Myth Makers: Doctor Who Magazine

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DVD

“We’re here at the Copthorne Hotel in Windsor,” says Sophie Aldred, in an uncordoned-off corner.

If anything is indicative of this DVD and the Myth Makers catalogue as a whole it’s that scene, the opening for the Volume 4 section (we’ll explain how this all works shortly). “We’re here…” she says, as if a velvet rope has been lifted, the first-person plural communicating the communal effort required to make such an expedition. But, in truth, the set-up has all the radiance of a corporate video, and that’s what these productions are – Doctor Who corporates, covering every section of the business with instant enthusiasm.

This release is rooted in last summer’s celebrations for 500 Glorious Issues of DWM, but in a shrewd realisation that more equals more, Reeltime Pictures has accompanied its new documentary with three previous productions, which celebrated the magazine’s 10th, 20th and 25th anniversaries. These are designated as separate ‘volumes’ on the menu screen.

In terms of the Doctor Who industry, a feature on DWM puts us some distance away from head office, but it’s always more fun out here by the gates. Then again, I would say that, because it’s where I work.

The three-and-a-half-hour double package commences with producer Keith Barnfather and host/director Nicholas Briggs presenting a ten-minute induction. It’s a low-wattage scene with both men yakking in an edit studio, a freeze-frame of Tom Spilsbury – all explaining hands behind them. Luckily Briggs has a gift for modulating excitement out of mediocrity, and guffaws heartily when trailing a funny cameo to come from John Levene.

To Volume 1, from 1989, when “the Monthly” was based on Arundel Street in London. “This is the nerve centre!” announces Briggs as he arrives. It was the TV vocab of the day for people to be seen arriving. John Freeman was editor, and there’s a lovely present-tenseness in his concerns, as he steers the publication definitively towards the weird-to-describe mix of enthusiasm and irreverence I would assert it demonstrates today. A chief conundrum for him is the role of “opinionated articles”. Others are the imminent DoctorWho movie, and how DWM had just managed to survive the show’s recent 18-month stopover.