Doctor Who and the Communist - Malcolm Hulke and his career in television

Included here are details on a fascinating new book about Doctor Who legend, Malcolm Hulke. Doctor Who and the Communist - Malcolm Hulke and his career in television by Michael Herbert is available from Five Leaves Bookshop HERE for £4.

Malcolm Hulke was a successful writer for radio, television and the cinema from the 1950s to the late 1970s. His work included episodes for Armchair Theatre and The Avengers, and 54 episodes for Doctor Who, broadcast between 1967 and 1974, for which he is best remembered. He was also a socialist, belonging for a time to the Communist Party of Great Britain, and his political views fed into his work.

Author Herbert told Blogtor:
My pamphlet is a principally a survey of his work for television, particularly Doctor Who although it also mentions his involvement with Unity Theatre in the 1950s and a pamphlet he wrote for Unity called here is drama

Malcolm Hulke (1924 to 1979) was a successful writer for radio, television and the cinema from the 1950s to the late 1970s. His work included episodes for Pathfinders in Space, Armchair Theatre, The Avengers, and 54 episodes for Doctor Who, broadcast between 1967 and 1974, for which he is best remembered. He was also a socialist, belonging for a time to the Communist Party of Great Britain, and his political views fed into his work.

Terrance Dicks says: “What we never did was commission a Doctor Who with a political message but nonetheless if you look at it there is a streak of anti-authoritarianism in all Mac’s work: he doesn’t trust the establishment”.

Mac himself said of Doctor Who: “It’s a very political show. Remember what politics refers to, it refers to relations hips between groups of people. It doesn’t necessarily mean left or right...so all Doctor Who’s are political, even though the other group of people are reptiles, they’re still a group of people.”

His serials for Doctor Who were The Faceless Ones, The War Games, The Silurians, The Ambassadors of Death, Colony in Space, The Sea Devils, Frontier in Space and Invasion of the Dinosaurs. He also wrote seven Doctor Who novels for Target, six of which were based on his own work for the TV series (the other was The Green Death). In 1972 he collaborated with Terrance Dicks, with whom he was good friends, to write The Making of Doctor Who which Gary Russell has described as “the most important piece of work in the entire history of Doctor Who publishing”.

Malcolm Hulke died on 6 July 1979. Terrance Dicks recalls that, as a convinced atheist, he had left orders that there was to be no priest, no hymns or other ceremony at his funeral and that therefore his friends sat by the coffin not knowing what to do. “Finally Eric Paice stood up, slapped the coffin and said ‘well cheerio, Mac’ and wandered out. We all followed him”.

The final word must surely go to Terrance; Mac was “a very kind and generous man”.


Doctor Who and the Communist - Malcolm Hulke and his career in television
by Michael Herbert is available HERE for £4

Labels: , , ,