Into The Valley

For the last couple of days, I’ve been a recording studio somewhere in Kent, for the recording of the Doctor Who story ‘The Valley Of Death’, starring Tom Baker as the Doctor and Louise Jameson as his companion Leela. Normally with these things I have to keep all my excitement under wraps until they’re announced (sometimes months or even years later), but as this story has already been announced I can write a blog about it and sound a fanfare from the rooftops.

The story is an adaptation of a story outline written by Philip Hinchcliffe, who was the producer of Doctor Who for the first three years of Tom Baker’s run, and who was responsible for stories like Genesis Of The Daleks, The Seeds Of Doom and The Talons Of Weng-Chiang. My understanding is that the story was an idea that would probably have made it onto television screens had Philip remained as producer for a fourth year; however, by the time it was pitched to Douglas Adams in 1978, the show’s budget had been substantially reduced, so a story which might have been practical a few years earlier was no longer viable.

This is the second ‘lost story’ I’ve adapted; in both cases, my approach has been to remain as true as possible to the original author’s intentions. That said, had the story been made back in 1978 it would have developed during the scripting process, and would have had a substantial input from the show’s script editor, so I felt I had a little leeway in changing the details where it would serve the story, to make the end result as exciting and dramatic as I could.

The Valley Of Death is very much a Boy’s Own adventure in the tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs and H Rider Haggard; it’s easy to imagine it being filmed by Amicus or Hammer in the mid-70’s. What I love about it is that the narrative keeps changing location and subject matter; structurally, the Doctor Who story to which it is most similar is The Hand Of Fear; it has that quality that the final episode is about something entirely different from the opening instalment!

I think it’s a lot of fun, very colourful and imaginative, with room for lots of humour as well as some weighty dramatic confrontations. It will probably come as quite a contrast to the other story that is in the same Lost Stories box set, The Foe From The Future by John Dorney (script edited by me, and based on a storyline by Robert Banks Stewart). The Foe From The Future is, I think, going to be regarded as a classic, as John has written a fabulous script with lots of action and grisly death. I think it will go down well with fans of stories like Pyramids Of Mars and Image Of The Fendahl.

The recording went terrifically well. Tom Baker has a formidable reputation but he was an absolute joy in the studio; professional, meticulous, full of suggestions, and really engaging with the material and having fun with it. Louise Jameson was equally marvellous, portraying Leela with great integrity. There were moments, many moments, when you could close your eyes and imagine you were hearing a story recorded in 1977. Yes, of course, people’s voices sound a little older than they did back then, but I felt the magic. My fan-sense was all a-tingle.

How do I feel about writing a story for my favourite Doctor, writing for the Doctor I watched on television when I was 6 years old, the Doctor who made me a fan of the show in the first place? It’s an honour. It wasn’t a childhood ambition, but only because I would have to have been an insanely ambitious child to think I would ever get the chance to write for Tom Baker’s Doctor.

The Valley Of Death will be released in January next year, with The Foe From The Future as a Lost Stories box set which can be pre-ordered here.

Sparks

One of the many great things about the pop group Sparks is their choice of subject matter. A list of some song titles should give you some idea; How To Get Your Ass Kicked, Throw Her Away (And Get A New One), I Can’t Believe You Would Fall For All The Crap In This Song, (Baby Baby) Can I Invade Your Country, Tits, Pretending To Be Drunk, Thank God It’s Not Christmas, Your Call’s Very Important To Us Please Hold, Angst In My Pants, I Married A Martian, I Thought I Told You To Wait In The Car, Achoo, etc.

But, just as a fun way to waste time waiting for buses, I’ve thought up titles for songs which Sparks have yet to write. Titles for songs that any band has yet to write, for that matter. So if you’re an aspiring songwriter, or one of the brothers Mael, please feel free to take inspiration from the following:

I’m Not Being Racist But
My Baby Went Over The Niagara Falls In A Barrel
She’s Dyslexic
Sorry I Overslept
Abandoned At The Altar
Those Cheekbones
Practically Invisible
A Parody Of My Former Self
It’s A Feature Not A Fault
The Queen’s English
Unfriends
A Listening Exercise
Foreign Films With English Subtitles
It’s A Million To One Shot (But It Might Just Work)
The Missing Dog
Making Our Own Entertainment
Please Leave It Alone
Hipstamatic
An Area The Size Of Wales
The British Sense Of Humour
Confidence Can Be Taught
Bootlegs
Speaking As A Mother
Left On Standby
This Is Just Like A Movie
Politeness Costs Nothing
Due To Creative Differences
Brian May
We're Poles Apart
I Fell In Love With A Spambot
His Name Is Not Da Vinci
At This Moment In Time
Riding The Coat Tails
Let's Go Antiquing
Shot By Friendly Fire
The Sequel To The Prequel
Montage Sequence
The Curate’s Egg
Me And My Micro
From A Brouhaha To A Hullaballoo
I Much Preferred The Original
I Was The Last Man On The Moon
Position Closed
Pick A Card, Any Card

The Child

And I’m back.

Two overdue plugs first.

The latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine is out now, featuring part one of my final Doctor Who comic strip (at least for a while) called The Child Of Time. It features glorious artwork by Martin Geraghty, the guy who did the Axons story last year, and is something of a ‘season grand finale’ as it picks up the various ongoing threads that have been woven through the previous eighteen months’ worth of stories and ties them up. I’ve just delivered the final part of the story (it’s a four part story) which will be out in November, and then someone else will be taking over.


It would be dishonest of me to say that writing the Doctor Who Magazine was a childhood ambition; for it be an ambition, it would have to seem impossible and to be honest, as a child, I was so much in awe of the people responsible for the comic strip – Pat Mills, John Wagner, Steve Parkhouse etc. that I never dreamed for an instant that my own name might be added to the list thirty-odd years later. But it has, and that’s something of which I am immeasurably proud. I’ve loved writing all the stories, I think they all turned out extremely well (for which I give all credit to the artists, colourists, letterers and editors) and I’m massively grateful to have been given a chance to show what I can do, in terms of telling lots of different styles of story, working with so many talented people, and convoluting a big, complicated-but-hopefully-not-too-complicated arc. I look forward to them all being compiled in a big graphic novel of some form (I don’t know when, but it’s inevitable it will happen eventually).


And secondly, Big Finish have recently released on CD a Companion Chronicle story I wrote back in 2008, called The Mists Of Time. It stars Katy Manning as Jo Grant and relate one of Jo’s adventure with the Jon Pertwee Doctor Who. It was given away as a freebie with Doctor Who Magazine, but this is the first chance that people have had to pay for it! It comes in a box which is, quite frankly, a thing of inordinate beauty, which also includes another former freebie called Freakshow and all the many episodes of The Three Companions by Marc Platt (the companions in question being the Brigadier, Polly, and my own creation, Thomas Brewster.) Please buy.


And finally. I’m back on the internet, thanks to PlusNet. After I wrote the previous blog, and moaned excessively on twitter, Pete from Virgin Media got in touch and offered to arrange for broadband to be installed the next day, but by that point I’d already decided to cancel, because you shouldn’t have to write blogs and moan excessively on twitter in order to get a standard of customer service which is denied to people who merely phone to complain. On top of moving house, it was an extra level of stress which I didn’t need.

However, the fibreoptic cable they left still remains outside my flat. I received a letter saying they were sending someone around to finish the installation tomorrow, on the 2nd, despite the installation having been cancelled, so I look forward to finding out how they will proceed, in much the same way, and with as much confidence, that one looks forward to Norman Wisdom approaching a swimming pool.

UPDATE 2 SEPTEMBER: No-one turned up.

I’ve a few more blogs I want to write, on Lewisham and it’s supposed ‘riots’, and other nonsense. I’ve also realised that on my computer I’ve got lots of reviews of Shakespeare plays and Blakes’ 7 episodes and other things which might as well reach a wider audience. And there are a few deleted scenes and background note things from Touched By An Angel which I’m desperate to inflict upon you. And I haven’t even mentioned the Tom Baker Doctor Who audio story...

And finally, I am on twitter, so should you wish to receive missives of devastating pith and insight in real time, as and when they pop out of my brain. I’m Jonnymorris1973