The New Doctor! A Doctor Who Alternate History Story

Part 41 - Interview with Barry Letts, Dreamwatch Bulletin, autumn 1993

DWB:   Let's talk about Volcano now.

LETTS: That's about the worst kept secret ever, I suppose.

DWB:  You produced, directed, you were involved in everything, in every part of the production.

LETTS:  More than I intended originally, I think. We had always intended that I direct these two episodes, and I had entered the project as an executive producer. Even when I stepped away, these episodes needed a steady hand, so I kept doing that. I think that in a perfect world, it wouldn't have all fallen on me. But as it turns out, it was the end of the season episodes, everyone else was exhausted or occupied, and there was no margin of error whatsoever in terms of budgets or schedules. Both had been cut back considerably, as it turns out. There was no wiggle room left.

So you really had to be disciplined and exacting. There was simply no more margin for error, or playing around.

DWB:  Was it difficult?

LETTS:  You might ask my wife. There was a period when I was putting in eighteen hour days on a continuing basis. But sometimes that's the situation you are in.

DWB:  This was a more disciplined shoot than previous efforts?

LETTS:  A matter of necessity. We no longer had the time or the money to waste. With our previous serials, there was a lot of adaptation or improvisation as we went along. That's something you have to watch out for. It's an inevitable tendency - it's a business of creative people, creative people always have ideas. But you have to watch out for that. We were working with some new people on our team, who didn't come from this tradition, and so things were rather more... Flexible than they should have been.

Monsters of Ness, Vienna 1913 and the Secret of the Sontarans, they all transformed massively along the way from what they originally were planned to be, and it caused us no end of troubles and conflicts. Generally, that's something you should avoid.

What you'll find is that even when you stick to the plan, you are going to be forced to improvise and compromise. Don't go out looking for it, it'll come to you on its own. Monsters of Ness was a textbook example of the problem coming to you, of improvisation driven by necessity rather than choice - we ended up with costumes that were rubbish - most of the costumes were transparently laughable, the only good costume could barely move. They had a choice, we could shoot it the way they'd written it, and just ask the audience to go along, or they could improvise. In the end, they chose to make the poor quality of the costumes into a plot point and rewrite part of the story around that. That was a good decision, I think, even inspired.

But I think it also taught them the wrong lesson. That this was something you could and should do every time. Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that. Fortunately, we were able to get away with it, somewhat. But it didn't make things easy, I will tell you.

By the time we got to Volcano, the well, as they say was dry. It was the only show that followed the script directly, without major changes. I'm quite proud of that. But again, there were not a lot of options left.

DWB:   You had an uncredited hand in writing it,

LETTS:   As to the writing, I had some contribution, the overall plot, and some of the directions and scenes. With the script tightened and shooting days cut back, we had to amend the script on the fly, but that always happens. Really though, unquestionably the script is the work of Terrance Dicks and Evan Wales.

DWB:  Were there any surprises? Anything unanticipated?

LETTS:  One actually. A pleasant one. Jenny and Judy actually turned in good performances. I remember watching Monsters of Ness, and they had been quite wooden. There was a strong sentiment to just write them out, or write around them. I was one of the ones who originally considered them a problem that we'd inherited. But David, to his credit, stood up for them, and he worked hard with them, and they had repaid his kindness by taking the vocation seriously. So when I got them, I was quite pleased with their professionalism and the way they exceeded my expectations. I was able to rely on them much more than I had expected. Sadly, as they improved, acting became less of a lark and more like hard work to them, and they became less interested in continuing. They stuck with it because they were quite loyal to David. But if we'd have gone to a second season... well, they had no intention of remaining for the whole thing.

DWB:  You had some remarkable people on this project. Terrance Dicks was well known for his work with Doctor Who. So were John Levene and Richard Franklin.

LETTS:   I'd worked with them all, they knew me, they trusted me. It was just a matter of asking. Jack Kine, I knew for years, it was just a matter of ringing him up and asking for an old album photo. I think he was quite bemused.

DWB:  Ian McKellen, how did you get him?

LETTS:   I asked. We didn't know each other, but we knew of each other. We'd both been in the business for a while, and we knew many of the same people. I asked, he found the project interesting, we worked it out. A little more complicated than that, there's a way to go about approaching someone, you know. It took finesse. I think that he took comfort that I had a good reputation. Reputation is everything in this business. I don't think he would have considered it for a second if someone with less of a reputation, like Ian, would have approached him. This isn't to disparage Ian or anyone else in Millenium, but reputation is a unique currency.

DWB:   I've heard that you originally wanted Christopher Lee for the part?

LETTS:   That's simply untrue. No disrespect to Chris. But I find this sort of banter uncomfortable. You don't tell the girl that you took to the dance that you asked other girls first. As far as I'm concerned, Ian McKellen was my first and only choice, and I'm pleased by the range he brought to the role. He was able to move smoothly from officious, to affable, to seductive to menacing, not every actor can do that.

DWB:   The series finished on a cliff hanger. Was that the plan?

LETTS:   Heavens no! Originally, we planned to finish the series with a two part serial. But then we had a production bottleneck, we weren't going to make a date and the BBC was inflexible. So Time Parasite was rushed in to fill the gap. Which mean we had one episode left to show.... And so we ended in the middle of Volcano. That's just the way things turned out.

By the time we were making such decisions, it simply wasn't feasible to limit Volcano to one episode. It was much too packed, and we were already quite advanced. Arguably, I think the story properly demanded at least three or four episodes. But you get what you get. Anyway, we ultimately decided to do the complete story as a two parter, and use the second part as a season opener for the next year. I think that decision would have worked out admirably.

DWB:   Would you have come back for the next year?

LETTS:  That's a difficult question. You never say never. I think directing, yes. And writing perhaps, we had some ideas that I would have liked to develop. But honestly, it was a bruising year, for all of us, I think. I remember that I was certainly fed up. I would have been reluctant to get into it again on those terms. But then again, I think everyone learned a lot through the year. Certainly we didn't have nearly the strife we had on previous serials. Perhaps that's because there was no choice, but I'd like to think it was because we, as a company had matured.

DWB:   Is there any possibility that the last episode will ever be shown?

LETTS:  I couldn't say. I believe that Millenium Productions is negotiating with BBC Enterprises. So never say never.

DWB:   Can you tell us how the last episode goes? Give us some clues?

LETTS:   Certainly. It all gets sorted out, and the Doctor goes on his merry way. Is that helpful?