Saturday, October 5, 2013

Doctor Who: The Vault by Marcus Hearn


Doctor Who: The Vault by Marcus Hearn (BBC Books £30), with a foreword by Steven Moffat, is full of pages depicting the “treasures” from the first fifty years of the good Doctor.

“Drawing on unseen and iconic material from the BBC archive and private collectors, The Vault is an unforgettable journey through 50 years of Doctor Who, via carefully selected photographs, props, costumes designs, production memos, letters, scripts and more.

This is the full and official story of Doctor Who, from the first pre-production memos in 1963 to the most recent props created for the 2013 series, including interviews with key contributors and scores of prop photos, design sketches and behind the scenes stills from every decade of the show's production. Taking you year by year through the world's longest running science fiction series, Marcus Hearn explores the show's groundbreaking innovations as well as its impact on popular culture through books and comics, magazines and toys, merchandise and ephemera.”

Glancing through the book brought back many memories of me, as a child, watching the early episodes – indeed, I remember watching episode one’s first ever broadcast. I don’t profess to be a Doctor Who geek and so I found this book fascinating, with a lot of material I wasn’t aware of. However, for the serious Who fan I suspect that there is little new – but nevertheless, whatever your knowledge on the subject, this volume would make a smashing Christmas gift.


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