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The Colin Brake Interview
In conversation with Eddie
Colin Brake is a prolific writer. From Bugs to Eastenders, he's written exciting, innovative and intelligent stories in a range of genres, and, of course, is known for his all encompassing Doctor Who output, from Short Trips, to EDAs, to Big Finish to the new series novels. He's even written the "Destiny" series...
I caught up with Colin trying to sneak out whilst no one was watching and strapped him to The Mind Probe...
What’s the motivation for writing? What made you originally pick up a pen?
Does anyone have a single motive for writing? Ask any writer and they’ll give you several. Some will tell you that they just have a burning need to tell stories, some will tell you that it’s a skill or craft that they enjoy exercising; some will say they do it for the money. For me… I can hardly recall a time I didn’t want to write. From the moment I could read I was hooked on the written word and devoured stories. I’ve got an English book from when I was 11 in which I claimed I wanted to continue the Famous Five series. With Doctor Who I was always fascinated by the credits; the writing credits and the Script Editor credits… I thought “grown-ups get paid to do those jobs, that’s the kind of thing I want to do when I grow up…”
What was your first professional commission? How did that feel?
To be honest it’s hard to remember now. Let me try and put together the history… back in the mid 80’s I managed to get myself into the BBC as a Clerk Typist, working for BBC Enterprises (as Worldwide was known then.) There I worked for BBC Video part of the time, answering telephone queries: “is X available on video?” to which the answer was usually “no” unless it was Botham’s Ashes, Riping Yarns or Great Railway Journeys of the World which seemed to be sum total of the BBC Video catalogue in 1985. While I was there I got some freelance copywriting work on some BBC Video titles so my first paid-for writing was probably a video cover for either the King Arthur series that the BBC did around that time or one of the Doctor Who releases that year. Later in 1986 I got the chance to join EastEnders as their first historian and part-time researcher and, not long after I arrived at Elstree, I was asked to write some airport announcements to be translated into Italian to be dubbed onto the episodes in which Den and Angie took a second honeymoon to Venice. So my first broadcast writing wasn’t even in English! Later, as a script editor, various episodes had either extra scenes written by me, or whole sections rewritten by me so by the time I got to my first actual screen credit – an episode of EastEnders transmitted on New Year’s Eve 1992 – although exciting and memorable it wasn’t exactly a total first!
So working on EastEnders led to Bugs and more scriptwriting?
Well, eventually… I loved Bugs; it was the best TV experience I ever had. For 4 years I had a ball. In effect the line producer Stuart Doughty and I were the show runners, with two of us handling the script side of the show. In the last year we tried a US style team writing approach but in the end it was just me and Stuart and a great chap name of Alex Stewart. To be honest Bugs is probably worth an interview of it's on. If anyone ever gets up OutpostGizmos maybe!
In the end the BBC just wasn't quite ready for something so off-the-wall. Post new Who it would fit in great, I could see Bugs running between seasons of Merlin or Robin Hood but, as far as I know, no one has called... Shame cos we had a great cliffhanger to resolve.
And what about the rumour of you replacing Eric Saward as script editor of Doctor Who?
No, that’s not quite right. It was Andrew Cartmel that I nearly replaced. I did go to see Eric but that was earlier. When I was still at Enterprises, back in early 1986, a mutual friend set up a meeting so I could ask Eric about how to become a Script Editor. Eric kindly gave me some time and plenty of advice but, if I’m honest, the only thing I can remember all these years later is that Eric was smoking a huge showbuisness cigar throughout the whole meeting. Wouldn’t be allowed these days! No, I wasn’t nearly ready for that. I hadn’t even started at EastEnders when I met with Eric. But a few years later I’d become friendly with Andrew Cartmel and even tried to nick some of his Doctor Who writers for EastEnders. By the end of series 26, when Andrew was looking to move on from Doctor Who, I was certainly putting myself up to replace him. I remember visiting the set of Ghost Light and Andrew introduced me to Sylvester as, potentially, his replacement as the next Script Editor of Doctor Who. As I’ve joked many times since then, the BBC then cancelled the show to stop that from happening.
If you had taken over what would you have done?
Panicked! I honestly don’t know. I’d certainly have continued the direction that Andrew had been taking the show in. I’m sure I’d have had scripts to inherit from the likes of Ben Arronovitch, Marc Platt and probably Andrew himself. After that I’d have been looking to bring fresh faces to the writing team, possible people like Tony Jordan and Matthew Graham who I’d worked with on EastEnders.
Matthew Graham had to wait until 2006 to write Doctor Who but you got your chance with Decalog 3.
Yeah… for some reason Justin Richards and Andy Lane asked me to contribute a short story and I leapt at the chance. I wrote for my favourite Doctor, Patrick, and loved it. Of course another chap made his Doctor Who writing debut in that collection, a guy called Stephen Moffat. Wonder what ever happened to him?
And Escape Velocity was your first novel?
You noticed! It showed, didn’t it?
But what a gig for your first novel. The Eight Doctor reborn. Tell me about the process of refining and developing that, and how you got the gig?
To take the latter question first, Justin offered me the chance. Of course it was an exciting time for the Eighth Doctor books, but the slot I got was a bit of a poisoned chalice. Many people seemed to expect the book to be more of a season finale to the stuck on earth arc but, to be honest, it was never commissioned to be a resolution; all I was asked to do was to get the Doctor back in the TARDIS and, at the end, back on his travels in time and space. I was so excited to be writing Doctor Who at last, but it was really hard. I was an experienced scriptwriter and story teller but continuous prose was something else. Readers may have noticed!
And Colony of Lies came next. Was it your idea to feature the Second Doctor?
My childhood Doctor… of course I went for him when I had the opportunity. And the joy of Colony was that I wasn’t stuck with an Earth setting. I wanted to do a Western in space… I think the original idea was to do a version of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance the classic John Wayne/Jimmy Stewart movie.
Terrance Dicks has said that writing for the Doctor is the same no matter which actor you’re writing for, do you agree? You’ve written for Troughton, twice, Davison for Big Finish twice, McGann and Tennant…
Don’t forget the McCoy cameo in Colony and I did a Hartnell Short Trip… that’s 6 of the Doctors I’ve written for! Terrance is, of course, both right and wrong. Essentially the Doctor is the same person, but each actor brings individual elements to their performance and you have to try and catch that in your prose or script.
You’ve written two Davison Big Finish adventures not to mention a short Benny audio for a DWM giveaway… do you find it easier or harder to write than prose or telly?
Scripts. I think I’m most at home with a script but I’m getting better at prose. Slowly!
Was the Doctor your choice?
I honestly can’t remember. I’d have been happy to write for any of them!
More recently you’ve written for the Tenth Doctor. Was writing for the NSA a different experience to the EDAs?
Well, there are obvious differences in word length, but the main difference is not really about the books but in the way they reflect the TV series… Classic Who is, well, a little old-fashioned and slow. Don’t get me wrong, I love it, but Russell’s reinvention has a much more modern, dynamic approach to story telling. And that’s reflected in the pace and style of the NSAs.
Some people, even on Outpost Skaro – have accused the new books are “dumbing down” from the NAs and EDAs – what do you think?
I loved the NAs but they did a different job. At the time they were Doctor Who. They carried the flame, the ongoing continuity. But now we have the series back on TV, bigger and better than ever, and the books are inevitably going to different. They’re spin-off merchandising, not the main event.
Talking of spin-offs, we’ve now had children’s books like the Decide Your Destiny books and Darksmith Legacy. I bet those DYD books were a nightmare to write.
They were certainly a headache but great fun. I did 4 Doctor Who ones and, later, two Transformers Animated and by the end I had just about worked out how to do them! Maybe I’ll get to do some more one day…
If you look at your pedigree you have to concede you’re absolutely the right class to do a New Series TV episode… Would you? Could you?
I’d love to… but I can’t see it happening. I seemed to have fallen off the map as far as writing for TV is concerned but you never know. I’m sure Mr Moffet has a list as long as your arm of potential Who writers who will get a chance before me!
So what do you have coming up in the future?
I’ve just written some kids books under the name Jonny Moon for Harper Collins; Gunk Aliens… about aliens who want snot (“they came from outer space to get up your nose”). Four came out this summer and there’s two more to come in the New Year. Hopefully I’ll be doing some more of those next year and beyond that…. Well, time will tell… Hopefully I’ll get the chance to write for the New Doctor soon, to add to my collection…
Thanks to Colin, and good luck in future ventures...
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