On BBC4

BBC4 – it’s what the Third Doctor was normally watching (with a Tanqueray or two and some smoked salmon sandwiches) while the rest of Britain was tuning in to the latest thrilling instalment of The Passing Parade on a rather more downmarket channel. Sophisticated, y'see. It has an annual service budget of £53.3 million, and according to the BBC4 FAQ it shows:

...a wide variety of programmes, including drama, documentaries, music, international film, comedy and current affairs. BBC Four aims to offer an intelligent alternative to programmes on the mainstream TV channels.

The channel has played host to a smattering of Who-related content since its launch in March 2002. There was the Russell T Davies – Unscripted documentary which aired the Monday after the premier of The Unquiet Dead (penned by Mark Gatiss); ah, what thrilling times those were!

Then there was the three-part compilation of The Green Death shown as part of “1973 Week” in 2006, followed by a two-part version of The Daemons the following year. In April 2008, BBC4 celebrated the first broadcast of The Fires of Pompeii by showing three - count ‘em, three! - documentaries about volcanoes the same night.

And famously, David Tennant was working on BBC4’s live telecast of The Quatermass Experiment (Saturday 2 April 2005) when his casting as the Tenth Doctor became known. You all know the Jason Flemyng anecdote. Co-starring in that particular project was Mark Gatiss–

Ah yes, Mark Gatiss. Among his many achievements he’s now written three Doctor Who telly stories, and acted in a couple as well. These are but the cream of his DW credentials however, as the three-episode interview with one Anthony K McCail – hem hem – published in Doctor Who Magazine in 2003 makes clear. It was in the third of these (DWM #335, 15 October 2003) that he mentioned the following tantalising idea:

I thought how great it would be to do a drama about the creation of Doctor Who.

...my main thing was that it would be the story of William Hartnell, from getting the part to leaving the show...

Incidentally, you’ve got this fantastic story about how the team came together, the design of the Daleks... the first female producer... employing an Asian director in 1963... Fascinating things.

I started it with the end of The Tenth Planet, re-created in beautiful detail, and then just as Hartnell collapses to the floor, the camera pulls back, the lights come on, and we’re in the studio... And in the corner is a little shabbily-dressed man with black hair – making everyone laugh! And [director Derek] Martinus is trying to explain that they’re going to mix between Billy and Patrick Troughton. And he says ‘Bill?’... and he’s not there. The camera ambles across the room to the central column of the TARDIS, and it goes up and down, up and down... then the doors open, and we go back to 1963. Beautiful.

As Gatiss explained in the interview, it was not to be:

Anyway, the BBC, of course, said no. Fictionlab said no. BBC3 said no, ...there’s no money and there’s no real slot for it... so it’s gone away.

Over the years, I’ve occasionally wondered when BBC4 would get round to making this particular Gatiss dream come true. Despite the previous BBC knockbacks, it seemed perfect for them. Then I heard about the Coronation Street Drama (title tbc, as they say. But it better be Florizel Street):

The astonishing story behind the difficult birth of Britain's longest-running soap is revealed in this one off drama.

As Coronation Street reaches its 50th Anniversary, the drama will take viewers back to 1960. Tony Warren, played by David Dawson, was a writer with a dream of bringing to screen characters from the Salford he knew and loved – the tart with the heart, the snob, the harridan in a hair net.

The drama charts how Warren's vision made it to the screen against fierce opposition from his bosses. It's a story of boardroom battles and hopes dangled by threads.

I certainly hope the esteemed Gentleman is on the case – no doubt his involvement in forthcoming BBC hits Sherlock and The First Men In The Moon will bolster even further his already powerful bargaining position.

He’d better get a shift on though – I get the feeling that BBC4 Drama’s addiction to biopics is starting to get on the nation’s collective wick. The recent Lennon Naked, starring Who alumni Christopher Eccleston and Naoki Mori and their respective private bits, seems to have received pretty derisory reviews.

(It did however give us the SFX interview with Mori in which she announced:

I could spend hours [in] B&Q. Not only am I a computer geek at heart, I’m a bit of a DIY nut as well. I actually built my first vending machine at eight years old – that’s kind of sad, isn’t it? I just love DIY stores!

Quality quote, that.)

If the Origins-of-Doctor-Who drama ever gets off the ground, we’d hopefully see the man himself in a role. After all, Mr Gatiss has quite a rep for playing real folk, having already notched up Johnnie Cradock, Robert Louis Stevenson, Apsley Cherry-Garrard, Malcolm Mclaren, Bamber Gascoigne Louis Aragon, and of course Professor Cavor (what d’you mean, he’s not real?)

And if it’s a success, then in forty years time some young pup or pupess can dramatise this:

(All images are of course © the BBC and are used purely for illustrative purposes.)