Recalling Last Sunday at the FAB Cafe with Terrance Dicks!

Christian Cawley is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Last week (Sunday 19th April 2015) I headed over to Manchester (following a scenic drive from South Yorkshire) for “Mac and Me: An Afternoon with Terrance Dicks”, in which the former Doctor Who script editor discussed his friend and colleague, Malcolm Hulke.

You might have been there yourself, and if so will know that it was a fantastic afternoon, pulled together by Gareth Kavanagh and kicked off with a fascinating summary of Mac Hulke’s pre-Doctor Who work by Michael Herbert, writer of the surprisingly comprehensive pamphlet, Doctor Who and the Communist. In case you weren’t aware, Hulke – a collaborative writer on stories such as The War Games and The Ambassadors of Death, as well as the creator of The Silurians and The Dinosaur Invasion – was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain for some of his life.

The atmosphere in the Fab Cafe was bristling with anticipation; this was a quite different Doctor Who event, one with a big dose of politics thrown in, as well as some history. Herbert’s talk set the scene nicely and filled in a lot of the blanks. While the audience seemed to be largely comprised of people in the post-35 age group, many of which would have known at least some of the history, we were all gripped by Michael, which bodes well for his college course on Doctor Who!

Now, if you weren’t there, worry not. The event has been recorded by several people (me included) and one version has been uploaded to YouTube by AffieFilms, which you can see below. This is the full event:

Meanwhile, if 47 minutes looks a bit too long, here’s a shortened version:

My own recordings of the event will form features on the podKast over the next few weeks. We kicked off with the Q&A session in last week’s edition.

As ever with these types of event, the highlight was having a few moments to chat to the man himself (although I had spoken to Terrance on the phone a few week’s previously), and have him sign a reissued copy of Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters, for which he provided a foreword. Unfortunately, I’m not a big fan of autographs, but I find they make superb gifts…

A message from the great Terrance Dicks to my son.

A photo posted by Kasterborous (@kasterborousdw) on Apr 20, 2015 at 2:38pm PDT

As you may know, Gareth Kavanagh – one of the brains behind Vworp Vworp! - has pulled together a variety of Doctor Who events over the years, and this one was yet another cleverly conceived opportunity, executed with style. Kudos Kavanagh!

Did you attend the event? Did you enjoy the video? Let us know what you thought.

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