ATV Icons: Barry Letts

Written by Doug Lambert

Monday, 16 November 2009 08:22

Barry Letts was born in the midlands city of Leicester and started his career in the world of showbiz as a stage manager at the Theatre Royal soon after leaving school. After six months as a full-time stage manager he switched to acting and his earliest screen-role was in the 1943 naval film San Dementrio London. His role in the film won him a two year contract with the studio behind it, Ealing Studio’s, but due to the Second World War it was deferred until the end of the war. During the war Letts served with the Royal Navy.

With the end of the war he returned to acting appearing on stage, film and the early days of television. Television broadcasting had started before the war in 1936 but only a small minority of households had a television set and the programming broadcast was small in range. With the outbreak of the war broadcasting was suspended and later resumed with the conclusion of the war. It wasn’t until the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 that televisions became a common feature of households with thousands, if not millions, buying a television set to be able to view the televised coronation. It was this mass purchase of television sets that led to the rise of the popularity of television and just three years later the launch of the UK’s first commercial broadcaster, ITV.

Barry Lett’s first television appearance was in 1950 in the children’s film Gunpowder Guy in which he first worked alongside Patrick Troughton – the future Second Doctor. The film was broadcast live – BBC common practice in the early days of television – from the BBC’s studio’s at Lime Grove. The studios would, some years later, be the first home of Doctor Who. The studio’s name was also used for the first real BBC soap opera, The Grove Family. During the 1950s Letts continued to appear in a wide variety of television plays and films. In 1954 he appeared in The Three Princes alongside Roger Delgado, an actor Letts would later cast as The Master in Doctor Who. Five years after the 1954 broadcast The Three Princes was reproduced for audiences. Other acting roles included guest appearances in long-running shows such as Z-Cars, The Avengers, Redcap and Public Eye.

In the 1960s Letts began writing for television beginning his gradual move away from acting and towards the production aspect of television. Amongst the shows he wrote for were Dr Finlay’s Casebook, a hugely popular medical drama series which ran from 1962 to 1971. In 1966 Letts moved away from writing and took the directors course at the BBC. This lead to Letts directing episodes of BBC soap The Newcomers, which was produced by Verity Lambert who had launched Doctor Who. Letts also returned to Z-Cars as a director on several episodes. In 1967 came his first association with Doctor Who as he directed the serial Enemy of the World. Patrick Troughton, who Letts has previously worked with as an actor, was The Doctor at the time and the story was technically demanding as it required Troughton to play the Time-Lord and his doppelganger, Salamander.

In 1969 the future of Doctor Who was decidedly shaky. Although Patrick Troughton had made the role of the Doctor his own ratings for the series were starting to decline and some at the corporation seriously considered calling him on the series. However, it was instead decided to give the series a final chance with a big revamp of the show’s format planned – to cut costs and to win back viewers. Producer Derrick Sherwin put the building blocks for the revamped format in place by having the Doctor stranded on Earth and working alongside secret military organisation UNIT. Sherwin however, moved on from the series and handed over to Barry Letts. Jon Pertwee has already been cast in the role of the Third Doctor as Patrick Troughton had decided not to return to the series.

1970s logo Barry Letts became the new producer of Doctor Who at a time when the future of the series could have been very short indeed. Letts immediately formed a close, and successful, working relationship with Script Editor Terence Dicks who had joined the series after working on Crossroads – the ATV soap. Dicks commissioned the soap’s creator Peter Ling to write a Doctor Who story for Patrick Troughton, The Mind Robber, which is still well regarded by fans to this day. Over the next few years other Crossroads writers would be brought over to write Doctor Who episodes such as Malcolm Hulke who wrote Doctor Who and the Silurians, The Sea Devils and Frontiers In Space amongst others.

The first season of the revamped Doctor Who, made in colour, was pretty much worked out before Barry Letts took the reins so it wasn’t really until his second season that Letts could put his mark on the series. The second series saw the introduction of a new arch-rival for the Doctor, fellow Time-Lord The Master. Letts decided to cast Roger Delgado in the role and cast Katy Manning as the Doctor’s new assistant, Jo Grant. So began a golden era of Doctor Who with the so-called ‘UNIT Family’ battling various aliens from invading the Earth. Making up the UNIT family were Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Richard Franklin as Captain Mike Yates and John Levene as Sergeant Benton.

Although Letts was producer on the series he continued to keep his hand at directing; taking over the filming of Inferno when Douglas Camfield fell seriously ill. He also directed Terror of the Autons, Roger Delgado’s first story, Carnival of Monsters and Planet of Spiders – Jon Pertwee’s final story. As well as directing these stories Letts worked closely with Terence Dicks on the scripting of episodes and even co-wrote The Green Death with Roger Sloman. The story reflected Lett’s ecological views and in many ways stories from this era all had a moral message of sorts. Several stories, such as Inferno and The Green Death, warned about the dangers of science and technological advances and the impact they have on the environment.

In 1973 Roger Delgado was tragically killed in a motoring accident in Turkey. The actor had been due to return to Doctor Who to film a final story for The Master but with his death the story was scrapped rather than recasting the role. Delgado’s death was, in many ways, the beginning of the end of Lett’s time as producer on the series. Katy Manning decided to quit the show after three seasons playing Katy Manning and later that year Jon Pertwee quit the series as well. Barry Letts now had to choose a new companion and Doctor to replace the departing actors. Elisabeth Sladen was cast in the role of journalist Sarah-Jane Smith who made his first appearance in The Time Warrior in the opening story of Jon Pertwee’s final series.

Elisabeth Sladen continues to be associated with the series to this day having returned to Doctor Who several times after her departure and featuring in numerous audio plays and now has her own CBBC spin-off, The Sarah Jane Adventures. Her continuing popularity with fans, old and young, is a tribute to Lett’s casting of the actress in the role. Having cast Sladen Letts and Dicks turned their attention towards casting a new Doctor and after much consideration Tom Baker was cast. Letts then stepped down as producer and handed over to Phillip Hinchcliffe who continued the ratings and critical success he inherited from Letts.

Although he stepped down as producer his association with the series didn’t end there as he returned BBC to direct The Android Invasion in 1975. In 1973, while still working as producer on Doctor Who, Letts and Dicks created new science fiction series Moonbase Three for the BBC. The series was a more realistic take on space exploration but its grim feel lead to viewers turning away from the drama. Only six episodes were produced and the series was not re-commissioned. Although it was praised for its strong character writing and realism the series is mostly forgotten by Sci Fi fans. It has, however, since been released on DVD.

Following on from Doctor Who Letts took over as producer of the BBC’s Sunday evening classic serial strand and acted as producer for 10 years. The budgets were small and location filming scarce but despite this the dramas rated well, won critical favour and awards. In 1980 Letts returned to Doctor Who as Executive Producer to oversee John Nathan-Turners first series as a producer. Letts was there to act as a guide for the inexperience new producer and ensure production ran smoothly. It was Tom Baker’s last season in the role as, after 7 years, he had decided to quit.

Following his return to Doctor Who in 1980 he continued to produce and direct dramas for the BBC Lime Pictures producing adaptations of; Great Expectations, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Jane Eyre, Goodbye Mr Chips, The Invisible Man and The Prisoner of Zelda. Directing working included a television version of Alice in Wonderland in 1986 in which he cast Elisabeth Sladen in a role. In 1987 and 1988 he was a tutor on the BBC’s director course having once been a pupil on it. In the 1990’s Letts returned to directing and directed episodes of the Channel Four soap Brookside and multiple episodes of EastEnders. Following on from this he wrote two radio scripts for Doctor Who; The Paradise of Death and The Ghosts of N-Space. Both adventures reunited Jon Pertwee and Elisabeth Sladen.

BBC In 1997 he wrote two further radio scripts this time for fellow BBC science fiction series Blakes 7. To mark the 30^th anniversary of the series the BBC commissioned two radio plays; The Sevenfold Crown and The Syndeton Experiment. Actors Michael Keating, Jacqueline Pearce, Paul Darrow, Steven Pacey and Peter Tuddenham all reprised their respective roles for the two stories and although it was hoped that a possible new audio series could be developed the two plays were not well received by fans and no further plays were ordered.

Letts continued to write however, contributing towards several of the Doctor Who range of novels that were launched following the show’s cancellation in 1989. Deadly Reunion saw Letts reunite with Terrence Dicks while he also novelised the two radio plays he wrote for Doctor Who in the early 1990’s. His association with Doctor Who continued beyond his writings with his appearance at conventions, interviews, documentaries and with the rise of the DVD, commentaries. Letts contributed towards many commentaries for the stories he produced which have since been released on DVD – the most recent of which was the Dalek War boxset containing Frontiers in Space and Planet of the Daleks.

His autobiography, Who and Me, is due to be published shortly. It is without a doubt that without his tenure as producer Doctor Who would not have survived into the 1970s. His working relationship with BBC Terence Dicks produced some of the series’ most memorable and successful stories which continue to delight audiences to this very day thanks to video and DVD releases. Yet although he will probably be remembered for Doctor Who Barry Letts has a successful and varied career before and after the series acting, producing and directing a wide range of drama’s which are still remembered to this day. From his acting roles in the early years of television to his producing of the classic serial strand right through to his directing of popular shows such as EastEnders, Brookside and Z-Cars, Letts has left a memorable legacy.