, the casual racism of the cartoon, the context of the other shows ending, and the editor's chilling, unspoken verdict on The Borgias : "New series of both Tenko and Angels are planned for later this year."

Also of interest: Peter Anghelides recounts his trip to TV Centre to see the finale of Blake's 7 being filmed.

My next big thing

Paul Magrs started a thing of getting people to talk about their next big thing. Last week, Joseph Lidster did it and nominated me. So here is my response.

What is the title of your new book?
Instead of a book, Joe “Makes His Own Rules” Lidster talked about his episodes of Wizards Vs Aliens. So my next big thing is also not a book but the short film, The Plotters, which you can watch here:


(The Plotters is also on YouTube.)

Where did the idea come from for the book?
My brother Tom and I have been working together for a few years – him as a director, me as a writer / dogsbody. We made a series of documentaries for the old-skool Doctor Who DVDs, and then last year completed our first short film, Cleaning Up, a thriller starring Mark Gatiss and Louise Jameson.

Since then, Cleaning Up has been playing film festivals and getting us in to see agents and productions companies. At Shortcutz in April (where we won Best Film), Nik Powell – director of the National Film and Studio School – advised us that there was a demand for strong comedy films, and we were keen to show our range by doing something different.

We knew the deadline for the Virgin Media Shorts competition – to make a short, self-contained film of no more than 2 minutes 20 seconds – was coming up. But I also knew from experience that comedy is not necessarily my strongest area. So we looked around for help.

We’d already worked with comedy writer and producer Adrian Mackinder on another short, Revealing Diary , so took him out for drinks. Tom and I both suggested ideas for a comedy short, and then Adrian mentioned an idea he’d already been working on a while back with writer Hannah George, about Guy Fawkes and the Plotters. We thought it was brilliant, so – with Hannah’s kind permission – Adrian unearthed their script and we went from there…

What genre does your book fall under?
Historical comedy.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
Adrian stars as Guy Fawkes. The rest of the cast was made up of good, comic actors Tom and I already knew: Barnaby Edwards and Nicholas Pegg (who I knew from Doctor Who things: they play Daleks on TV); Anthony Keetch and John Dorney (who I knew through production company Big Finish); my friend Will Howells who’s a rather good stand-up comic; and a number of fine fellows Tom knew. I also played a policeman at the end.

The first cut of the film was well over four minutes, with some amazing comic turns from the actors. They were brilliant. So it was agonising having to cut so much of that to fit the time.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?Remember, remember... who are you again?

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
We posted the film to the Virgin Media Shorts competition website, and in September it was one of 13 films to make the shortlist – you can see all 13 at www.virginmediashorts.com. As a result, it’s now playing in more than 200 Picturehouse cinemas around the UK, in front of main features, as well as on Virgin OnDemand and Tivo. That’s all very exciting in itself, and then tomorrow (8 November) we find out which of the 13 films wins additional prizes.

Tom and I are not currently represented by an agency, though we’ve had some promising meetings with agents in the last few months.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
Adrian provided me with his and Hannah’s original script on 24 May. My first notes followed that same day, and then we knocked it back and forth between me, Adrian and Tom. I provided them with a nearly-there draft on 2 June and we had a locked version on 9 June, although that was still titled “Five Eleven”. The next day, a friend pointed out that that joke had been done in an episode of Mongrels, so instead I, er, pinched the name of a Doctor Who book by my friend Gareth Roberts.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? 
If I had no humility at all, I would say Monty Python, Blackadder or Horrible Histories.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Tom is a fierce and pitiless tyrant of a boss. We also had a limited budget and amount of time to make another short, so the competition deadline and Adrian and Hannah’s idea all fitted perfectly. There was about six weeks from deciding we were going to make the film to delivering it.

But the gag of the film is based on the famous picture of the plotters in the National Portrait Gallery’s collection:
The Gunpowder Plot Conspirators, 1605
National Portrait Gallery #334aWhat else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
This handsome, behind-the-scenes picture:

I now have to tag five writers to continue this thing and answer the same questions on Wednesday next week. They are: Ben Aaronovitch; Scott Andrews; Niall Boyce; Andrew Cartmel and Una McCormack.

Doctor Who day at Blackwells, London this Saturday

Blackwells bookshop on the Charing Cross Road are celebrating the release of the splendid book,  Doctor Who: A History of the Universe in 100 Objects with Doctor Who antics this Saturday.

Full details and book tickets from the Blackwells blog.

At 2 pm, I'll be interviewing authors James Goss and Steve Tribe about the book, then joining Joseph Lidster and Mark Morris to talk about writing novels, audiobooks and episodes, and then there's a fiendishly difficult Doctor Who quiz. Why not come along?

"Frankenstein Meets Dracula" by Donald E Glut

Yesterday, m'colleague Web of Evil presented me with two fine volumes purloined from a second-hand bookshop. The first was Doctor Who: Nightshade by Mark Gatiss, now 20 years old and which I have previously blogged about.

The other volume is The New Adventures of Frankenstein: No. 4 Frankenstein Meets Dracula by Donald E Glut (who later novelised The Empire Strikes Back), published by New English Library in December 1977. The cover seems to show Boris Karloff's Frankenstein meeting, er, Mel Brooks' Dracula:


It's a slim bit of shlocky horror - 140 pages for 80p - but a joy to behold. I've only flipped through it, thrilled by the adverts at the back for the most intriguing titles:


And look at the books listed under "General":

Sadly (given the three books before it), The Long Banana Skin turns out to be an autobiography of a Goon. So I flipped back through the novel looking for a random page which might give a flavour of the story. The words "Burt Winslow's Journal" caught my eye - there's surely no more spine-tingling name in all of horror - and the prose that followed is a pretty damn perfect:

Robert Shearman interviewed by me - podcast

Listen to Robert Shearman read a new short story in a special podcast. Rob was the guest of the British Science Fiction Association in September, where he performed "The Dark Space in the House in the House in the Garden at the Centre of the World" and was then interviewed by me.

Hear the podcast at http://thedoctorwhopodcast.com/upload/RobShearmanBSFA.mp3 WARNING: the podcast includes adult themes and language, and is not suitable for children.

Special thanks to Tony Cullen and Tony Keen at the BSFA, Tony Whitmore for recording the evening and James "Tony" Rockliffe at thedoctorwhopodcast.com.

Sarkastic

An afternoon in Greenwich seeing chums. Greenwich Park was busy with workmen and tractors dismantling the Olympic arena, which meant the pathways were all hemmed in and there are great gouges in the ground. Difficult to not feel a pang at what's been done, despite the success of the Games.

Also had a chance to nose round the newly restored Cutty Sark. I'd last been there in 2004 for a wedding, with a disco on the low-ceiled upper deck. I had to dance between the steel girders that came down to my shoulders. How strange to return to it in its new glory - and be so disappointed.

First, it's £12 for an adult ticket, which is pretty steep and made me glad I was visiting on my own. You'd expect some pretty good interpretation for that money, but no. You pass through the expensive gift shop, up a ramp into the lowest part of the ship. There, a few of the beams are labelled - which would be quite useful if you knew your nautical structural terminology.

There are then what look like stacked crates of tea, with brief captions explaining the history of tea in the UK (introduced in the 1650s, made fashionable a decade later by Catherine of Braganza and then the essential British drink when, to counter Dutch traders smuggling the stuff, the tax on it was significantly reduced). There's also a short film about the Cutty Sark itself, and more about its owners and the races its raced in.

You then move upstairs to the level I once danced in... and it seemed a little bare. I read everything to be read and it took less than 10 minutes. I guess that might have been different if the place had been crowded, but there was nothing to hold the interest for more than a moment: a display about the type of sheep that were traded, a reference to the opium wars (rather glossing over what the British inflicted on China to protect its own trade).

The deck affords amazing views of London - with the Shard and the London Eye clear even on a nasty day:

View from the deck of the Cutty Sark, looking west up the ThamesI nosed around the small, cramped rooms and there was a fun projected film of a sailor explaining his work. But again, it was all a bit sparse, with little to excite the imagination or encourage further investigation. I love an obscure top fact, and there was nothing for me.

I took the lift down to the lower floor (the lift building is built on the spot where the TARDIS lands in Dimensions in Time - the philistines) and emerged into what I thought was an expensive cafe. There's something odd about the way the coffee bar dominates one end of this otherwise eye-popping space, the gleaming, copper bottom of the ship hanging in the air above you. It gives the space a cold and corporate feeling, like the ship is merely an expensive bit of art in the lobby of some faceless multinational.



Moving away from the coffee bar made for a better effect, and as I stood underneath the huge vessel, it reminded me of the Saturn V rocket on its side at Cape Canaveral - the same scale, the same sense of travel as adventure and art.



At the end of the room was a strange display of figureheads, which might have been more appealing if there'd been more about what each represented, or how their role changed over time. It's nice to look at but tells you nothing of note.

You climb the steps at the end to a viewing gallery, but then have to double back and return to the coffee bar to make your way out - through the expensive shop. I was there less than half an hour, and read all the captions. The worst thing is that I love the Cutty Sark - it played a part in my first date with the Dr all those years ago, and was a landmark when I lived down the road. I even had the Slitheen sail it round the Mediterranean in a Doctor Who book. I already adored the ship; it took a lot to be left so cold. A costly disappointment.

Lord Lethbridge-Stewart

In August 2004, I attended the recording of the first Doctor Who audio play I'd written, about the Doctor's friends at UNIT.  The story, "The Coup", was given away on a covermount CD with Doctor Who Magazine #351 later that year and is now available to download for free from the Big Finish website.

"The Coup" was a pilot for a new UNIT spin-off series. In my episode, the Doctor's old friend General Sir Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart (more often known as "the Brigadier") called out of retirement to announce that UNIT is being merged with another security force, just as Silurians attack London.

While we were recording it, I got to chat to actor Nicholas Courtney about whether he'd been asked to appear in the new TV version of Doctor Who (which had started filming just a few weeks before). We also chatted about where the Brigadier might go next, and - since I'd recently started freelancing for the House of Lords at that point - talked about the Brig being made a noble and gallant Lord in honour of his services to Britain and the earth. Nick seemed rather taken by the idea, and mentioned it when he appeared on Doctor Who Confidential in 2005.

I wrote up a rough idea in case Big Finish wanted ideas for a second series of UNIT. I pitched it a couple of years later when there was a suggestion of featuring our new UNIT characters in one of BF's new main-range Doctor Who stories. I've reworked it and repitched it to a few other people, but it was never quite what they wanted and/or wasn't practical because of Nick's declining health.

Since it will never happen now, here's the outline as it was the last time I pitched it. At that time, I was asked to pitch it without a specific Doctor or companion in mind, hence the generic "Sharon":

Doctor Who: The Little Monsters 

Outline by Simon Guerrier 

Pre-titles:

The Doctor and Sharon arrive outside a primary school in Bolton, some years into the future. The school is surrounded by soldiers, the press and people wielding placards. The Doctor pushes his way through and introduces Sharon to his old friend the Brigadier – now in the House of Lords but in charge of this morning’s operation. 

The Doctor quickly explains UNIT’s mandate to Sharon: investigating alien activity on Earth and protecting the humans. And then spaceships drift down through the clouds above them. A vast war fleet of different species, says the Doctor, united in a common aim. 

There are cries of outrage from the local people as Lethbridge-Stewart welcomes the visitors. This is all his doing, explains the Doctor. Alien children are arriving from all across the galaxy, and this is their first day at school. 

Titles. 

The Doctor helps UNIT (Chaudhry etc. from the UNIT series) to look after the school and handle the media. People object vociferously to humans being taught alongside aliens, and it’s ironic that UNIT be the ones to protect the aliens. 

Things aren’t helped when a human child and an alien have an argument, and the human child gets badly burned. The media are on it, and it takes all Chaudhry’s PR savvy to keep the school open the next day. Children can’t be held accountable to the same standards as adults, and there’s still a lot to be learnt. Anyway, now Earth has made itself known in the galaxy, parents can’t afford to be parochial about education. This is the only way for humans to thrive.
Despite this, there are fewer pupils in the next day, many being kept at home. They’re short on teachers too, so the Doctor helps out where he can. 

Sharon goes with Lethbridge-Stewart to London, where he is answering questions in the House - what they are doing is still accountable to the British people, as well as being watched with interest by the world. The noble Lords give him a roasting, but no one can deny Lethbridge-Stewart’s history of saving the planet, and his commitment to keeping it safe. They seem to have won the moment. 

Sharon is on the news. She’s able to explain that yes, it is a bit weird with the aliens. She gets scared too, and it’s worse seeing places she knows threatened. It brings out instinctive feelings, but they need to be stronger than that. 

There’s amazing things to be seen in the galaxy, and amazing things to be learned. And she feels sorry for anyone who’s going to miss out because their parents are too scared to let them.
And then, in the Doctor’s class, there are some disruptive elements. There’s a fire in the school, and then human parents storm the place to rescue their children. They don’t mean to, but it ends up with them taking a whole load of alien children hostage. They are good people, just anxious about their own children. 

With the Doctor and Chaudhry caught up there, Lethbridge-Stewart and Sharon are in the House of Lords when there’s an alien invasion, and the Commons is taken over. But unlike the career politicians cowering in there, the Lords is full of old men with military experience. Lethbridge-Stewart and Sharon rally them into a resistance, and they take back the Palace of Westminster. 

The Doctor and Chaudhry also put together a resistance, but they’re combating human parents. They are caught up in the hostage negotiations, and seem to be getting somewhere when the news comes through that Lethbridge-Stewart demands a surrender from the aliens. It looks like he may have just declared war. 

And then Sharon’s mum is on the news. She’s much older than Sharon knows her, because this is the future. And she seems to know what Sharon’s future is… (depending on which companion this is, we could foreshadow all sorts of good stuff). 

The press have tracked her down, and she explains that yes, she fears for Sharon’s safety, but that she can’t wrap her up in cotton wool. Better she’s allowed to go and explore, than she never sees anything ever. Sharon’s mum says she’s proud of her daughter for wanting to do all she’s done. And she, Sharon’s mum, has to think about what’s best for her, and not be scared that she’s growing up. 

The alien and human parents back off, to find their children are already getting on with each other while their backs were turned. Apparently it is cheating to use you ability to fly in hopscotch. An armistice is agreed, and the Doctor makes sure the children see their parents apologising to each other. That is his lesson for the day. 

Everything seems fine with Lethbridge-Stewart’s legacy for the future. Chaudhry is much happier that UNIT is safe-guarding finger-painting rather than hunting down monsters – it’s a much easier sell to the press. And Sharon’s mum knows better than to tell Sharon what’s in store for her – even though it’s heart-breaking.