<Disclaimer> I wrote this article, on writer Robert Holmes’ work in the 80s, way back in 1993 for the first issue of Circus. It’s a bit cocksure and probably riddled with factual errors, but it holds up reasonably well I think. </Disclaimer>
During one of the economic ice ages that regularly grip our household I bought a Citroën 2CV. The salesman assured me that this machine was the last word in frugality with an engine that ran on gnat’s water. ‘Ran’, in this context, is probably the wrong word. It sort of ambled. But it was a fine car and gave one plenty of time to admire the scenery. There was also the excitement of burn-ups with passing tractors and invalid carriages.
I mention this only because it fills up some of my fifteen hundred words and also to make my point that I am the 2CV of scriptwriters.
Robert Holmes, ‘A Life of Hammer and Tongs’ (The Doctor Who File)
Robert Holmes’ last work for Doctor Who after Anthony Read took over from him as script-editor was ‘The Power of Kroll’, a story with which he was naturally unhappy. He had been asked to write a script that revolved around the largest monster in the programme’s history, a feat he found difficult, particularly when he disliked traditional lumbering monsters, relying instead on unusual, appealingly quirky characters. Although it isn’t in any writer’s nature to deliberately produce sub-standard work, Holmes’ last Who story for six years must have been a disappointment to him.
40 things I hated…
D I McMillan: awful awful awful, like a bumbling comedy policeman from an episode of Terry and June. Or CBeebies. “It’s definitely her, come on! Jackson, follow that bus!” Perfectly reasonable lines, but from the mouth of Adam James somehow… shit. And later he says “You do not have to say anything, et cetera et cetera” which proves he’s a rubbish copper too.
You know those beastly fellows at 
With the release of the BBC Tripods series on DVD and the promise of an Alex Proyas film adaptation, I thought this interview with the trilogy’s prolific author, conducted in 1999, might be of interest. I’d never interviewed anyone before, and found Sam incredibly generous and a true gent.
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