Love and Liberty

On this day in 1963, the very first episode of Doctor Who was broadcast. It’s fantastic that it’s still going strong, but the celebrations have been dampened by the very sad news today that the show’s first producer, Verity Lambert, has died at the age of 71. Forty-four years ago, she was not just the youngest producer at the BBC but their only woman producer, and after making Doctor Who a huge success she became one of the legendary figures of British TV, producing such landmark television as The Naked Civil Servant, G.B.H., Minder, Jonathan Creek and Adam Adamant Lives! She even oversaw the 1979 revival of Quatermass.

Verity Lambert was a central figure in British TV through five decades, winning BAFTAs, gaining an OBE, with two of her productions voted in 2000 as the third and fourth Greatest British Television Programmes of the 20th Century in a British Film Institute poll of the Top 100 – Doctor Who and The Naked Civil Servant. If you’ve watched TV drama, you’ve probably seen something of hers; if you’ve watched any of those documentaries about the best dramas, you’ll probably have seen one of her charismatic, forthright and incisive interviews; in several just this year, she looked and sounded on top form. It’s dreadful to know she’s so suddenly gone. It’s difficult to oversell her contribution to the industry as both a creative force and a businesswoman.

Still working this year, it was announced just hours before her death that she was to receive a third award (following others in 1991 and 1997) from Working Title Films, this time for lifetime achievement. Sadly she’ll not pick up her award on December 7th, but she’ll be remembered.

Verity Lambert was also recognised on-screen as the Doctor’s ‘mother’ in this spring’s outstanding story Human Nature / The Family of Blood, in which the Doctor becomes a human and, of course, there was only one name he could remember as his mother. The millions of people round the world who love Doctor Who owe her a huge amount for picking the first (and best) Doctor, agreeing the Daleks against the fury of the Head of Drama (her boss), getting the show on the road for the first two years and making it such a success. I never got to meet Verity, but I’m sure she’d have been one of the few people I’d have blushed, looked down and mumbled ‘I’m not worthy’ for. Since I was about five and first read the seminal account of the series The Making of Doctor Who, I’ve regarded her with a degree of awe. Growing up and becoming aware of all her other work and just how talented she had to be to make it, a 27-year-old woman that most of the rest of the BBC treated with disdain, she’s been one of my heroes. She’ll be missed terribly.


November 23rd is usually rather an upbeat day for me. Instead, the loss of Verity has left me feeling bereft. I suspect many of my more Who-ish viewers will be feeling the same. If you need cheering up, I have two recommendations. One is to pop on some of Verity’s finest work, which I’m sure we’ll do tonight; the other is to watch something very silly indeed. One of Doctor Who’s least fine hours was a 1981 story called Time-Flight, featuring Time Crash Doctor Peter Davison, Concorde, the Master and not a lot of glory: there’s now a six-minute version that’s brought me a lot more joy (and far better special effects) than the full-length one ever has, along with a special appearance from my Dad’s workplace of Jodrell Bank, hurrah. Don’t watch it if you want serious drama, but click here if you simply want cheering up with some camp old nonsense, some monsters of which I’m very fond, and a slightly unexpected trailer for Voyage of the Damned – this year’s Doctor Who Christmas special with Kylie! I’ll add my voice to the many people who are already saying they’d like to see that story dedicated to Verity.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to watch The Aztecs and marvel at just what extraordinary drama Doctor Who was, thanks to Verity, from the very beginning.

Labels: Doctor Who, Obituary, Peter Davison, The Golden Dozen, William Hartnell