Barbara Lane’s career on Doctor Who saw her design some of the most memorable aliens to appear in the 1970s. It was all part of creating what she calls “complete worlds”…

Interview by MARK WRIGHT

I was totally taken aback!” says Barbara Lane of the random phone call she recently received from Doctor Who Magazine. “I thought, what on earth could I say?”

It’s a week since that phone call and we’re settling down at the kitchen table in Barbara’s home near Chester to talk about her 45-year career as a sought-after costume designer. Among her many television and film credits are seven Doctor Who stories between 1971 and 1976. “You meet so many people doing this work,” Barbara tells us. “I’ve never been one of those who hangs on to anything. When it’s over, it’s done and you get on with the future. That’s all you can do.”

Aside from a brief interview in the Radio Times tenth anniversary Doctor Who special in 1973 and a piece published in The Sun three years later, Barbara has rarely talked about her Doctor Who work. “I’ve got no sentiment at all about my work,” she says. “People are more important to me. People are real and what you do in your career is what you do to make a living. And you do the best you can, which is what I always tried to do.” Barbara’s best gave Doctor Who such memorable creations as the Axons, Azal, Aggedor and Sarah Jane Smith’s memorable ‘Andy Pandy’ dungarees.

“I’ve got no sentiment at all about my work. You do the best you can and that’s what I’ve always tried to do.”

Barbara’s route into television goes back to the mid-1960s. “I worked in the West End for [the impresario] Harold Fielding,” she recalls. “His company made American musicals that came over and I did the costumes. I was used to getting things manufactured and designing them. I met my partner, Brian, 57 years ago. He said, ‘Why don’t you go and work at the BBC?’ He was an actor and he’d been doing some work there. I rang up and made an appointment, went in and they offered me a job! Perhaps they were ready for somebody like me? Somebody a bit chatty and who would just get on with it!”