Over the years I’ve been script-editing or mentoring new writers to Big Finish, and found that a good way of saving time and tears was to give them, on day one, a short guide to writing on audio. The following is based on all the things I’ve learned over the years, but also on the original guidelines by Gary Russell which I still have knocking around somewhere.

I understand that writers I haven’t worked with have also been given a copy of this guide, which is hugely gratifying. They will know there is also a section on “compliance” which I haven’t included here as it’s confidential and almost certainly out-of-date (this version of the guide is from 2022, but I wrote it originally back in 2013).

 

HOW TO WRITE A DOCTOR WHO AUDIO ADVENTURE by Jonathan Morris

A brief personal guide to everything I’ve learned about writing Big Finish audios.

 

SCRIPT

The script should be approximately 4750 words long per episode. 4500 words is the minimum, 5000 words the absolute maximum. A 25-minute episode is about 15-20 scenes (fewer scenes on audio than on TV).

Use another script to give you your format in terms of font, font size, margins etc. It’s worth reading several scripts anyway just to get an idea of what one is supposed to look like.

The title page should list the cast, indicating genders, ages, accents, voice types, whether they are aliens, robots etc. and a bit about what sort of person they are.

The number of non-regular cast members varies from play to play but it’s usually about four (larger for a four-part story, as it will be recorded across two days, so there can be one-day actors). Avoid doubling up (using the same actor for two or more parts) where possible as it means they have to attempt accents. One or two line parts are fine i.e. guards, bystanders etc and you can have as many robots and aliens as you like.

As a rule, the fewer characters a story is told with, the better; combining two characters into one results in a much more interesting character. He’s a bus driver, but also an alien spy!

Try to have a mix of characters of different genders, ages, accents and voice types so it’ll be clear throughout who is who, it helps make characters distinctive and memorable.

Your story should be parallel plotted, not linear, with two or more threads, so at any point in the narrative you will always have something to cut away to.

For boring reasons, scripts should be delivered as .doc files in Courier font (or Courier Final Draft).

 

SCENES

Should be about 1-2 pages. Anything longer than 3 pages is worrying. Anything less than half a page is also worrying; on TV you can cut back and forth between scenes but on audio, as it takes time to establish each scene location (i.e. fade out, link music, fade in) it tends to slow things down.

Think in terms of locations that can be established by sound design i.e. a pub, inside a car, a control room, a factory, a cave, a forest, somewhere where it’s raining or thundery. Offices, corridors and living rooms tend to be dull to listen to. On audio you can have as many weird and wonderful locations as you like, and if possible try to add ‘movement’ so the characters aren’t just standing still or sitting as they talk, have them doing something.

Alternating between locations with different sound designs can speed up scene changes and obviate the need for fade outs or linking music i.e. cutting from a quiet office to a car. Try to avoid cutting from a location with one sound design to another with the same sound design.

Nobody knows whether scenes set in cars are supposed to be INT or EXT. It doesn’t matter on audio. Don’t bother saying if a location is DAY or NIGHT unless it sounds different during the day and night.

Everyone in a scene needs to speak within the first half page in order to establish they are present. Try to give everybody in a scene at least one line per page to remind the listener they are still there. If somebody leaves, make it clear when they do, don’t just have them go quiet.

Bearing the above note in mind, ideally you don’t want to have more than four people in each scene. Five is manageable but anything more than five is worrying as it complicates recording and can make scenes hard for the listener to follow.

If someone enters a scene, it needs to be clear, but usually you can get it across with FX: DOOR OPENS and having the new arrival say a line. Ken Bentley gets very irritated by characters saying the name of someone after they appear in a scene, so reserve it only for occasions of surprise/relief/delight.

Doing the Sherlock trick of having someone unexpectedly speaking up to reveal they were in the room all along after two pages is effective on audio but has been done to death.

FADE OUT at the end of a scene to indicate the passage of time, that the next scene doesn’t follow immediately afterwards. Write the dialogue that will be used for the fade out but put it in [square brackets] to make it clear it is not essential.

 

DIALOGUE

The first line of a scene should be a curtain-raiser, the last line a cliff-hanger or curtain-closer. A good rule is to start as late as you can and get out as early as you can.

Robert McKee’s ‘Story’ has some good advice on dialogue which is; people don’t say what they mean but you can tell what they mean from what they say. Avoid having people say things like ‘I’m feeling scared’, ‘I’m very happy’, ‘I have unresolved issues with my mother’.

Avoid giving directions in brackets. It’s the equivalent of putting adverbs after ‘said’ in a novel. The way a line should be said should be clear from the line and its context.

The only exceptions are if people (WHISPER) and (SHOUT) (as they can be used to indicate the geography of the scene – people whisper to those nearby, shout to those far off), lines which involve physical actions such as (RUNNING) or (WHILST REWIRING COMPUTER) and where the meaning is opposite to what is implied by the dialogue because it is (SARCASTIC). You’re also allowed to indicate if a line is a reaction because a character (SEES SOMETHING).

Unless otherwise indicated, the listener is always going to assume each line is a response to the previous line of dialogue, so if it is being directed towards somebody else, you’ll need to have the speaker give that person’s name as they turn to address them.

Keep an eye out for unintentional rhymes, particularly across page breaks and scene breaks.

Keep an eye out for people using other character’s names too often, or for words like ‘Well’ and ‘Just’ cropping up much too often. You can use them, but ration them.

As a general rule Big Finish don’t have narration, but will occasionally permit it if it’s part of the style or a framing device (this will be agreed at the synopsis). We can hear characters reading and writing aloud, making diary entries, etc. but bear in mind the next note.

In dialogue, unless a character is verbose as a character point, speeches should be only one or two lines long (as you look at them on the page) before someone else speaks. Obviously this isn’t a hard and fast rule but I tend to get more and more worried the longer a speech goes on without interruption and look for ways to break it up with other characters saying things.

Try to avoid having characters talking to themselves. The best way to avoid it is by plotting a story so there always at least two people in each scene. If it is unavoidable, keep it brief and try to give a reason why the character is thinking out loud; they’re nervous, or dictating into a tape recorder.

Exposition is a pain in the arse. Listeners will forgive it if it is done subtly, or if it is humorous, if there’s a reason for character A to be saying it or a reason for character B to be asking them to explain something. Try to avoid characters saying things like ‘As you know’ or ‘I can’t believe that I, a world-renowned archaeologist’ or RTD’s favourite ‘Hello, sis, all set for your wedding day?’

Sometimes when writing these things you can get so focussed on characters providing visual info that you also describe what they hear. But as the listener will have heard it too, it’s completely redundant! So avoid lines like ‘It’s so noisy in here!’ or ‘It was like some sort of awful scream.’ The effects will have done the work so the dialogue doesn’t have to.

It’s the modern fashion to cut personal pronouns when they occur at the beginning of a sentence, but be careful to make sure it’s clear if the person is referring to themselves or the addressee i.e. ‘Don’t think we should go in there!’ implies ‘I don’t think...’ while ‘Don’t think we should go in there?’ implies ‘You don’t think...’. If there’s any doubt, leave the personal pronouns in and leave it to the actors to make it work.

Avoid having characters simply describe what they see unless absolutely necessary, in which case get it out of the way as quickly and simply as possible. Try to create reasons why someone would describe what they see (i.e. they’re talking to someone on the phone).

Where possible, try to imply what is seen by the reaction and the dialogue without just having people say what they see; it invariably makes the dialogue more interesting and real.

Make the dialogue as specific to each character as possible; not by giving them verbal tics (though idiosyncratic voices are good) but because, in any given scene, only one character would say such-and-such-a-thing because they’re the only person who knows such-and-such or the only person who’s attitude to the situation is such-and-such. The goal being to have a scene where if you knew who was in it but covered up the characters’ names, you’d know who said each line.

If two people are talking at once, or lines are overlapping, indicate this somewhere with a direction like (OVER PREVIOUS LINE).

If someone is being interrupted, end their line with a dash but indicate the word they were about to – (say)

I’d be wary of having people interrupting to finish someone else’s thought; it’s a bit clunky and Peter Davison will point out that people never do that in real life.

If someone is saying something specific in the background of a scene while other characters are talking in the foreground you need to include that background dialogue as actors can’t be expected to ad lib something usable on the day. i.e. if the Doctor and Leela are having a (WHISPER) conversation during a science lecture, you need to write out the science lecture too.

Three dots at the end of a line indicates trailing off... as though a character has been distracted by the ceiling. Unless that is what’s intended, don’t do it.

 

EFFECTS

FX: DALEK EXPLODES.

You can put it in brackets if you like. If it happens during a line of dialogue (FX: ALARM SOUNDS) it should always be in brackets.

Keep descriptions brief. If an effect is repeated, you don’t need to include all the details the second time. It’s helpful if an effect is repeating a specific earlier one to indicate as such i.e. (FX: DALEK EXPLODES, AS IN SCENE 14).

Generally, if a location has particular background FX you describe them the first time the location is used and then only mention changes to the FX.

You can say (FX: BATTLE CONTINUES THROUGH REST OF SCENE) rather than detailing all the explosions and gunshots.

FX, like descriptions in a film script, cover things which are essential to the narrative which you wouldn’t usually expect to be there. So you don’t need things like FX: TARDIS HUM for scenes set in the TARDIS control room (or console room if you prefer).

Include FX of someone closing the TARDIS door after they leave. Most people forget this.

And for a scene, set in a pub, say, you can just go

FX: A BUSY PUB.

Rather than

FX: PUB IS BUSY, SOUND OF PEOPLE TALKING, DRINKING, EATING, LAUGHING.

A “wild track” is additional background dialogue or human-originated noises to be recorded on the day – it can be screams, growls, or general chatter. If it is general chatter, it is helpful to include some guides for the actors, otherwise they will invariably be very rude and silly. So if it is, say, a scene set in aircraft control, say “WILD TRACK: AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS, LINES LIKE: ‘Victor foxtrot tango, clear to proceed on bearing four-three-five’”.

 

MUSIC

Unless this is part of the scene heard by the characters (what is known as ‘diegetic’) I wouldn’t bother mentioning it, it tends to be the decision of the director.

HOW JONNY DOES IT

I tend to work out a scene breakdown, indicating where each scene is set, who is in it, and what happens in it to advance the plot (i.e. the reason why the scene is in the story). I find it a great help and that it speeds up the process considerably. Nine times out of ten if you’re finding a scene hard to write it’s because you’re not clear what you’re trying to achieve with it, how it’s advancing the plot or what information it’s supposed to be imparting.

If your initial draft is over length be ruthless and edit it down. There is no script that cannot be improved by being made shorter, tighter, faster. If in doubt, leave it out!

 

AND FINALLY

If you get stuck, or find yourself in trouble, or feel something isn’t working, ask your script editor for advice. That’s what a script editor is for and it will make you look good and save you work in the long run.

Paperback Writer

 

On Saturday I did a very, very brief talk at Target Book Club 2026. Here’s the talk I gave, but with the bonus of the introduction that I dropped on the day because that ground had already been covered by previous speakers.

Who can forget the thrilling climax of Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons by Terrance Dicks? “The Brigadier recoiled in horror. The thing in the pool of light had become ever more solid. It crouched beside the radio telescope tower, dwarfing it, a many-tentacled monster, something between spider, crab and octopus.” Reading that, who wouldn’t be left with a desperate desire to see the original television story? To witness this terrifying monster in action? A terrifying monster depicted in an illustration but where, mysteriously, no photos of it had ever appeared in the Doctor Who Monster Book or Doctor Who Magazine. We should have realised something was amiss.

But then we all sat down and actually watched Terror of the Autons and realised we’d been sold a dud. There was no many-tentacled monster, something between spider, crab and octopus. No. A more accurate description of the scene would have been “It hovered over the radio telescope tower, slightly smaller than it, a vaguely shimmering form, something between blur, blob, and an out-of-focus.”

So, the one big problem with the Target books was that they raised wildly unrealistic expectations of the television programme. What they should have done is given us accurate descriptions of how things actually appeared on screen. So here for you are some examples of how the books should have been written:

Doctor Who and the Tomb of the Cybermen

“A new race of Cybermen?” puzzled Jamie. “But we’re humans. We’re not like you!”

The huge Cyberleader turned and spoke, but the heavy electronic distortion on its voice rendered its speech completely unintelligible.

At this, the Cybermen advanced. They quickly restrained the Doctor, Kleig and Professor Parry, while Jamie ran down the tunnel. Only Toberman continued to resist, but he could only struggle in vain as his attacker effortlessly lifted him over its head, his body suspended from two wires that had somehow become attached to him during the fight.

Doctor Who - Timelash

Inside the strange world of the time corridor, the Doctor edged along the surprisingly bouncy crystal outcrop – only to suddenly slip, to be left hanging in mid-air. Up in the council chamber, Vena stared down into the Timelash. “He’s dangling on the edge of oblivion”, she said matter-of-factly, her voice betraying not even the slightest hint of emotion. In fact, she seemed completely indifferent to the Doctor’s plight and generally bored by the whole thing.

Doctor Who and the Talons of Weng-Chiang

They were having a good night at the palace. The audience were staring entranced at the gorgeously robed figure on stage, the famous Chinese magician L’H’Sen Chang, who looked like an -  Actually I’ll do a different bit.

Leela ran through the darkness. Behind her, she could hear the angry squeaks of the giant rat. She tripped and fell, the filthy water making her Victorian underwear almost completely see-through. But that didn’t concern her as she turned to face her pursuer. It was strange, but in the distance the giant rat appeared to be a normal-sized rat running through a miniature version of the tunnel. But as it drew closer, she came to the terrifying realisation that it was, in fact, a man in a giant rat costume.

 Doctor Who – Dragonfire

The Doctor peered over the edge of the ice cliff. Below was a sheer drop of hundreds of metres. To fall would mean certain death. Undeterred, he hooked his question-mark umbrella onto a metal bar and climbed down until he was clinging onto his whimsical bumbershoot for dear life. He slowly slid down its length, grimacing with alarm, until he came to a halt, whereupon he stared into space with a baffled expression, as though to wonder ‘what the hell did I do that for’?

Doctor Who and the Zarbi

“Well, come on then, Doctor,” said Ian, turning to leave before realising his mistake. “Ah. How do we open the doors? We have no power.”

Doctor Who was suddenly at a loss for words. “Dear dear dear dear dear,” he muttered, as though struggling to think of the right thing to say. Ian smiled at him patiently. “It’s one thing after another!” Doctor Who continued. “Yes, well, I, er, I, er, didn’t want to, er...” He glanced down at his signet ring, and had a flash of inspiration. “This is not merely a decorative object!” he chuckled with relief at having regained his train of thought.

Doctor Who and the Destiny of the Daleks

Suddenly the voice of the Dalek leader blared out. “Attention! The action we are about to take is your responsibility. It will cease only when you agree to total surrender.”

“Now what?” said the Doctor. Outside in the corridor, the Daleks had gathered a small group of slave workers, who were standing in line as though waiting for a bus.

The Dalek leader forced one of the workers to step forward. “Exterminate” snarled the Dalek, firing its deadly weapon, and a second later the worker looked around for a safe spot to fall, before carefully lowering himself to the ground.

 Doctor Who – Warriors of the Deep

Suddenly there was a roar and a terrible shriek of twisting metal, and the bulkhead door flopped gently to the floor like a foam rubber mattress. By a kind of freak accident Tegan got her legs trapped beneath it.

“Are you alright?” said the Doctor.

“How would you feel if you’d had a door fall on you?” whined Tegan.

“Turlough, help me!” gasped the Doctor, straining to lift the lightweight rubber door. As he did, he glanced at the Myrka. It was a large, green sea creature, half-frog, half-horse, half-finished. It appeared to be the product of some deranged experiment in genetic engineering that had run out of time and money and green paint. It lumbered towards them, swaying unsteadily from side to side while tripping over its own flippers.

Doctor Who and the War Games

Hand in hand, Jamie and Zoe walked slowly towards the open door of the Sidrat capsule. There, they turned to look at the Doctor one last time. He gave a small, sad wave like a lost little boy, and Jamie and Zoe waved back before entering the capsule. Its door slid shut and it dematerialised. The Doctor knew that he would never either of them ever again, apart from as ghosts in The Five Doctors, if you count that, and again in The Two Doctors, of course.

Locked Out Of Heaven

SHADA – The full story at last

To begin with, a little bit of backstory for context. After the 1973 oil crisis, the UK experienced a period of high inflation, in much the same way that we are now experiencing increased inflation due to the invasion of Ukraine and the war on Iran. That meant that workers needed their wages to keep up with the inflation just to pay the bills, while some employers were resistant to increasing wages as it would mean they would have increased costs which might mean they couldn’t keep up with loans; and so on as you can imagine. The BBC doesn’t seem to have been particularly well-managed in the late 70s so every year, around November, there would be a couple of weeks of strikes from workers before the management awarded them a pay rise to keep up with inflation. You might ask, why didn’t the management just do that without workers needing to strike? I don’t know. Maybe they wanted to give the impression that they were awarding pay awards reluctantly and under duress to demonstrate a responsible attitude to stewardship of public money. Let’s say it was that.

Anyway, there were certainly strikes in 1977 and 1978. The ones in 1977, and the subsequent pay award, seems to have been one of the reasons, if not the main reason, why Underworld had to resort to CSO and model caves because, as producer Graham Williams described it, he went away on holiday for a week and came back to discover that they no longer had the money to build the cave sets. He would say this was due to inflation but in terms of television production, your main cost is wage costs, and when they increased with inflation they didn’t do so gradually and predictably across the year; what happened is that they would fall behind inflation, and then there’d be a settlement to bring them in line with inflation (not an increase as such even if the numbers went up). In 1977, the settlement for set construction workers wages seems to have happened while Williams was away on holiday. And then later in the year more strike action meant that The Invasion of Time was allocated less studio time and ended up shooting a lot of material on location in St Anne’s Hospital instead. I don’t have the Season 15 blu-ray yet but I expect there are details in the production paperwork for Underworld and The Invasion of Time, this is the sort of thing that creates correspondence.

In 1978, despite it being the so-called “Winter of discontent”, Doctor Who seems to have got off fairly lightly. The studio recordings for The Armageddon Factor on the 20, 21 and 22 of November were delayed by between 15 minutes and two hours, though it’s had to tell if they had any impact on the quality of the nevertheless-finished production. But this is a useful bit of context about the nature of strike action by BBC workers at the time; to irritate and add to pressure (and possibly overtime costs) but not to an extent that it meant production had to be cancelled outright.

So what was happening in 1979? Inflation was about 13% and the election of a Conservative government in May would have probably meant that BBC management would have felt even more pressure to demonstrate a responsible attitude to stewardship of public money and that they were only awarding only-in-line-with-inflation settlements because the unions were forcing them to.

Nevertheless, there wasn’t actually much strike action at the BBC that year – certainly not in comparison to that at ITV, which you will already know caused it to cease broadcasting for several months. What strikes that took place were designed to affect live programmes, because that will have the most impact – viewers would notice! – and would also be harder, if not impossible, for management to find ways of working around. And so it was that A Song For Europe 1979 (the song selecting the UK’s entry, not Eurovision itself) was pulled off the air, depriving viewers of a live performance of Harry, My Honolulu Lover by The Nolans. Later, on 15 November, a strike by sound engineers prevented the BBC giving live coverage of Miss World 1979 but the management got around it by transmitting a pre-recording of the parade of lovely ladies, followed by an unscheduled repeat of Ronnie Barker’s appalling Futtocks End comedy special, before providing live but soundless coverage of the winner being crowned (Miss Bermuda, in case you were wondering).

And, around the same time, Doctor Who was also affected, when an “industrial dispute” meant the night shoot planned for 18 October was replaced by a day shoot on 19 October. I put “industrial dispute” in quotation marks because that’s how it is described by Ralph Watson, Production Assistant, in a memo from 23 October. It’s described as a “strike” in the Artist’s Time Sheet on the 22 October but, as we shall see, that seems to have been what they wrote whenever there was industrial action. Whatever the dispute was that day, it doesn’t seem to have been part of any sort of national walk-out or anything like that, but I have no problem with people calling it a strike because it was, clearly, a case of the workers withholding their labour.

The Artist’s Time Sheet I refer to, by the way, is for the Extras and Walk-Ons, because it turns out that six extras were booked for the night shoot. Quite what was planned is not clear; the scripts are no use because they describe it as “SEQUENCE as directed”. The film schedule makes it clear the extras would be appearing in a sequence shot at Round Church; as scheduled, the shoot would have begun at Blackmoor Head Yard (for the final part of the sequence, as in the day shoot) followed by filming at Green Street, then Round Church on Bridge Street, then All Saints Passage, then Trinity Street (all, I think, different locations to those used in the day shoot).

So, anyway, as we all know, production on Shada continued, with effects shots of people entering and leaving the invisible spaceship and some model shots being shot at Ealing Film Studios Stage 2 on 22 October and the first recording block at Television Centre Studio 3 on 3, 4 and 5 November. With the next recording block scheduled for 19 and 20 November...

What I’ll do now is try to provide a timeline of events. I expect Doctor Who historian and social media japester David Brunt will cover it in even more detail when he gets around to writing his book on it, but this will have to do for now.

Thursday 15 November

Industrial action by the union ABS (Association of Broadcasting Staff) disrupts live coverage of Miss World 1979 and tennis on BBC 2 (it was still shown, but with a musical accompaniment rather than commentary). The action concerns a dispute over the wage regrading for television sound assistants (hence the action taken being of a sound engineering nature); as reported by The Daily Telegraph the next day, the BBC “considers the present grading structure unwieldy and in danger of collapse [....] and had hoped the ABS would agree to suspend those agreements so that a new structure putting everyone into five blocks of grades could be discussed”.

Friday 16 November

ACAS (the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service) intervenes to try to resolve the dispute between ABS and the BBC but without success. It is possible that live coverage of Ascot is affected.

Saturday 17 November

 As far as ABS is concerned, the dispute about wage-regarding is no longer just about sound engineers but also technical engineers. Strike action causes the edition of Multi-Coloured Swap Shop to be pulled in the morning and transmission of Grandstand to be delayed (a cartoon filled in the time, reportedly Tom and Jerry). Thankfully transmission of the final episode of The Creature from the Pit was unaffected, and the live transmission of Match of the Day later in the evening also seems to have gone ahead as planned (there is no report of it being disrupted).

Sunday 18 November

There doesn’t seem to have been any industrial action this day.

Monday 19 November

The ABS national executive meets. As reported by the Evening Standard, the dispute is “over the BBC’s decision to stop staff regrading pending the introduction of a new grading structure in the New Year” and led to “100 technicians being taken ‘off the BBC payroll’ this weekend for refusing to work with management staff brought in to replace 18 striking technical managers”. Whatever the rights and wrongs of workers essentially being suspended without pay for refusing to be strike-breakers, it’s clearly an escalation.

Doctor Who – The actors Daniel Hill and Victoria Burgoyne begin camera rehearsal at midday. They break for lunch at 1pm. At 1.45 Tom Baker puts his costume on and is given make-up. He heads to the studio TC 6 with Daniel and Victoria at 2pm and begin to camera rehearse the scenes in Chris’ lab.

At approximately 3.05 producer Graham Williams, on “the advice of General Manager Studios and at the direction of HSS” (Head Series/Serials, Graeme MacDonald) abandons the studio recording. He then writes a memo to the OSS (Organiser Series/Serials) noting this and says “I understand that normal working will resume tomorrow and we are investigating the possibility of continuing the next day to continue this particular story.”

According to the Artist’s Studio Call Sheet, the cast all leave at about 3.30pm apart from K-9 voice actor David Brierley who arrives at the studio at 5pm, having been given a later call-time, and then goes home at 5.30pm.

Industrial action affects the live transmission of Nationwide which uses pre-recorded film items. The edition of Panorama is also cancelled, but this may be due to its controversial content – the Blunt affair – or because of an unrelated dispute regarding an attempt by management to fire its editor, Roger Bolton, after a recent edition on the IRA. It may even be a combination of all three reasons.

The live transmission of Blue Peter is not affected by the industrial action; at this point the show is in the midst of a fundraising appeal for Cambodian refugees which the ABS do not wish to disrupt.

As reported in The Guardian the following day, “recordings of Dr Who and a variety programme were called off”. The variety programme in question is Six of a Kind, the pilot episode for what later became Three of a Kind, starring Lenny Henry and David Copperfield with Don Mclean, Karen Kay, Pearly Gates and Leah Bell, but without Tracy Ulman.

Bill Cotton, controller of BBC 1, writes to members of staff warning them that anyone going on strike will have to sign a “personal declaration” of normal working before being allowed to resume work. This hardball tactic has the effect of making the dispute much worse as the ABS General Secretary says the union will be stepping up its action but “there is no question at the moment of an all-out stoppage.”

Tuesday 20 November

Doctor Who – At 8.15am Graham Williams is called by the Shada set designer, Vic Meredith, asking why the studio has been locked. He arrives at the studio himself at 9.30am, with no idea why the studio has been locked. He is “naturally concerned [...] that this could be construed in a sensitive situation as a ‘lock out’”.

Williams contacts HSS and at 10.45 is instructed to abandon the studio recording at around 10.45-11.00. 

He then writes two memos to OSS. The first is to inform him that “We are proceeding with outside rehearsals for the next set of studios and await your advice as to how the loss of two days can best be made up”.

The second gives a detailed account of the morning’s events, as recorded above. He is also clearly pissed off that he wasn’t called the previous night to let him know that the recording would be abandoned.

Now this is all really important. Firstly, Graham Williams, the man who was there, literally standing at the locked door of the studio, describes the situation as resembling a “lock-out”. And he reinforces that point by making it clear in the second memo that he regards the decision to cancel the recording as a management decision which it clearly was.

It seems likely that the second recording day of Six of a Kind is scrapped; “Luckily, there was a strike and the whole thing got quietly put away” according to Lenny Henry interviewed in 2015.; however, there is no information about whether the recording of the Francis Durbage drama Breakaway in TC 3 went ahead or not – the programme was certainly finished, as it was broadcast on BBC 1 from the 11 January 1980. It’s on Youtube if you want to see it.

The live transmission of Nationwide is targeted by industrial action but seems to be unaffected from a viewers’ point of view. Question Time is also affected.

In the evening, at the request of the crew, the ABS allows the planned edition of Crackerjack to go ahead at the Television Theatre (now the Shepherd’s Bush Empire) on the grounds that children were already travelling to see the show and it would be cruel to disappoint them. However, the show is only performed for the theatre audience and is not recorded.

Wednesday 21 November

According to the report in the Evening Standard on the following day, recordings of The Generation Game, Parkinson, Grange Hill, Jackanory and Playschool are cancelled. Nationwide is targeted again, more noticeably. An arts programme called Mainstream is also affected and Pebble Mill at One and The Book Programme are replaced with repeats of previous editions.

Nevertheless, recording of Top of the Pops goes ahead as normal, including mimed performances of I Don’t Want To Be A Freak (But I Can’t Help Myself) by Dynasty and Monkey Chop by Dan-i. It’s introduced by Dave Lee Travis so don’t expect to see it on BBC Four anytime soon.

The Daily Telegraph reports on the dispute, as they call it. Talks between the ABS and the BBC have broken down and there are no plans for further meetings. They explain that “the dispute started two weeks ago when electricians staged a series of one-day unofficial walkouts, affecting programme production. Technicians and other production staff also started a series of 24-hour stoppages which have disrupted programmes such as Panorama, Nationwide and weather forecasts”. They go on to say that the BBC have now “laid off” 300 staff for refusing to “give assurances of normal working” and “have been declared by the BBC to be on strike”. They are also threatening to take any remaining workers who fail to give assurance of normal working practices with being taken off the payroll. “production was stopped yesterday on Dr Who, Play School and Six of a Kind”.

Now, this article is really important, and despite it being in The Daily Telegraph I think it gives us a good insight into what was going on. Note first that the BBC was the one declaring workers it had sent home (possibly temporarily, possibly permanently) as being on strike. This is, essentially, what a management lock-out is. Secondly, it’s clear that this story has come from the BBC, as it’s giving their version of events, so it’s interesting to note that they are the ones saying which programmes have been affected – it’s notable that two of them are beloved children’s programmes (nobody would have had a clue what Six of a Kind was at the time).

The Evening Standard also reports on the dispute, claiming that “lighting strikes – which have now cost the BBC almost £500,000 in lost productions – yesterday stopped work on half a dozen programmes, including Robin Day’s Question Time and Dr Who”. This article is also clearly sourced from the BBC as it quotes BBC deputy manging director Robin Scott warning staff that the corporation “remains resolute”. The £500,000 figure seems rather high for three days of quite straightforward studio recording.

Why would the BBC want readers to know which programmes were being affected and how much it was allegedly costing? The obvious interpretation is because they wanted public opinion to be on their side; while the strikes by the ABS were intended to be very visible but to only be on live programmes, the management seems to have taken the view that viewers will be less sympathetic if it was children’s programming and The Generation Game that was affected. As BBC deputy managing director Robin Scott makes clear in the Evening Standard “Nothing, least of all public support, can be achieved by the present disruptive and damaging action”.

Thursday 22 November

Doctor Who – 10.00 – 500. The cast begin rehearsals for the next studio block in Room 602 of the BBC Television Rooms, Victoria Road, Acton, covering scenes in Skagra’s ship.

The Artists’ Time Sheet is issued claiming that the two recording days were “Cancelled due to strike”.

Technicians volunteer to work on Blue Peter for free so that it can include a film report on the appeal for Cambodian refugees. BBC management refuses to allow this, deducts the pay from the crew’s wages, and the report is included in John Craven’s Newsround instead.

Nationwide is still transmitted despite crew action. Another recording of The Generation Game is cancelled. Tomorrow’s World seems to go ahead as normal. A pilot of the sitcom Oh Happy Band! Is scheduled to be recorded today; it’s not clear whether it goes ahead but at some point it is recorded, as it is transmitted, along with another five episodes of this entirely-forgotten David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd sitcom, in September 1980.

The Evening Standard reports on the Blue Peter dispute (“‘We’ll work for free’ offer is turned down by BBC”) and the programmes which failed to be recorded the previous day (again, this information can only have come from the BBC itself). It also reports that the strike has now escalated to include technical operators and sound crews in Manchester and technical staff in Bristol, and that the BBC has now taken a total of 400 workers off the payroll.

Friday 23 November

Doctor Who – 10.00 – 5.00 Rehearsals continue, with scenes in Skagra’s Ship and in Shada.

A Sypher session for this day is abandoned because the Grams Operator is reallocated elsewhere without Williams being notified. ‘Sypher’ isn’t a mis-spelling for cypher, it’s what the BBC called the machine they used to do cypher dubs (ie adding sound effects and fixing any audio faults).

Doctor Who script editor and Shada writer Douglas Adams attends the second recording session for episode 9 of his radio series The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (recording on this episode had begun on 14 November).

All the workers who worked on the edition of Crackerjack are informed by management that they are now sacked because they were deemed to be in breach of contract for withholding labour (when in fact they had turned up and worked as usual). They are informed that the Crackerjack production had been cancelled by the management and that they had, in effect, broken the ‘lock-out’ and they were not only dismissed but would not be paid for the past three days. (The BBC doesn’t actually carry out this threat and in the end pays the crew their wages for this and the 22 November edition of Blue Peter). (Source: Roger Bunce and the TM’s dispute from the tech-ops website).

Nationwide is still transmitted despite crew action. Recordings scheduled for today include The Goodies and an insert for something called Lloyd George; again, I can’t tell whether they went ahead or were deferred but The Goodies series was broadcast complete in January 1980 and, if Lloyd George was The Life and Times Of David Lloyd George, that also got finished and was shown in 1981.

Saturday 24 November

Doctor Who – 9.30 – 1.30 Rehearsals continue with scenes in Shada.

There are no reports of programme disruption on this day. Multi-Coloured Swap Shop goes ahead as planned with an appearance by Andrew Sachs in character as “Manuel”. Part one of Nightmare of Eden is broadcast to the enormous of delight of yours truly. If the scheduled edition of Parkinson with Rolf Harris went ahead we’re not going to be seeing it again anytime soon.

Sunday 25 November

There are no reports of programme disruption on this day. Looking at the schedule, though, you kind of wish there had been, some cartoons might have livened it up.

Monday 26 November

As reported in The Guardian the following day, two of the three remaining crews at TV centre are now withholding their labour and the number of employees removed from the payroll is 450. Blue Peter goes ahead as normal with the remaining crew (it includes a report on the Edinburgh and East Scotland Cat Show) and Nationwide is also transmitted. The Guardian accurately summarises the dispute: “Technical staff have been trying to put pressure on BBC management by staging one-day strikes and refusing to guarantee normal work. The corporation has replied by suspending the offending crews.”

Doctor Who – 10-00 – 5.00 Rehearsals continue with scenes in Skagra’s ship.

Regarding last weeks’ Sypher booking; Williams is informed by the OSS that the Grams Operator was reallocated to Blake’s 7 and that the session would have run out of time anyway. He is advised to make another Sypher booking – “bearing in mind the present industrial dispute”. This is the first intimation that the next studio block might not be going ahead.

Tuesday 27 November

The BBC meets ABS, but not to discuss the current dispute but to discuss the effect of the new license fee settlement on wage rates. The executive of the ABS then meets in the afternoon to consider their next move; they are “still determined the action will continue”.

According to the Evening Standard the industrial action has now cost the BBC £900,000 and 540 staff have been taken off the payroll.

Nationwide is still broadcast in a rudimentary form.

Doctor Who – 10-00 – 4.00 Rehearsals continue with scenes in Shada and Skagra’s ship.

Williams replies to the OSS regarding the Sypher booking, pointing out that Doctor Who’s needs are more urgent and that the session was going fine.

Wednesday 28 November

Production at TV Centre has now ceased on anything apart from news bulletins. There are now 600 staff off the payroll. Nationwide is finally cancelled after the ABS threaten to pull the plug on it if the management attempt to transmit it without a technical team in place. It is replaced with an old documentary, subject unknown (and is also replaced on Thursday and Friday).

Doctor Who – 10-00 – 5.00 Rehearsals continue with a work through in recording order.

Thursday 29 November

The Daily Telegraph reports on the dispute - “Action stepped up in BBC dispute” – and reporter Ian Bradley accurately summarises the nature of the dispute in detail and accurately explains that the workers have been taken of the payroll for refusing to sign the undertaking to work as normal rather than actually being on strike.

According to The Guardian, “some items due to been screened in Christmas week have been lost.” It is not clear what programmes these are.

Blue Peter is “blacked out” despite it being due to include a film on the Cambodia appeal.

Doctor Who – 10-00 – 5.00 Rehearsals continue with a technical run and producer’s run.

Friday 30 November

The Guardian has two reports on the industrial action’; an item on the Blue Peter cancellation and a piece on the background to the industrial action courtesy with ‘Tom’, “a sober, respectable middle-class” technical manager. Apparently 600 people are now “on strike” (my quotation marks) and are “taken off the payroll” (the reporter’s quotation marks).

Doctor Who – 10-00 Rehearsals begin.

At 11.45 Williams is called by the OSS to be instructed to abandon the production of Shada. The cast and crew are informed. He sends a memo to the OSS saying that, in discussion with Graeme MacDonald, the Head of Series/Serials, “the decision to abandon was in many ways through to be a relief. At leas the elements of uncertainty have now vanished”.

Williams then writes to the cast and crew saying that at “Lunchtime today I heard the most heartbreaking news. Our story has not only been postponed, but cancelled without a commitment to a remount date. You can guess my feelings. It seems such a shame for all our hard work to amount to nothing at all”.

Williams then gets on a plane with Tom Baker to attend the first Doctor Who convention in the USA, at the Continental Hyatt House, Los Angeles.

ABS representatives and BBC management have a meeting at ACAS in the evening...

Saturday 1 December

...and have agreed on a ‘peace formula for the dispute, as reported in The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph. Nevertheless, this is too late for today’s editions of The Generation Game and Parkinson, which are replaced with repeats of earlier editions, while Grandstand loses coverage of the finals of the snooker championship and the rugby league, replacing them with reports on gymnastics and ice skating. Part two of Nightmare of Eden, however, is transmitted without incident.

The BBC now estimates the cost of the industrial action as £1.5 million.

Doctor Who – This would have been the first day of recording of the third studio block. As the dispute has not been formally resolved it is unlikely anything is recorded in the vacant studio.

Sunday 2 December

Sunday Worship is replaced with a repeat of an earlier edition, and tonight’s edition of Rising Stars (a talent show hosted by Lennie Bennet) is replaced with a repeat of ABBA in Switzerland, first shown in April, which is a great improvement.

The Sunday Telegraph reports that if the ‘peace formula’ is accepted by the ABS executive on Monday then BBC TV programmes could be back to normal by the middle of the week. This report is (perhaps surprisingly) very accurate as it makes it clear the 600 technicians have been “suspended” rather than being on strike. The cost is now estimated as £1,501,000 – it’s gone up by £1000 since yesterday.

A BBC spokesman is quoted as saying “Once we get back to normal production the first thing we shall do will be the Christmas shows. There should be no disruption to them if we get back to work in the next few days”. 

Doctor Who – This would have been the second day of recording of the third studio block. Again, as the dispute has not been resolved it is unlikely anything was recorded in the vacant studio.

Monday 3 December

The ABS executive agree to the ‘peace formula’, which is described by the BBC as a “compromise solution” but which appears to be the BBC management backtracking on their decision to stop staff regrading and reinstating all suspended workers with full pay for their missing days. Blue Peter and Nationwide return to the nation’s screens.

Doctor Who – This would have been the final day of recording of the third studio block. The studio is probably allocated to the recording of the edition of The Little and Large Show broadcast on 1 January 1980.. The artists’ time sheet records the three cancelled Doctor Who studio days as ‘Cancelled due to strike’. They are all paid as if the studio recordings had gone ahead.

Douglas Adams attends the recording of episode 10 of The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

For the rest of December there is paperwork regarding the cancellation, including a letter to Dudley Simpson informing him that his musical services will not be required (this letter is copied to Ronnie Hazlehurst for some reason).

And that’s it as far as the industrial action is concerned, and Shada too. Incoming producer John Nathan-Turner briefly tries to get Shada remounted as a four-part story from April 1980; this becomes a two fifty-minute part story before being abandoned in June 1980 due to “the unavailability of studios and servicing”.

There are now over four thousand versions of Shada, and counting.

The question you might like to ask is why did the management cancel the recordings on the Monday 20 November and Tuesday 21 November? Let’s put it this way. It’s easy to imagine a version of events where the recording was scuppered by a crew strike. The cast and crew are told by their union reps not to turn up for work or try to get to the studio but are stopped because there’s a picket line. Or, if there’s no advance warning, they start camera rehearsals or recording but then a person essential the production withholds their labour – ie the person responsible for pressing ‘record’ on the video recorder – at which point recording grinds to a halt and everyone goes home. It’s not hard to imagine as that’s what normally happened whenever a strike was called.

But the door to the studio being locked is different. Strikers don’t have the power or the keys to lock studio doors. That’s management; in this case, the HSS. You wouldn’t need to lock the doors if you knew the recording was going to be scuppered by a strike anyway. You would only need to do that if you thought the recording wasn’t going to be scuppered by a strike but you wanted to stop it going ahead. Because you wanted to be the one who decided which programmes were cancelled, rather it being up to the unions or the crews. Because you wanted to change the nature of the industrial action from being about technicians causing annoying and very noticeable disruptions to live broadcasts to being one where it was causing programmes to be cancelled with the rest of the cast and crew being deprived of work (but not payment, everyone who turned up for work still got paid).

But it’s fair to say, yes, the management lock-out was in response to industrial action. There was a strike. The ABS were withholding their labour. So you could, if you really wanted to, say that the lock-out was because of the strike because it was in response to the strike. In the same way that the Three-Day Week was a response to the threat of a miner’s strike – with the same level of counterproductivity. But it was also a decision made by the management, a decision which was unnecessary and ill-considered, a decision which had the effect if not the intention of massively exacerbating the dispute; a dispute where the BBC were ‘grandstanding’ if not Grandstand-ing. A dispute which wasted a huge amount of money (if not quite as much as the BBC were claiming) and which only had one effect; leaving us one Doctor Who story short.