Return of the VOORD

Rutherglen Doctor Who writer pens story featuring alien race created by Daleks’man

Over the last few years, Rutherglen writer Andrew Smith has been revisiting his Doctor Who days.

The former Stonelaw High pupil became the first fan of the BBC series to write for it in 1980, when he sent in a speculative idea that was made into a four-part story for Tom Baker’s final season as the Time Lord. Andy has since been writing Doctor Who plays for Big Finish Productions, a London-based company who produce audio plays starring the original stars of the series.

Now, the firm have launched a new range of stories, the Early Adventures, recreating the earliest years of Doctor Who, with Andrew having written the first story in the range. His story, Domain of the Voord, features an alien race which were created by Terry Nation, the man behind the Daleks.

Producer David Richardson said: “They are a monster that have never been back since The Keys of Marinus, yet they have a huge amount of potential for new stories. I’d rather like to bring them back again actually - Andrew has filled in some fascinating backstory, and Terry Nation created a fantastic foe.”

Andy, who retires from the police this week, said: “It just started from an email from David Richardson, saying, ‘We’ve got a new range coming up, the Early Adventures. I was given a couple of original cast members from the earliest episodes of Doctor Who with Carole Ann Ford and William Russell, and the Voord. I came up with a handful of ideas, one of which involved the TARDIS landing on a ship amidst a massive flotilla, with all these ships travelling a c ro s s an expanse of ocean, and just took it from there.

“I was doing some research, reading a Doctor Who Magazine article by Jonny Morris on The Keys of Marinus, looking at the history of the Voord in other stories and where they had appeared - one was in an annual story, The Fishmen of Kandalinga, and the other was in Doctor Who Magazine, The World Shapers, where it was revealed they had turned into the Cybermen. I decided pretty quickly I would take no account of that!”

Andrew was delighted to work with the Voord, whose background and genesis were largely left blank by Terry Nation.

“It was great fun to do - the Voord look amazing, although there are a number of questions left unanswered, and some contradictions, about them in their TV story. For instance, what does a Voord look like? They have a very striking look, and you want to keep that, but one possibility in Keys of Marinus is that they are wearing protective suits in order to cross the acid sea. Of course, the look is great, and I wanted to keep that, but that meant coming up with a rationale for why they would look as they do having an acid sea to cross. So, together with my first pitches, I wrote up a few paragraphs on where I wanted to go with the Voord whatever story idea David favoured. Listeners will learn what it means to be Voord ...”

He also had the challenge of working on the Early Adventures, in a new format of play - not quite full cast, and not a dramatised reading either - with ‘live’ drama and narration both playing a part in telling the story.

Andrew explained: “It was unusual, but it’s the best of both worlds - you can cover long periods of time quite quickly and there’s licence to explain what’s happening, but if you have got characters interacting, you don’t want to have them describing things, but you can let the listener know where they are and what’s happening by using the narration, and there’s clever ways of doing it. John Dorney, script editor for this series, came up with the helpful pointer that these should sound like the BBC audio soundtracks of the lost stories from the sixties, where narration tends to set up a scene but is otherwise used fairly sparingly.

Having had original Doctor Who stars Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant and Lalla Ward performing his previous Big Finish work, Andrew was delighted to have his latest work brought to life by actors who had appeared in the very first episode, broadcast on November 23, 1963, with William Russell as science teacher Ian Chesterton, and Carole Ann Ford as Susan, the Doctor’s granddaughter.

Andrew admitted there was a real thrill about writing for people who had been there at the genesis of Doctor Who, and said :“It’s great, with William Russell performing the dialogue for Ian and the Doctor, and Carol doing Susan and Barbara. It was really nice to meet them in the studio - they were fantastic, giving great performances, and were very complimentary about the script. When you are writing something like this for them, it’s lovely to think you’re writing for two people who were there, 50 years ago, right at the very beginning when Doctor Who first started.

“It was quite exciting at the time, as we were in studio last January, just at the start of the anniversary year, and there were discussions about who had been cast to play them in Mark Gatiss’ drama An Adventure in Space and Time.

“It was a delight to bring those characters to life.”

There was a real surprise on the day of recording, as Andrew soon discovered that he wasn’t the only former Rutherglen resident involved with the play. One of the actors cast, Andrew Dickens, had previously been in the Royal Navy, and had stayed just off Main Street for the best part of a year.

“That was just unbelievable, it’s a very small world.

“We had a really talented guest cast, with Andrew Dickens and Andrew Bone, as well as Daisy Ashford, who was the daughter of Caroline John, who played Jon Pertwee’s companion Liz Shaw, and Geoffrey Beevers, who was one of the actors who played the Master.

“We wanted it to have a feel to it, as it had been performed in the 1960s, so the director Ken Bentley had the actors speaking in RP (Received Pronunciation), rather than using regional accents as we would if it had been written for now. It really feels like a bit of 60s Doctor Who. For instance you get the Doctor arguing with his companions, and Ian in particular getting annoyed with him. I hope it takes listeners right back to those very earliest days of the show.”

Andrew remembers the second day of recording with amusement, as he was heading to the police Burns Supper afterwards, and attended the session at the Moat Studios wearing his kilt.

He added: “I’ve written a few things for Big Finish in recent years, but I’ve not looked forward to anything like this. This is the one that I really can’t wait to hear - everyone did such a good job on it. I can’t wait to hear that slice of 60s Doctor Who brought back to life.”

Domain of the Voord is available now on CD and for download, from www. bigfinish.com.