Variations on a Desktop Theme

Production Design

I first had the chance to visit the set of a Doctor

The 1960s

The pioneering production designers of Doctor Who’s first decade had to realise some of the most ambitious settings television had ever attempted, despite limited resources. They overcame this challenge to create worlds and even alien creatures that remain instantly recognisable today.

Design on Location

For designers, location trips could be a welcome break

ALTARED IMAGES

The Doctor’s third trip into Earth history saw the TARDIS land in Mexico, at the time of the human-sacri cing Aztecs. Their templed city was realised by proli c designer Barry Newbery.

TECHNICOLOR TARDIS

In 1965, cinemagoers could see Peter Cushing’s Dr Who battle the Daleks in colour on the big screen, with their far-out world realised in huge and lavish sets designed by Bill Constable.

DOMESTIC SCIENCE

“Iremember Bill Constable as a very pleasant person,”

EVIL PLANS

Chris Thompson, designer of the 1967 classic The Evil of the Daleks, helps DWM reconstruct the sets for its long-lost opening instalment.

RESIDENT EVIL

The settings for Episodes 2 to 7 are more familiar

The 1970s

At the start of its second decade, Doctor Who became a television trailblazer that broke new ground in the electronic studio. But off -screen problems dogged the programme as the 1970s wore on…

Inside the 70s Spaceship

The fact that the “secret of time travel” had been

FUTURE PROOF

Jeremy Bear took inspiration from NASA’s contemporary space exploration when designing the futuristic settings of 1972 serial The Mutants. A key element of his work would reappear in numerous other programmes…

BEAR WALLS

Jeremy’s Skybase wall design - of interlinked triangles

UNDER the Loch

More than one kind of monster lurks beneath the surface of Loch Ness. Some of them live in a strange spaceship designed by Nigel Curzon. This previously unpublished interview was conducted in 1995.

BILLS EYE

The Myth Makers (1965), on which Nigel worked as a

VIEWVIEW FROM A BRIDGE

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 The production pushed the boundaries of what was possible in 1978, as Jon remembered in this previously unpublished interview conducted 17 years later.

A LONG TIME AGO IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY…

T he Captain’s guards, and later the Doctor and Romana

The 1980s

The final decade of Doctor Who’s original run saw an evolution in the construction and application of sets. Along the way, some of the rules of television production design were rewritten…

The Jigsaw of Traken

Arguably the most signi. cant innovation of the 1980-81

HIVE MIND

Tom Yardley-Jones designed The Leisure Hive, the rst new Doctor Who story of the 1980s. The experience proved far from leisurely, as he explained in this previously unpublished interview conducted in 1995. “You’re never 100 per cent happy,” he said, “but always striving for better…”

MAKING AN EXHIBITION

Late in 1972, Tom was asked by BBC Design Department

SPHERE OF INTEREST

For 1983’s Mawdryn Undead, Stephen Scott had to conjure up a luxurious-looking starliner and a practical transmat capsule for next to nothing. He recalled the challenges in this previously unpublished interview, conducted 12 years later.

The 1990s

The US co-produced Doctor Who TV movie broadcast in 1996 boasted production values that previous generations of BBC designers could only have dreamed of.

The 2000s

When Doctor Who returned in 2005, television production had transformed - but some of the problems the designers faced were still the same…

The TARDIS Inside Out

Anew series of Doctor Who needed a new TARDIS control

GOING ORGANIC

Edward Thomas was 21st-century Doctor Who’s  rst production designer. Among other innovations, he gave the TARDIS control room new life, with a coral-like interior…

ON THE BUSES

“This is funny now, but it wasn’t at the time,” says

THE LOST TARDIS

During Edward’s time on Doctor Who, he created what

The 2010s

Doctor Who began the 2010s looking like the pages of a magical storybook. The decade ended with the show embracing its most cinematic aesthetic yet.

ENTIRELY PRACTICAL

In November 2015, production designer Michael Pickwoad, who died in 2018, discussed his contribution to the Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors’ episodes as a guest of the Whoovers fan group in Derby. Highlights of the interview are published here for the  rst time.

LIKE FATHER, LIKE DAUGHTER

AMY PICKWOAD worked in the Doctor Who art department on numerous Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi episodes - alongside her father.

ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS

Director RACHEL TALALAY worked with Michael Pickwoad on seven Peter Capaldi episodes, from Dark Water to Twice Upon a Time.

How to Build a Crystal Set

Arwel Wyn Jones designed the latest Doctor’s first series of adventures - and came up with a crystalline concept for the control room of her TARDIS…

SARAH JANE and SONTARANS

“We were essentially attempting to do Doctor Who on

2020 VISION

Dafydd Shurmer has worked in Doctor Who’s art department since 2006 and took over as the programme’s production designer for Series 12. “It’s like a childhood dream,” he says. “I’m designing spaceships!”

OFF THE CUFFS

“Daf is incredible,” says director Emma Sullivan, who

SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING BORROWED

Doctor Who has often featured devices and designs that originated in strange other places - from the sci- worlds of Gerry Anderson to the Grace Brothers department store.