Director: Terry McDonagh
Starring: David Bradley, Jessica Raine, Brian Cox, Lesley Manville, Sacha Dwahan, Claudia Grant, Reece Shearsmith, Nicholas Briggs
Sherlock and Doctor Who writer Mark Gatiss is hugely responsible for the excellent telling of how a sci-fi legend nearly never came. With incredible acting and casting, this TV movie really does brilliantly to bring to light how close Doctor Who came to being another forgotten failure.
An Adventure In Space and Time is set over four years of the career of William Hartnell (Bradley), a tired an ageing actor who lives with his wife (Manville) and granddaughter. He’s approached by Head of Drama Sydney Newman (Cox), director Waris Hussein (Dwahan) and the BBC’s first female producer Verity Lambert (Raine) for a role in a new kids’ science fiction serial as a rough but charming old man travelling in history and the cosmos with varying companions. However, after the assassination of JFK, the country is in no mood for whimsical time-travel.
David Bradley is actually incredible as Hartnell. He has the dotty, sometimes rage filled but ultimately adorable First Doctor spot on. He, Raine and Cox, manage top notch performances that allow the behind the scenes world of Doctor Who to become as magical as we watch it on our screens.
Gatiss’ script perfectly manages the terrifying introduction of the Daleks, the friendship and wonder that Who brought as well as the darker tones, the gravitational pull of fame and the sad road of Hartnell’s slight loss of sanity. The brilliant humour mixes with all of this to make an extraordinarily engaging biopic, even if it is a little full of itself and the excellence of the show at times.
“CS Lewis meets HG Wells meets Father Christmas: that’s The Doctor!”
9/10
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