As Doctor Who\u2019s 60th anniversary specials approach, returning showrunner Russell T Davies sat down with Waris Hussein, the original director of the iconic sci-fi series.<\/p>\n
The pair talked about everything from the power of the original episode, An Unearthly Child, to working with the eccentric First Doctor, William Hartnell.<\/p>\n
And, to finish, Davies looked from the past to the present \u2013 discussing what it was like to come back to the Whoniverse.<\/p>\n
As the original director and current showrunner, you must have met before?<\/strong><\/p>\n Russell:<\/strong> It was at a marvellous, queer Doctor Who<\/a> convention in Cardiff about five years ago, talking about gay matters in the show. We were very proud to be there.<\/p>\n Waris:<\/strong> I wish I had been able to cover a theme like that in the show, but in those early days there were very few points of view.<\/p>\n Russell:<\/strong> I don\u2019t know. You dealt with war. You dealt with race, to some extent. I think it was all there in that first episode.<\/p>\n Waris:<\/strong> Well, I don\u2019t want to be telling tales out of school, but we had no script to work with. I remember coming in and saying, \u201cWhat do we do with this?\u201d to [producer] Verity Lambert. She said, \u201cWe have to make it work.\u201d We tried, and we did.<\/p>\n Russell:<\/strong> You absolutely did. Your shows are still loved today, all these years later. Your peers all strutted past you, saying, \u201cI\u2019m doing Dickens. I\u2019m doing Jane Austen. Aren\u2019t I posh?\u201d Forgotten! Every single one of them. Your work lives on.<\/p>\n Waris, what was in that original episode, An Unearthly Child, that still resonates today?<\/strong><\/p>\n Waris:<\/strong> I never cease to be amazed at how it managed to take off. I know it was the Daleks in the next story. But what was the magic?<\/p>\n Russell:<\/strong> It wasn\u2019t just the Daleks \u2013 it was episode one! I must have seen that 100 times. It\u2019s still so beautiful, so mysterious. And what\u2019s astonishing is that the show has never changed. It\u2019s still about a mysterious police box in which an almost unknowable man leads human beings into a world of adventure.<\/p>\n Every time I write an episode one I never skimp on those scenes of the companions staring at the TARDIS, discovering not just a new space, but a whole new life. That is magic every single time, because Waris made it magic in the beginning.<\/p>\n Waris:<\/strong> I envy the people working on it today, because we worked with such parsimonious circumstances; no money for special effects. I watch now with a sense of awe!<\/p>\n Russell:<\/strong> Isn\u2019t that funny? Because we watch yours with a sense of awe. You created the original awe that we\u2019re trying to replicate.<\/p>\n Why do you think the show has survived as long as it has?<\/strong><\/p>\n Russell:<\/strong> It\u2019s extraordinarily loved by people who don\u2019t fit in. I love Star Trek<\/a>, but Star Trek is a military show. There\u2019s a formality to it, an establishmentarianism. Whereas, with Doctor Who, the lead character\u2019s a mystery. Everyone wishes they could be taken away from taxes and parents and homework. It\u2019s the ultimate magical door.<\/p>\n Waris:<\/strong> The magic is being able to bring the Doctor back as someone else. William Hartnell<\/a> left, but that eccentricity was still there.<\/p>\n Russell:<\/strong> The moment they realised that Patrick Troughton could step in, that\u2019s when they really discovered it could run and run. That was the incredible decision, because they could have just ended it and said, \u201cLet\u2019s invent Professor X who travels in time.\u201d<\/p>\n How did you find working with William Hartnell, Waris?<\/strong><\/p>\n Waris:<\/strong> He was an eccentric. A hardened Brit from the old Second World War mood. He was always apprehensive of foreigners. And at the time I was introduced to him he wondered who I was and where I came from. But as soon as I convinced him that I knew what I was doing, we developed a great affection for each other.<\/p>\n Did you experience that kind of prejudice often?<\/strong><\/p>\n Waris:<\/strong> Of course. We were living in times where Enoch Powell had made that terrible speech about rivers of blood. If you were an immigrant, then you had to put up with that subconscious prejudice.<\/p>\n Russell:<\/strong> I look back and I think, \u201cWhat an extraordinary figure you must have cut walking through Television Centre as an Asian man.\u201d Frankly, that wasn\u2019t the norm then. And now you look at it 60 years later, where Ncuti [Gatwa], a black man, is about to walk through the BBC as the Doctor. Does that feel like a victory of sorts?<\/p>\n Waris:<\/strong> It does. I was the first British Asian in my field to be doing what I was doing. What did worry me internally was working on set and all these people watching me. I\u2019d think to myself, \u201cThey\u2019re waiting to see whether I\u2019ll fall on my face. But I\u2019m not going to fall on my face.\u201d<\/p>\n Russell:<\/strong> I felt that as a gay man. If you fail, you fail all other gay men at the same time.<\/p>\n When you revived Doctor Who in 2005, Russell, did you think that the show would still be on air today?<\/strong><\/p>\n Russell:<\/strong> It very much felt like all or nothing. We poured everything into that first year, thinking it might never come back after that. I never actually suspected it would take off to this extent, that it would still be running in 2023. We thought, \u201cMaybe we\u2019ll get three or four years out of this.\u201d We never saw this coming. But that\u2019s the programme. It keeps on being strong.<\/p>\n You\u2019ve returned to take over Doctor Who again. How are you finding the experience this time?<\/strong><\/p>\n Russell:<\/strong> It\u2019s not hugely different, it\u2019s just a 2023 take on the same show. I knew I had more stories in my head. That\u2019s the most important thing. The BBC had already decided it was going to team up with a streaming service overseas \u2013 in this case, Disney Plus<\/a>.<\/p>\n It was going to go worldwide, it was going to have an increase in budget. And I believed in the BBC\u2019s ambition. It\u2019s what I would have done anyway, and there they were, planning it, and asking if I wanted to run it. It felt right. I didn\u2019t hesitate for a second!<\/p>\n Check out more Doctor Who interviews in Radio Times magazine<\/a>, on sale now.<\/em><\/p> ![\"Waris](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2023\/11\/DWxRT25-10-23214-863bbd3.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C930\" "\\"Waris")
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