I’ve just got back from seeing the last few scenes of my Doctor Who two-parter being filmed, and I’m filled with a sense of well-being. Some of that is because of how nice everyone was, and some of that is because of how good it was to see a thoroughly professional team run through their paces, and some of that is down to the Full Welsh Breakfast.

I was shown around this time by the Doctor Who Confidential team. Lindsey Alford, script editor on this episode, would normally have that job, but she ‘left instructions’ about me before she went on holiday. Considering that Lindsey’s ideal alternative career, as she cheerily told me last time I popped over, would be as a criminal psychologist profiling serial killers, I wonder if these instructions were like something out of The Silence of the Lambs. ‘Do not discuss continuity with him. Do not mention the Sea Devils.’ She’s very understanding and considerate when dealing with writers. I feel I now know why.

Speaking of serial killers, that’s what Hannah Williams, Confidential’s researcher, is talking about as she drives me over to Upper Boat, the anonymous-looking warehouse production facility where Doctor Who is made these days. Hannah is a blur of enthusiasm, like a small mammal with a high metabolic rate and an enormous Welsh accent. Last night she was out on the karaoke with many of the production team. ‘”Relight My Fire.” And I didn’t have to look at the words.’ She mentions that, working with a mate on a movie, she recently got to visit an American prison. ‘They were a frightening lot. Not like British prisoners.’ And that one of the Kray Brothers’ most famous victims was called Cornell. Wondering exactly what the nature of Lindsey’s briefing was, I get her to repeat the word ‘floozy’. Because when said with gusto in that accent, it’s one of those words that gains whole new floors and outbuildings.

We’ve already been caught in driving horizontal rain, and my hairdo’s collapsed, and I look like a drowned Beatle. In the crew bus, while I’m tucking into that Full Welsh, I ask about a mirror and a comb, and thus find myself shown into the Lorry Of The Make-Up Ladies. A lovely Make-Up Lady offers me five different combs, and asks if I want to be made unshiny. So I’m patted down with powder, a service I’m assured no other writer has been provided with prior to filming a Confidential. Perhaps the others weren’t shiny to start with.

Ailsa Jenkins is one of the producers of Confidential, and conducts the interview. She’s suffering from having been out in the rain so much interviewing people. She’s a former print journalist who feels, like all these guys seem to, that she’s involved in something special here. She talks about her reaction of joy on seeing a Dalek in the flesh for the first time, having always been a Doctor Who fan. ‘You know,’ I say to her, ‘when I was on that My Science Fiction Life documentary, I noticed that I bobbed my head at the end of every sentence. Everyone in my home town noticed it too. They started bobbing their heads at me. Now I feel like something in the back window of a car.’ She’s very good at this interviewing business, making sure I include the question in my answers, and nodding along, so I don’t feel like I’m talking into a void. Nodding a bit too much, perhaps. ‘Keep eye contact, keep smiling at him,’ that’s what Lindsey would have said.

‘How do you think fans will react,’ asks Ailsa, ‘to your monsters?’
‘The Sea Devils?’
‘Now, I wasn’t going to mention them…’
‘I think fans will love the news that these popular old foes are returning. Until they discover that the story is a shot-for-shot remake of the episodes from 1972.’
Actually, the above dialogue didn’t occur at all. But I can’t say what we did talk about, so I made something up.

After Confidential has done with me, I’m shown to the dear old TARDIS set, and sit on a bit of it that’s nice and warm because of a powerful light underneath, while something very fun that I can’t talk about yet is rehearsed and then shot. Charles Palmer, the director, wanders over, as calm and businesslike as he was on the first scene of the shoot. He’s the sort of chap you’d imagine would be put in charge of the escape committee at Colditz. I’m sure I heard Richard Harris, the genial and efficient 1st A.D., call him ‘sir’. The weather’s delayed them a little, he says, but otherwise everything is going to plan. I manage not to say that’s jolly good, sir. Dave Houghton from The Mill (‘my Uncle Dave’, Hannah calls him) is in today, and we share our Battlestar Galactica fandom.

Script Editor Helen Raynor arrives. In Galactica, she prefers Full Fat Jamie Bamber to Diet Jamie Bamber. ‘Got a bit of meat on him now.’ I tell her I now know more about Wales than I did a moment ago. We talk about how the industry’s changed in so many ways because of Doctor Who and BBC Wales. Notably, people on the production side, like Helen, now find they can sell scripts, when before, madly, these writers who got to know particular series very well were the only ones who wouldn’t be considered for them. My old script editor mate from Casualty, Steve Lightfoot, for instance, has a two part supernatural thriller onscreen soon. And yes, of course our entire conversation was as lofty and intellectual as that. Helen is the head prefect who knows where the key to the drinks cabinet is.

I even got a quick look at the national treasure that is Dame Gary Russell on the way out. I mean, as we were on the way out. ‘I’ll see you in L.A.!’ I call to him. And I’m really looking forward to doing so. I’m looking forward way beyond that, actually, to the time when I can tell full anecdotes about these wonderful times and people. They’re generally young, all full of enthusiasm, and now they’re spreading out into the industry. Like Hannah, who wants to move into production on movies, and Richard, who’s obviously going to end up directing himself, and all the other eager kids who go out on the karaoke together. They make me feel like a visiting dignitary from the land of Before Doctor Who. And that makes me smile, because they do things differently now, and better.

Helen drives me back to the production office, and calls me a cab to Forbidden Planet. On the way there, the driver does all the talking, about all the great stuff that the BBC and Doctor Who in particular have done for the city. I’m content to listen, because I really did it today: I enjoyed every moment of watching my Doctor Who episodes being made. Who could ask for anything more?

Announcements:

I'm told that the XTNCT collection advertised on the right will be in shops next Friday, 19th January, though Amazon are still listing the release date as the 30th. Do let me know what you think of it. Until next time, cheerio.