What
propelled your interest in Doctor Who and can you recall the first episode you
ever saw, and did you view it from behind the sofa?
Mark:
My first definite memory of ‘Doctor Who’ is the trailer for ‘Carnival of
Monsters’, probably broadcast an hour or so before episode one, on Saturday 27
January 1973. I was six: the perfect age to be drawn in by the magic. I
remember ‘The Three Doctors’, but only the unmasking of Omega so this may have
been a clip from another programme, and also ‘The Sea Devils’, but I’m certain
this was a repeat omnibus, either from 1972 or 1974. Of ‘Frontier in Space’ I
remember nothing, but from ‘Planet of the Daleks’ onwards, I rarely missed an
episode.
I never watched from
behind the sofa, but I have a vague feeling I may have sat on my mother’s lap
and watched it through my fingers sometimes. The mid-70s did
shock-horror-monster-reveals very well! And the theme music and electronic
incidental score added immeasurably to the scares.
I
love the Pocket Essential Episode guide, it’s what I call my ‘bible’ in terms
of discovering little snippets of information that I probably wouldn’t have
otherwise known. It gives every piece of
detail that has helped me write up ‘Birthday Shout Out’s’ and also when writing
articles about the Daleks. I can’t thank
you enough for writing it.
Mark:
Thank you, you’re very kind.
How
long did it take to compile the episode guide and why in the case of Peter
Davison’s reign as the Doctor were you not able to list the days the episodes
were broadcast, bearing in mind some episodes were over the period of a week?
Mark:
I seem to remember spending about four months on it, when it originally
came out in 2000. It was a very different beast then. 96pp, ridiculously tiny
print, 35,000 words max. My brief was to be irreverent, so I’m afraid that’s
why I wrote that very wicked introduction. Perhaps I was in a bad mood that
day? I don’t know. I look back on it and shudder. It was supposed to be funny,
but actually now reads as rather juvenile.
Not sure what you mean
by Davison transmission dates. I did them the same as all the other stories;
first and last dates only. I think I may have got a couple of dates wrong, but
they were corrected in subsequent editions.
You’ve
written two Who books, the episode guide and Doctor Who the Complete Guide
which on viewing briefly on Amazon seems no different to the episode guide,
just reformatted with a different front cover, unless you covered beyond the 10th’s
reign by covering all of Tennant’s first season right up to Matt Smith’s 11th
regeneration. (it only shows me about 10
pages, and it’s a paperback not a hardback which again is different to the
episode guide.) If it extends past the first season of Tennant I may buy it.
What
was the reason for the relaunch?
Mark:
Nothing to do with me! Authors are the last to know what’s happening
with their books. I was searching on Amazon one day for my name (as you do) and
saw this book called ‘The Complete Guide’ with my name on—which was news to me,
as I hadn’t written a book called ‘The Complete Guide’. An email to my editor
at Pocket Essentials soon revealed that they had sold the rights to Constable
& Robinson, without telling me, and so this was a new version of an old
book. So I contacted C&R and managed to update a few bits and bobs, but
essentially it’s exactly the same as the hardback Pocket Essential guide with
Matt Smith’s first season in.
It’s rather complicated,
but to date there have been eight unique editions of my book. Here’s the
history:
‘The Pocket
Essential Doctor Who’ (PE, 2000, 96pp, PB) — Up to ‘The Movie’
‘The Pocket
Essential Doctor Who – 40th Anniversary New Edition’ (PE, 2003,
96pp, PB) — ditto
‘The Pocket
Essential Doctor Who’ (PE, 2005, 190pp, PB) – Up to ‘Bad Wolf/The Parting of
the Ways’
‘Doctor Who
- The Episode Guide’ (PE, 2007, 192pp, HB) – Up to ‘The Runaway Bride’
‘Doctor Who
– The Episode Guide’ (PE, 2010, 224pp, HB) – Up to ‘The End of Time’
‘Doctor Who
– The Episode Guide’ (PE, 2010, 224pp, HB) – Up to ‘The Pandorica Opens/The Big
Bang’ + new Afterword
‘Doctor Who
– The Complete Guide’ (C&R, 2011, 257pp, PB) – ditto
‘Doctor Who
– The Complete Guide: Fully Revised and Updated’ (C&R, 2013, 292pp, PB) –
Up to ‘The Angels Take Manhattan’.
Have
you written any books outside of the Whoniverse?
Mark:
Yes, for Pocket Essentials I have written guides to Agatha Christie,
Sherlock Holmes and the Carry On Films. I’ve also just published a guide to
proofreading primary school reports for Kindle.
The
world of Who monsters is quite a list and we all have our favourites, I would
imagine you have yours, but to make it harder perhaps, which are your top 3
favourites, the ultimate obviously taking the top spot?
Mark:
By ultimate, you mean the Macra? But seriously, if you take out Daleks,
Cybermen and Sontarans as the Top 3 (which presumably would be most people’s),
then the next three are much more interesting to think about. For my money, the
‘second division’ of great monsters would be Ice Warriors, Sea Devils
and...don’t laugh...the Zarbi/Animus! I adore ‘The Web Planet’, it is so
wonderfully, self-consciously ‘alien’.
Imagine the Carcinome being done with CGI embellishments on today’s
budget. And the Zarbi! It would be staggering. I suppose one must slip the
Weeping Angels in there somewhere, but I’m getting very bored with the way they
are being shoved into any old story these days. As a one-off, ‘Blink’ was
superb. Every time the Angels re-appear, however, their appeal — for me — is
diluted.
Daleks
for me are always going to be number one but close second are the weeping
angels, with the Silence bringing up the rear, although there were some
creepier Classic ones that gave me nightmares, including a creeping sleeping
bag in bubble wrap (am certain it wasn’t in Blake7) were there many
monsters/aliens that kept you up at night as a kid?
Mark:
Sounds like you’re thinking of the Wirrn pupae from ‘The Ark in Space’.
Yes, the monsters that kept me up at night were probably the maggots from ‘The
Green Death’. For me it was their believability that was so terrifying. As a
child, I knew aliens, especially ones who spoke RP, were fictitious. But
hideous, slimy maggots that spat poisonous green goo at you? They seemed
frighteningly real, and you couldn’t negotiate your way out of danger. Like the
poisonous goo that the ‘eye plants’ spit in ‘Planet of the Daleks’, it was the
inevitably of death/disease once you’d got infected that I found particularly
sinister. Still do, it must be said! The Drashigs again I found very scary —
for much the same reason. They seemed very ‘real’ and just would keep coming
after you till they found you! Also their Radiophonic screams were particularly
bloodcurdling. Other monsters? For some reason Lynx from ‘The Time Warrior’ was
the one who sent shivers up my spine. The squat, PVC-clad body, the fleshy head
(all very Freudian!) and Kevin Lindsay’s magnificently malevolent performance
were key ingredients.
My
first Time Lord was Jon Pertwee, I remember him with Betsy the yellow car and
Jo Grant. My favourite Time Lord however
is David Tennant, which did you grow up with and who is your favourite Time
Lord?
Mark:
Like I say, Jon Pertwee was my first. My favourite? Tricky. Whoever I’m
watching at the time! Tom Baker is pretty hard to beat, although I do think
Peter Davison and Patrick Troughton are hard to beat. They never gave a bad
performance, despite some of their stories being total dross.
You’ve
listed quite a few episodes with 10/10 but which is your absolute favourite
episode?
Mark:
‘The Caves of Androzani’ and ‘The Androids of Tara’ I could watch again
and again.
As
a fan of Who did you ever collect memorabilia, magazines, figurines, books, the
mugs, pens, that kind of thing, and if you did, what is the best item you have
in your collection? I’m a collector of the TARDIS and Daleks.
Mark:
I’m not into ‘ephemera’ as such, but I certainly collected all the
Target novels, and I have every Doctor Who Weekly/Monthly/Magazine since issue
1. Nowadays I collect the DVDs (although they’ve practically stopped now) and
plug the gaps with the BBC soundtracks. When the series came back in 2005 I did
start collecting the figures, but have reigned back on those now, as the new
3.5” figures are ghastly and the ‘classic’ sets tend to be very expensive. I’ve
got about 50 of them I suppose, including all the Dalek and Cybermen variants.
Are
you writing any new books at the moment and can you tell us anything about
them?
Mark:
I am working on a few projects, but it’s all hush hush at the moment!
To
collate all of the information regarding the Episode Guide must have taken a
considerable amount of time, how long did it take and were there some portions
of the guide that you had difficulty in obtaining, such as the Peter Davison side
of the guide for example?
Mark: I think I’ve sort of answered this
one already. But I did have to persuade my wife I wasn’t just watching telly, I
was researching stuff!
When
you’re not writing how do you relax?
Mark: Reading books. I’m currently working
my way through Charles Dickens and Stephen King in chronological order. I enjoy
watching tatty old horror and science fiction films. I collect 1970s UK humour
comics, so I enjoy perusing ‘Whoopee!’, ‘Shiver and Shake’ and ‘The Beezer’ and
the like.
What
was the first book you ever wrote and had published? Do you always write factual books, have you
written fictional pieces?
Mark:
The ‘Pocket Essential Doctor Who’ was my first book, but I’d had lots of
magazine articles published before that. I always have plans for fiction, and I
did submit proposals for the Virgin and BBC original fiction lines, but they
were all rejected. I enjoy writing short stories and plan on getting an
anthology published for Kindle.
The other ‘Doctor Who’
book I’ve written is called ‘Dimensions in Time and Space’ and it’s a huge
thing, 410pp of tiny print, going very in-depth into the TV series and also
covering all the spin-offs: comic strips, radio shows, plays, TV spin-offs etc.
The last edition was published in 2005 but I don’t think the publisher has any
plans for a new edition!
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