Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale - Russell T. Davies & Benjamin Cook

...have been a fan of Doctor Who since I was a young child in the 1970s and over the years, I have read probably hundreds of Doctor Who related books - biographies, autobiographies, novelisations and so on. But I can honestly say, The Writer's Tale is the best Doctor Who book I have ever read!

It is written by Russell T Davies (who has also written such famous television series as Queer as Folk and The Second Coming, as well as the new ...
...about the process of writing Doctor Who from the initial ideas through the casting process, script writing, filming and editing. This is the side few of us see. We sit there enjoying the final television programme, blissfully unaware of all the hours of toil behind each one. I certainly found the book revealing, enlightening, informative and compelling reading.

We follow Russell from February 2007 until April 2008. This concentrates ... more

I have been a fan of Doctor Who since I was a young child in the 1970s and over the years, I have read probably hundreds of Doctor Who related books - biographies, autobiographies, novelisations and so on. But I can honestly say, The Writer's Tale is the best Doctor Who book I have ever read!

It is written by Russell T Davies (who has also written such famous television series as Queer as Folk and The Second Coming, as well as the new Doctor Who, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures) and Benjamin Cook. The project began as a series of emails between Russell and Ben and this format is the basis of The Writer's Tale.

Ben wanted to find out more about the process of writing Doctor Who from the initial ideas through the casting process, script writing, filming and editing. This is the side few of us see. We sit there enjoying the final television programme, blissfully unaware of all the hours of toil behind each one. I certainly found the book revealing, enlightening, informative and compelling reading.

We follow Russell from February 2007 until April 2008. This concentrates on Series Four of Doctor Who and the 2007 Christmas special which guest starred Kylie Minogue.

When Russell first starts writing for this series, the companion has not been cast and he writes her as a character called Penny Carter. Partway through this process, Catherine Tate says she would like to do a full series, so the companion role is changed to her as returning character Donna Noble.

In each chapter, there are revelations which I found fascinating. It took me quite a while to read the book, because I wanted to take everything in and savour it. My husband, however, breezed through the 512 pages in a weekend. He loved it too.

The writing style is easy to read and mostly light-hearted, fun and witty. You can really see the rapport that Russell and Ben have and it makes their words a joy to read. Occasionally though, we see Russell's darker moments and these can be quite upsetting and moving. He takes his writing extremely seriously and works his whole social life out around his job (not the other way round) and can become very intense. This just made me love him more, as you can see how important things are to him, but it can be hard to read these parts and some of them are not suitable for young children. (Teens and above only!)

We met Russell and Ben when they did the book signing tour recently and this is where we bought our copy of The Writer's Tale from (Borders, Bristol), plus one for my Dad for Christmas. We got ours signed and both Russell and Ben were wonderful, absolutely fantastic! We really enjoyed meeting them and presumably they enjoyed meeting us too, as I got name-checked in Russell's column in the following issue of Doctor Who Magazine! Wow!

I would definitely recommend the book, as it offers something that no other Doctor Who book has to date. It really makes you appreciate how much work goes into the programme and how many people are involved. One of the most moving parts is when the actor who plays Donna's father becomes increasingly ill and then dies. They change the role to Donna's grandfather and recast Bernard Cribbins in the part.

Despite the sad parts, the tone of the whole book is one of fun and humour and - like Russell T Davies himself - it's large, warm and big-hearted with oodles of affection for Doctor Who, its cast, crew and history.

If it has any disadvantages, they are small. For me, I found reading pages of script tiring at times, so had to break it up into shorter reading sessions for those bits. It did add something to my enjoyment of the final televised stories though and I was pleased our Series Four DVD boxset arrived shortly after, so I could reacquaint myself with the stories, after reading The Writer's Tale.

Overall, this is an excellent book. It has charm and offers something brand new. I think few of us reading this would envy Russell his job or fail to understand why he decided to leave. There are a few contributions from incoming Doctor Who guru Steven Moffatt, but no mentions of who David Tennant's replacement will be. (Though rumours lean very strongly towards Paterson Joseph.)

While you're eagerly awaiting the 2008 Doctor Who Christmas Special, buy The Writer's Tale and enjoy!

The Writer's Tale by Russell T Davies and Benjamin Cook has a cover price of £30 for the hardback, but Amazon are currently selling it for £15.76. 

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