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Classic Series

Telegraph journalist forced to read Script Doctor

Andrew Cartmel’s memoirs of his time on Doctor Who as script editor between 1978–1989, Script Doctor, have somehow fallen into the hands of a journalist at the Daily Torygraph.

Incredibly, the journo in question has churned out a piece of work even more absurd than Cartmel’s opus (in which he revealed that he spent most of his time on the show lusting after Sophie Aldred) by revealing that the seventh Doctor’s tenure was, in fact, a secret attempt to bring down Margaret Thatcher’s government.

Some quotes of Cartmel’s from Script Doctor are recycled, and added to some obviously less-than serious stuff from Sylvester McCoy on why it seemed like trying to overthrow Thatcher by making Silver Nemesis was ‘the right thing to do’.

Add in two killer blows in this fearless expose – the fact that Ben Aaronovitch is the son of Sam Aaronovitch and the fact that Rona Munro once worked on a film with Ken Loach – and the case looks pretty watertight.

But wait, there’s more. In what is almost certainly the first time anyone in the world has heard of it, the Telegraph dredges up the fact that the antagonist in the spin-off novel Turlough and the Earth Link Dilemma antagonist is called Rehctaht – ‘Thatcher’ backwards.

It’s left to the Daily Mail to deliver the hammer blow:

The revelations appear to confirm claims that the 1980s BBC opposed Mrs Thatcher’s government, with the then Tory chairman Norman Tebbit claiming it was in the hands of a ‘Marxist mafia’.

Indeed they do. But Probic Vent can reveal that the conspiracy ran far deeper than Cartmel’s Masterplan. Other Dodgy Doctor details uncovered by us reveal:

• Cartmel originally wanted to replace Bonnie Langford with ARTHUR SCARGILL as McCoy’s companion when the former bowed out.

• Marc Platt spent three months as a guest of the KGB while writing his second draft of Ghost Light in 1988.

• Sophie Aldred had an affair with LES DENNIS in the early 90s

• McCOY, along with COLIN BAKER, PETER DAVISON and TOM BAKER meet regularly at a number of hotels around the country to hold emotionally-charged rallies for their followers

Most damning of all, the ultimate aim of Cartmel’s conspiracy was to replace The Queen as Head of State with John Nathan-Turner.