The Five Doctors

I woke up this morning to find some sad news on the Doctor Who news feeds. It has been revealed that  Janet Fielding is battling cancer.

This is such sad news – especially since the last 18 months has seen the loss of Nicholas Courtney, Elizabeth Sladen, Caroline John and Mary Tamm, all in the same tragic way.

Turning sad news into good, a charity fund raising convention called Project Motor Mouth has been announced for Saturday 19th January 2013 to collect money to for Project Motor House - which plans to convert a derelict building in Thanet into a “mixed-use venue promoting sustainable technology and a place where youngsters can get help with starting their own businesses”.

The hope is to raise Janet’s spirits along the way.

Guests announced already are David Tennant, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann.

Having thoroughly enjoyed seeing Janet at Time Quest 2 a few of years back (see left), then again at Chicago TARDIS last year (see below), as well as seeing her at LFCC only a couple of months ago – I felt compelled to sign up straight away and go along.

Once I completed my purchase I noticed my ticket number was 16, so I had been quite quick off the mark! Just as well, as by late afternoon today the convention was totally sold out.
This will be probably be the first convention of the 50th Anniversary year – and with Five Doctors, what a way to start!

Colin Lavers - sadly missed

I woke up this morning to hear the sad news that Colin Lavers, who designed the look for the Fifth Doctor had died.

Colin was a in-house Costume Designer for the BBC, and in 1982 he was scheduled to work on the Doctor Who story Four To Doomsday, which became the first story to be recorded following the rejection of the planned debut adventure (a replacement script was shot later).

He therefore had the task of realising the Fifth Doctor’s costume.

The cricket motive came out of discussions with Peter Davison and producer John Nathan Turner, as well as some input from veteran costume designer June Hudson, who’s influence injected the v-neck jumper into the mix.

But one part of the Fifth Doctor’s costume that was distinctly not his idea was the retention of the question marks on the shirt lapels, first seen the year before in what was Tom Baker’s final season, designed by June Hudson.

It was a specific request from producer John Nathan-Turner, who in a memo wrote:

"I do feel that the Doctor Who shirt with the '?' mark on the lapels is worth hanging on to."

He also worked on two other stories, The Power of Kroll in 1978 and The King’s Demons in 1983.

Colin later had the distinction costuming the multi-Doctor 20th anniversary story, The Five Doctors.

As a result of working on these scant few episodes, he was responsible for costumes for the First, Second, Third, Fourth (designing the iconic large-lapeled coat for The Power Of Kroll) and Fifth Doctors; his protagonist The Master (twice, as he had already dressed him for The King’s Demon); the companions Susan Foreman, Sarah Jane Smith, Liz Shaw, Zoe Herriot, Jamie McCribbon, Tegan Jovanka and Romana I (during The Power Of Kroll); as well as the Brigadier and Mike Yates - only Turlough escaped his attention!

By default this means by head-count he provided more outfits for Doctors and recurring characters during the original run of Doctor Who than any other costumer.

Outside of Doctor Who, his other TV credits included the BBC's Shakespeare series, Agatha Christie's Miss Marple: A Caribbean Mystery, As Time Goes By, Judge John Deed, EastEnders and Last of the Summer Wine.

Colin suffered a heart attack and died at home suddenly. His funeral is due to take place on 24th July 2012, followed by cremation.

My thoughts, and hopefully yours, are with his family.

Bonhams FLASHBACK: 11th May 1991 Doctor Who - The Auction

Over the past couple of years, as well as keeping up to date with the latest costume auctions, I’ve done my best to track back over the various sales held at Bonhams over the years.

Their online records only go back seven years, but one sale I’ve been wanting to find out about was a dedicated Doctor Who sale from 1991.

This week I managed to pick up a copy of the sale catalogue on eBay, and it makes interesting reading.

The catalogue is a very different beast to what we see now.
There are no photographs of the items on sale, and no estimates are indicated.

It is divided into roughly one episode per page, on which all the lots relating to it are listed. One or two publicity stills from the episode are included, which may or may not show the items being listed!

As usual I have separated the items by Doctor era, and you can see the rest of the items here:

Lots 1-6
4th Doctor (1975-1981)

Lots 60-115
6th Doctor (1984-1986)

Lots 116-155
7th Doctor (1987-1989)

Here are just the lots relating to the Fifth Doctor era

Putting Doctor Who on the map

Just thought I’d share a little something with you. It’s by no means costume related, and only just Fifth Doctor related, but this doesn’t happen often, so worth a mention.

The town where I live, Borehamwood, has a near century long history of film production. For many years it had the largest number of functioning film studios in close proximity, rivalling Hollywood.

I don’t say that lightly. If you look down the list of films made here you will see some BIG names: in the 1920s Alfred Hitchcock had his first directing credits at the AIP studios; the 1950s saw a raft of swashbuckling epics from Ivanhoe to Robin Hood plus Moby Dick; the 1960s found Stanley Kubrick filming 2001: A Space Odyssey and later A Clockwork Orange and The Shining.

The 1970s brought the new Hollywood directors to make Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Return Of The Jedi, Raiders Of The Lost Ark and Who Framed Roger Rabbit; the 1980s saw The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth.

In 1988 a Doctor Who story was shot here, when the circus tent for The Greatest Show In The Galaxy was erected in the BBC (formerly ATV) Studios car park.

Louise Page - Time Crash special

If you’ve been following the Louise Page interviews on my suit recently, you will have heard all about ties David Tennant wore.

I’ve been limiting my questioning to the costumes worn by The Doctor, and there are still some more interview bites to come, so watch out for those.
But before we hear more about David Tennant costume, I thought we’d discover the full story behind the dressing of another Doctor: the Fifth, played by Peter Davison.

In 2008 when Doctor Who participated in that year’s Children In Need of appeal, they approached Peter Davison to return to the role of The Doctor.

At first glance assembling the original costume was a relatively easy job, but Louise found nothing is ever really that simple.

Thanks to Kevin Coppa for giving the interview clips the polished look, and enormous thanks to Louise Page for sharing her memories of dressing the Tenth Doctor with us all

Costume design Regeneration

Now that my Twelve Regenerations Of Christmas has come to a close, I thought it worth making sure you had seen the posting for the Eight Day, where I collected together all the known costume designs for The Doctor.

Design © Colin Lavers

Included in them was the Fifth Doctor’s, drawn by Colin Lavers.

I am not sure it was an intended coincidence that the design was beige, so quite bland in colour, but his Doctor was often accused of being the same.

Of note is the knitted waistcoat, later changed to a cricketing jumper at the request of producer John Nathan-Turner.

Since I posted this entry, one of my readers drew my attention to a design on the June Hudson Website, it shows an unused sketch from 1981 for Peter Davison.

It seems to be a suggestion from June to John Nathan-Turner.

In a note to the side she thinks Peter should wear Cricket Whites, and has drawn him in a V-neck cricket jumper.

This could well be the source of the change from knitted waistcoat as shown in Colin Lavers design.

Very interesting.

Design © June Hudson

Happy Christmas to all my readers!

Wow - another year has flown past - and what a year it’s been!

Photo by Scott Sebring

It started back in January with a once in a lifetime opportunity when I made the Ultimate Tennant Suit. To have the chance to put into practice the actual way the suit was made was an amazing experience. The timing was perfect, as I had a couple of months before started learning traditional hand-tailoring techniques, which I put to great use in making the suit.

Photo by Scott Sebring

I had to follow the suit, and with three days notice ended up going to Gallifrey One in LA!
There I met up with a number of my online friends and many of my readers who had no idea I was going. I also had the privilege of arranging a group photograph with four of my Tennant Coat clients, which was the highlight of the trip.

By the end of April news broke that THE Series Six Shetland Tweed fabric had been found, as well as the Series Five Donegal.

It was like the Tennant Suit all over again: making an iconic jacket in the exact fabric. I was lucky to find the correct buttons and elbow patches to finish it off.

In August the culmination of many month work came to fruition when I took delivery of  my rewoven Tennant Coat lining. I had been searching for years to find a suitable alternative, but finally took the plunge and commissioned my own recreation of it.

The past few months of the year have been taken up with making a popular new garment in my repertoire - the Green Greatcoat.

I spent a while carefully researching the pattern, fabric and construction until I got it just right.

Then in late November I attended Chicago TARDIS, where I entered the masquerade competition wearing a test version of the Colin Baker Six Frock Coat. I won Best In Show: Workmanship for my tailoring – for which I am very proud.

This was one of three coats I had made, the other two were for the wedding of some close friends which is due to take place just before Christmas.

Looking back it has been an exciting year, with more projects than I could have thought to have taken on.

And as the year comes to a close, an even more exciting development is breaking.

More on that in the New Year, but trust me, it’s gonna be worth the wait . . .

Chicago TARDIS - the fifth Doctor crew have landed!

This last weekend I took a trip to attend Chicago TARDIS, one of the main Doctor Who conventions in the US.

It’s been running for many years and has headlined many high profile guests in its time.

I have written a full in-depth review of my four days in Chicago over on my Eleventh Doctor Costume Blog, but here is a single digest of the whole weekend, which a heavy Fifth Doctor slant.

THURSDAY

This evening things unofficially kicked off with a complimentary meal for the reserve ticket holders, attended by the guests that had arrived by that time.

There was a warm round of applause as Peter Davison and Janet Fielding came in, followed by Nicholas Briggs, Andrew Hayden-Smith and others.

They were very cordial and made the point of table-hopping around the room to meet and greet everyone there.

Janet was complaining about her Thanksgiving Dinner, which included sweet potato cooked with marshmallow. Peter on the other hand had a glass of wine, which was agreeing with him . . .

I had a good chat to a number of fellow attendees who had been coming to the event for several years. Peter last came in 2005, and it had been a while since Janet had come over, so I filled them in my my experiences of her style and patter.

Like me, they are looking forward to the weekend’s events.

EXCELLENT!

Over the past months Forbidden Planet have been progressively releasing t-shirts of The Doctor’s iconic costumes.

So far Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven and Ten have been released.

This month not only sees the First Doctor join the gang, but the first to depict an enemy of The Doctor - the Cybermen!

The t-shirt shows the version seen during their triumphal return in Earthshock after an absence of many years.

EXCELLENT!

The Master’s Tissue Compression Eliminator gun on eBay!

It’s funny what pops up on eBay form time to time.

Back in 2005 there was a Bonham’s auction which included a handful of Doctor Who items.

Amongst what was on offer was The Master’s Tissue Compression Eliminator gun! it sold for £1,440.

Well, it recently surfaced on eBay, with a Buy it Now for £4,000!

The listing was accompanied by a couple of additional detail pictures, showing how robustly constructed the prop was.

The full description was as follows:

You are bidding for the original screen used prop - The Master’s Tissue Compression Eliminator gun, featured in multiple stories throughout the mid-eighties.

This weapon was used by the Master to shrink people to death. The prop here on offer was used by Anthony Ainley, Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant!

The prop is made from durable brass, painted black. It has an activating plunger at the base which, when pushed, will open the four ‘petal’ shapes at the bulb end. Even better, the prop still retains its original wires. When fixed to a battery, the interior light will still glow!

This prop comes with the original purchase letter from Bonham’s Auctioneers in 2005. It is currently being displayed on my collector’s page at RichardWho.com (Andrew Knight).

Offers were also invited, and it is unclear if it did find a buyer - but I’m sure it has ended up in good hands somewhere (as opposed to the hands of an intergalactic megalomaniac!)

‘Ultimate’ Frock Coat - customer review

Okay, so, how’s it goin’, it’s me again. I suppose this would be part four in my series of customer reviews for that crafty limey Steve Ricks, so, that being the case, I guess it would be best to imagine one of those jump-cut pre-credit recap sequences which encapsulates everything that has gone before, but in this case, more specifically, my frock coat oddessy. Or, you could just click on my last review if you can be bothered, but it’s a long story and I recommend that you don’t. And, in any case, that long story is over now.

If you are familiar with my epic quest for the perfect frock coat, you will know that when last we met, I had apparantly achieved the holy grail, when that clever bugger Steve Ricks had made me my last one. You remember that one, it was brown on the outside, and had the most astonishing array of golds, silvers, paisleys and greens on the inside. It was like the TARDIS of frock coats. And, it seemed that I had finally come to the end of the Star Wars Septology-esque saga. But not quite.

I still had in mind one more coat, just one more, my final ever stab at the one frock coat I would own and wear for the rest of me natural puff. The brown version had been exquisite, without question. But the rich brown shell was a heavy tweed-like fabric (limiting it’s potential usage out here in the colonies), and the ball-seizing lining was so elaborate, that I felt I needed one that could possibly be slightly more conducive to day to day wear, especially here on Tattooine.

And lo, one day on Starship UK, that ingenious threadman Steve Ricks was sitting on his couch, probably saying, “Thank Christ I’m done with that Ian Cummins tool. Do you know, if I never hear from him again, it’ll be too ... (iPhone beeps) Oh, cock.”

Doctor Who Experience - in 3D!!!

I have got an absolute TREAT for you today!

This week I had the opportunity to revisit the Doctor Who Experience in Olympia, and thought rather than just get some more endless photographs of the displays, I would do something EXTRA special.

I know a lot of my readers are in the US, so are unlikely to get the chance to see the exhibition at first-hand.

So what I’ve got for you is the near next-best thing - a walk through the displays - in 3D!!!! Well, one of those panoramic views you can interact with.

Below are the panoramas relating directly to the Fifth Doctor.
You can see all the panoramas
I took by clicking this link

Doctor Who Experience - in 3D

First up is the line-up of The Doctor’s costumes, giving you a real sense of how they are presented.

The Ten Doctors

Bonhams auction - 29th June 2011 -the viewing

This week is the bonhams entertainment sale, so I popped along to the viewing to see the Who-related items for myself.

Overall there aren’t that many Doctor Who lots in the sale, but if you are a fan of the Peter Davison story Ressurrection Of The Daleks you are in for a treat!
The catalogue lists two lots relating to the story, but each hides the number of items included in each.

Lot 116 contains four item: a White boiler suit with a Medical badge on the sleeve (see above, left); a kahki boiler suit with an Operational badge on the sleeve (see above, right) plus it’s green hat (see below, left); a black peaked Dalek trooper hat (see below, centre); and a fibreglass helmet (see below, right);

Lot 117 has even more!

The Making of a Television Series

Last week I spotted what I hoped would be a great book on eBay.

Published in 1982, it was called The Making of a Television Series, and goes behind the scenes on The Visitation.

It promised to cover just about all aspects about the making of the story, so I hoped it would give a decent insight to the costume department as it was in the 1980s.

I was a bit disappointed then to find that although there is a section on the costume design, it is very minimal, concentrating mainly on the creation of the Terileptil costumes.

A photograph on page 49 (see right) shows them working on one of these. Look very closely and you can see the Android’s head, hands and feet on a top shelf!

We then find that the rest of the costumes came from Bermans & Nathans, so very little else was custom made for the story.

Sadly there is nothing about any of the regulars costumes and no costume designs or sketches, which would have been nice.

Anyway, you can download a PDF file of the entire book here:

The Making of a Television Series

Bonhams auction - 29th June 2011

Being June, it’s time for the next bi-annual Entertainment Memorabilia sale at Bonhams.

As usual there are a scant few Doctor Who items on offer, some more interesting that others.

Sale 19036
(29th June 2011)
Entertainment Memorabilia

As usual I have separated the items by Doctor era, and you can see the rest of the items here:

Lot 113
1st Doctor (1963-1966)

Lots 111 & 111a
3rd Doctor (1970-1974) - plus 2nd Doctor (1966-1969)

Lot 114
4th Doctor (1975-1981)

Lot 112
7th Doctor (1987-1989)

Here are just the lots relating to the Fifth Doctor era

Lot 116
Dr. Who: costume from 'Resurrection Of The Daleks', 1984
Prison guard/prison ship uniforms, comprising a black fabric/vinyl Dalek trooper's cap; a white medical boiler suit, neck inscribed in ballpoint Robert Goodman, badge to right sleeve, with belt; a helmet, fibreglass/plastic, interior foam padding, mesh front; a khaki boiler suit with maching belt and felt cap, neck inscribed in ballpoint Mike Vinden, Operational badge (and old Bonhams label) to right sleeve

Estimate: £300 - 400
Sold for £1,320

Footnote:
Ex-part lots 49/50, Bonhams, May 1991.

Lot 117
Dr. Who: costume from 'Resurrection Of The Daleks', 1984
Prison guards/prison ship uniforms, comprising: a helmet, fibreglass/plastic with interior foam padding and mesh grill; an orange boiler suit, neck inscribed in ballpoint Kevin O'Brien, right sleeve with Maintenance badge to right sleeve, with belt and felt cap; two similar khaki boiler suits with Operational badge to sleeve, with belts, one inscribed John Adam Baker, the other Sneh Gupta; and a red, yellow, black and grey quilted vinyl jacket, shoulders with metal rings, with black belt

Estimate: £300 - 400
Sold for £1,140

Footnote:
Ex-part lots 49/50, Bonhams, May 1991.

Lot 115
A miniature TARDIS model, created for exhibition purposes, of painted board, with plastic paper-backed windows, and plastic casing to light, having internal electrical workings (plug removed), height 5ft, width 15 inches.

Estimate: £150 - 200
Sold for £900