The twelfth in our series of features telling the story of the creation of Doctor Who, and the people who made it happen.

The story so far: With Doctor Who having been initially conceived and formatted by Sydney Newman, Donald Wilson and CE Webber, along with other staff and writers in the BBC's script department, work on actually getting the series made is now under way. Although some scripts are in development, none of the main characters has yet been cast, and by June 1963 the programme does not even have a producer in place . . .

In the early summer of 1963, the day-to-day management of Doctor Who was in the hands of producer-director Rex Tucker. It was never envisaged that Tucker would be the producer of the series in the long term, but it was at the time planned that he would be the chief director on the programme, to helm the first serial and then several others across the proposed 52-week run.

Tucker's temporary position as producer of Doctor Who, in addition to his directorial duties, reflected something of a state of change in the way BBC dramas were being produced at the time. In the 1950s, it was common for a single producer-director to have overall practical and artistic control over a production, and Tucker himself had a great deal of experience in this producer-director role on a number of children's serials and adaptations of classic literature.

By the early 1960s, and in tandem with Newman's arrival as Head of Drama Group at the BBC, the system was changing for drama series and serials. The main regular members of a production team would be the producer and story editor, with directors being appointed on an ad hoc, serial-by-serial or episode-by-episode basis, much like the writers. But despite the knowledge that he would not be the full-time producer of the series, Tucker took full charge of all areas of production for the fledgling Doctor Who in May and early June 1963 – including ideas of casting.

Tucker was friends with an actor called Hugh David, a 37-year-old Welshman who had recently come to public attention as one of the stars of a Granada Television crime-drama series called Knight Errant Limited. Although David was younger than the "frail old man" envisaged by Newman, Wilson and Webber, at some point by early June 1963 Tucker had offered him the role of the Doctor – quite possibly the first actor ever to be asked to play the part.

David, however, had been uncomfortable with the public recognition that starring as Stephen Drummond in Knight Errant Limited had brought him, and he was reluctant to now become the star of another programme, so turned down Tucker's offer. He eventually decided to wind down his acting career not long after this, and made a move behind the cameras, working as a director. In this capacity, he would go on to direct two Doctor Who stories later in the 1960s, during the Patrick Troughton era – The Highlanders and Fury From the Deep. In later years, David would go on to make the claim that it had been Tucker who came up with the title Doctor Who, although there is no documentary evidence for this, and it is not a claim that Tucker ever made himself.

Despite Tucker's offer to his friend, it is doubtful that David would have ended up playing the Doctor even if he had been keen on the role. Not long after the offer had been made, Doctor Who finally had a full-time producer assigned to take charge of the series, someone who would later state that David would have been too young for the part.

But this producer had not been the first choice for the job.

When Newman was attempting to find a producer for Doctor Who, his first port of call was 26-year-old director Don Taylor, to whom he offered the job at an unknown point, probably in May or June 1963. This offer was something of an olive branch from Newman, as Taylor was a somewhat higher-brow and more classically-cultured figure than the Canadian, and he was horrified by the idea of such an unashamed populist being in charge of the BBC's drama output. In his memoir Days of Vision, published in 1990, Taylor wrote scathingly of Newman, saying that:


Taylor was best-known for working on sophisticated single plays for adult viewers, particularly for his work directing the plays of David Mercer. Newman's Doctor Who offer held no interest for him, and he turned the producer's job down flat. Later in 1963 he resigned from the staff of the BBC in despair at the changes being wrought under Newman, particularly the abolition of the old producer-director system, and he would later claim to have been blacklisted from working for the drama department as a freelance director. Speaking to Doctor Who Magazine in 1993, however, Taylor had a more conciliatory attitude towards Newman and his offer:


Newman next turned to someone who would perhaps have been rather a better fit for Doctor Who – 43-year-old producer-director Shaun Sutton. Sutton had formed a particular reputation for his work on children's serials in the 1950s, and unlike Taylor he had great respect and admiration for Newman. However, like Taylor, he also turned down Newman's offer to become Doctor Who's first producer. This was because he was keen to move on from children's drama and was interested in tackling more adult fare – he had already worked as a director on episodes of the police drama Z-Cars since that series had begun in 1962.

Sutton did, however, later go on to become involved in the production of Doctor Who. In 1966 he became the Head of Serials in the drama department, in which role he was effectively the show's executive producer. He gave approval for William Hartnell to be replaced, and was involved in the decision to cast Troughton as the Second Doctor. He later succeeded Newman as overall Head of Drama at the BBC, a role he went on to occupy until 1981 – longer than anyone else either before or since.

With both Taylor and Sutton having rejected the chance to take charge of the series, and a full-time producer badly needing to be appointed, Newman's thoughts turned back to his time in commercial television, at ABC. While working at the ITV contractor, he had been impressed by the verve and the vigour of a young production assistant in the drama department named Verity Lambert. With nobody else seeming to want to produce Doctor Who, Newman decided to take a chance and offer her the opportunity to follow him to the BBC and become the producer of the new series.

Born in London in November 1935, Lambert had been educated at Roedean School, near Brighton, and at the Sorbonne in Paris. She entered the television industry in 1956, working as a secretary at Granada Television, before moving to ABC Television a few months later. She was initially the secretary for the company's Head of Drama prior to Newman, Dennis Vance, before moving on to become a production secretary and then a production assistant. It was in this latter capacity that she had worked with Newman on dramas such as Armchair Theatre, and she had displayed the capable, positive attitude that had so impressed him. As he later told Doctor Who Magazine:


In 1961, Lambert had taken a break from ABC to work for a year as the personal assistant to noted American television producer David Susskind in New York. She returned to the UK in 1962, determined to become either a producer or a director, but no opportunities for promotion were forthcoming, and she remained as a production assistant at ABC.

Frustrated at this lack of opportunity, she had considered giving up television as a career entirely, until the offer from Newman to come to the BBC and finally earn the promotion she wanted. While she freely admitted to Newman that she knew nothing about children, he remained convinced that she was the right person for the job. If there were misgivings among any of Newman's fellow executives at the Corporation, these were perhaps allayed at least a little by the fact that the previous month the highly-experienced Mervyn Pinfield had been appointed as associate producer of Doctor Who, to advise particularly on technical matters (see previous episode). Tucker would also still be around as the principal director for the series – although this state of affairs would not last for very long after Lambert's appointment, as the pair of them disagreed over many aspects of the programme.

But that was all to come. By Friday 14th June 1963 - exactly 50 years ago today - the 27-year-old Lambert had arrived at her new office in Room 5014 at BBC Television Centre as the Corporation's youngest – and only female – drama producer. One of the first people sent to see her was a young Indian director called Waris Hussein, who around this time had been assigned to direct episodes of Doctor Who. Lambert and Hussein got on well at once, with the pair happy to admit to each other that neither of them knew quite what they had let themselves in for.

Actors Frazer Hines and Tony Selby plus script editor and writer Eric Saward and visual effects designer Mike Kelt will be the special guests at the BFI screening of The Two Doctors.

The event, which takes place on Saturday 15th June to mark the Sixth Doctor's era, is the latest in the organisation's Doctor Who At 50 season and will start at 2pm.

The screenings have proved overwhelmingly popular, selling out as soon as tickets have been made available, although the BFI has introduced a ballot system to help make ticket allocation fairer.

Returns are always a possibility, though. As such, at the time of posting this news item four tickets were available via the event link. Stand-bys and other returns may also be available on the day.

Big Finish have announced that their licence to make Doctor Who audio adventures has been extended to December 2016.

Executive producer Jason Haigh-Ellery said:

Fellow executive producer Nicholas Briggs observed:

Line producer David Richardson added:

The First Doctor's TARDIS console built for An Adventure In Space And Time - the forthcoming drama about Doctor Who's genesis - is to get its first public display at next month's Comic Con in Paris, the BBC announced today.

Writer Mark Gatiss will also be at the event, where he will take part in a panel session and will be signing autographs. In addition, clips from Doctor Who episodes Gatiss has written for and appeared in will be shown.

Other Doctor Who attractions at the Comic Con - the fifth to be held in France - will be a screening of Revenge of the Cybermen in French as well as a gallery display marking 50 years of the show.

After appearing at the French Comic Con, which runs from 4th to 7th July and is being held at the Paris-Nord Villepinte Exhibition Centre, the console will be installed at the Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff for the duration of the summer.

The 90-minute drama is due to be broadcast on BBC Two later this year, following a première at the BFI in London.

For the second month running Doctor Who was the most requested programme on the BBC iPlayer, with the series finale, The Name of the Doctor being accessed 1.90 million times.

Doctor Who also took third place in the list with Nightmare in Silver having 1.73 million requests and fifth place with The Crimson Horror having 1.71 million requests.

The other places in the top ten we taken by five episodes of The Apprentice and two editions of The Voice.

Earlier Doctor Who episodes were still available during the month with Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS adding 0.59 million requests to its April total, while other episodes each added around 0.2 million requests.

The most requested Doctor Who story of the year remains as The Bells of Saint John which has a total of 2.5 million requests and is the sixth most requested programme of the year. The top four places are held by Top Gear with Africa coming in fifth.

NB: The request figures refer to download and streaming requests only and don't necessarily reflect the total number who watched the whole episode. However the BBC does estimate the unique number of viewers watching each episode within a week of transmission via it's Live + 7 figures.

Live+7 Viewing Figures	First Day	Repeats	Timeshift	iPlayer	Live +7
The Bells of Saint John	6.15m - 63%	0.39m - 4%	2.29m - 23%	0.95 - 10%	9.78m
The Rings of Akhaten	5.48m - 63%	0.28m - 3%	1.98m - 23%	0.90 - 10%	8.65m
Cold War	5.57m - 68%	0.18m - 2%	1.67m - 20%	0.76 - 9%	8.28m
Hide	4.97m - 65%	0.27m - 4%	1.63m - 21%	0.77 - 10%	7.64m
Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS	4.86m - 65%	0.28m - 4%	1.54m - 21%	0.79 - 11%	7.47m
The Crimson Horror	4.61m - 61%	0..32m - 4%	1.83m - 24%	0.83 - 11%	7.59m
Nightmare in Silver	4.73m - 61%	0.29m - 4%	1.87m - 24%	0.89 - 11%	7.78m
The Name of the Doctor	5.45m - 63%	0.28m - 3%	1.99m - 23%	0.92 - 11%	8.64m

The figures show Doctor Who is timeshifted far more than most BBC programmes. Around 62% of the audience watch Live or within one day, compared with the BBC average of 87% watching Live. Around 23% of the viewers timeshift using a PVR compared with the BBC average of 6%, while 11% now watch via the iPlayer, compared with the BBC average of 2%.

Earlier this week, Doctor Who was the subject of an opinion poll conducted by YouGov, one of the UK's main opinion polling agencies, frequently quoted by the media in relation to political polling. The survey (results here), conducted on Monday and Tuesday, quizzed 1974 British adults on whether or not they were interested in the series. The 31% who expressed an interest were then asked various questions about their favourite Doctors, their political opinions and what sort of actor they would like to see cast as the Twelfth Doctor.

David Tennant was the favourite Doctor of the survey, by some considerable margin - 43% of those who expressed an interest in the series choosing him as their favourite, with Tom Baker in second place with 16%. Tennant was also the most popular choice with supporters of the four political parties noted in the survey - Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the UK Independence Party.

On the subject of who should be the Twelfth Doctor, YouGov's own summary article on their website points out that over half of those who said they were interested in the series felt that the next Doctor should be played by a male actor. "British" and "character actor" were also traits which were strongly supported by those surveyed by YouGov.

The poll and its results have been picked up in various places online, with articles relating to it from sites such as Wales Today and the New Statesman.

Over the course of this week everybody has had an opinion over who should be the next Doctor, it seems! Debates about whether the next owner of the TARDIS should be played by a woman popped up in several newspapers on Monday, picked up by shows like Lorraine (ITV) and The Wright Stuff (Channel 5). The Daily Star ran a front page item on Paris Jackson (daughter of the late singer Michael) being in the running on Wednesday, and Thursday saw more comment on Russell Howard's Good News (BBC3) and 10 O'Clock Live (Channel 4) - with the latter offering up David Mitchell himself. The ongoing speculation even led to politics show This Week running a Doctor Who-themed introduction. As reported yesterday, star Jenna-Louise Coleman has been inundated by questions as to who it might be, but she replied that "it's going to be a long, long search."

Meanwhile, bookmakers have consistently presented the favourite for the role to be Ben Daniels all week, with the actor's odds hovering around the 2-1 mark (though dropped to evens mid-week). However, a surprise newcomer appeared from Wednesday in the form of Skins and The Thick of It actor Chris Addison (which may have been due to this tweet from Paloma Faith), who has since then remained second favourite at 3-1. The other favourites tend to differ between bookmakers, with David Harwood 7-2 from Ladbrokes, Richard Armitage 37-13 from Betfair, and Chiwetel Ejiofor 10-1 from Coral, 13-1 from Paddy Power, and 16-1 from SkyBet. Of the other favourites reported at the beginning of the week, both Russell Tovey and Rory Kinnear had slipped to a 16-1 average.

For a feminine incarnation, Billie Piper and Jennifer Saunders averaged 25-1, with Sue Perkins (subject of a publicised campaign over the last couple of months) at 33-1, Olivia Coleman between 20-1 (Paddy Power) and 50-1 (Ladbrokes), Helen Mirren between 25-1 (Ladbrokes) and 80-1 (Coral), and Miranda Hart between 33-1 (Paddy Power) and 80-1 (Coral). Odds on a female twelfth Doctor hovers at 7-1 with Paddy Power and Coral), and 5-1 from William Hill (the male odds given by the first two are 1-20 and 1-16 respectively!).

Other names with favourable odds include: Damien Moloney (Being Human) at 14-1, Alexander Vlahos (Merlin) at 16-1, Andrew Scott (Sherlock) at 16-1, Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey) at 16-1/20-1, Daniel Rigby (Eric and Ernie) at 20-1, and James Frain (True Blood) also at 20-1.

Character have launched their new range of 3.75" figures:

Explaining the change of figures from the previous 5" collection, Character said:


In addition to the individual figures, Character have also created two "Timezone Playsets", themed around "Cold War" and "Dalek Invasion":

1983 - In the cold waters of the Southern Arctic Ocean, a Russian submarine returning from patrol takes on board a suspicious cargo, and the Doctor is reunited with one of his oldest foes. [order]

2075AD and the Daleks have invaded Earth once more and the future of the human race hangs in the balance. [order]

Jenna-Louise Coleman was one of the people honoured to speak to the Queen during a visit by the Monarch to the BBC's new Broadcasting House, which she officially opened today. After passing by the resident Dalek, the Queen was then introduced to the actress - next to the TARDIS!

Coleman later spoke to BBC News about her experience:
And did she ask who the next Doctor might be?
The full interview with BBC News can be watched in the United Kingdom via their website.

The BFI is to show the BBC's long-lost behind-the-scenes report on Daleks - Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. that was recovered last year.

The feature, lasting about five minutes, was originally included in the edition of teen culture programme A Whole Scene Going broadcast on 16th March 1966 and will be shown on the big screen at BFI Southbank on Wednesday 3rd July during a compilation of reports from various productions.

The BFI event is entitled The Location Report and is itself part of the wider Broadcasting The Arts: Television Looks At Film strand being run by the organisation. Tickets go on sale to the public on Tuesday 11th June.

Although the master tape was wiped by the BBC, a copy of this particular edition of A Whole Scene Going ended up as part of a Welsh villager's collection of films that was eventually sold on. A timecoded and watermarked extract from the programme is available to view via the Tim Disney Archive, with the Dalek film report excerpt starting at 1 min 16 sec.