Richard Molesworth concludes a two-part interview with accomplished British television screenwriter, script editor and novelist Chris Boucher, who worked on such shows as Doctor Who, Blake’s 7, Shoestring, Bergerac, The Bill and Star Cops…

Tom Baker in Chris Boucher’s 1977 Doctor Who show, Image of the Fendahl

Wanda Ventham, aka Benedict Cumberbatch’s Mum, in the same series

In the first part of this interview, Chris Boucher discussed writing the Doctor Who stories ‘The Face of Evil’ and ‘The Robots of Death’ for Tom Baker’s Doctor, and how this led to him being offered the chance to script edit the first season of the BBC’s new science fiction series Blake’s 7 in the late 1970s. And so Boucher found himself working side-by-side with David Maloney, who had been elevated to the role of producer after working as director for a number of years, most recently on Doctor Who. The two of them were reliant on series creator and scriptwriter Terry Nation to keep the scripts for the new series rolling in.

“I didn’t have what could be called a working relationship with Terry Nation,” Boucher continues. “David was the conduit between us and he spent more time with Terry than I did. The three of us did have several pleasant meetings, which were more social than anything else. I don’t think Terry really knew what I had done previously, and when he found out I was pretty new to script editing, he was too professional to throw a hissy fit, but he was understandably annoyed that he had someone like me working on his scripts. I was not very popular, and was not invited to various things. I did feel a bit guilty; I liked Terry and I didn’t set out to hurt his feelings. As it goes, he took all the credit for Blake’s 7, and all the money too, so my feelings of guilt didn’t last that long.”

As mentioned before, Terry Nation was tasked with writing all 13 episodes of Blake’s 7’s first season. He hit the floor running with his first batch of scripts, but there seems to be a bit of a drop-off in quality towards the end of the season. Did Terry Nation run out of steam, perhaps? “Since I had never worked with Terry before I don’t know whether he was running out of steam or not. He delivered prompt first drafts. But they were just first drafts and he didn’t do rewrites. It was obvious from the beginning that they were part of my job.”