Jon Pusey designed the memorable Fourth Doctor serial The Pirate Planet. The production pushed the boundaries of what was possible in 1978, as Jon remembered in this previously unpublished interview conducted 17 years later.

Interview by PHIL NEWMAN

JON PUSEY

‘‘WONDERING WHAT TO DO, TELLY DESIGN SORT OF POPPED UP IN MY MIND.”

The Doctor (Tom Baker) in The Pirate Planet (1978), with the opening for the bridge’s privateer-style plank in the background.

The partmechanical Captain (Bruce Purchase) and his mysterious Nurse (Rosalind Lloyd) at the helm of the expansive bridge

Seeking out the second segment of the all-powerful Key to Time, the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) and his assistant Romana (Mary Tamm) landed on the planet Zanak - which, it transpired, was a hollow world that materialised around other planets in order to drain their mineral wealth. This obscene operation was overseen by a piratical cyborg Captain (Bruce Purchase) from Zanak’s high bridge. But in reality it was the product of a far greater mind: that of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy creator Douglas Adams.

Jon Pusey was the designer responsible for making the far-out world of 1978’s The Pirate Planet a reality - the Captain’s high-tech bridge (complete with a plank for the Doctor to walk at the end of Part Three), its ‘inertialess corridor’, even its ‘aircar’. Originally, Jon wanted to be “a great painter” and studied fine art at Farnham and Camberwell. He taught for a short time, but found himself out of work for two or three months. “Wondering what to do, telly design sort of popped up in my mind, really, so I applied to a few companies. Both Granada and the BBC off ered me a job, and I went for the BBC one…”