Barry Letts
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Barry Letts (born in 1925) is a British actor, television director and producer best known for his work on the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who. Indeed, he is one of the people associated with the programme on a long basis, with active involvement in each of the programme's decades.
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[edit] Early career
His initial work was as a repertory actor. He later played one of the leading characters in the Terence Fisher directed film, To the Public Danger, a heartfelt plea against dangerous driving. He also appeared in the highly regarded Ealing Studios production, Scott of the Antarctic, in a supporting role.
From 1950 he appeared in various television productions including a live drama in which future Doctor Who actor Patrick Troughton played Guy Fawkes and Letts essayed a fellow conspirator.
Much of this television work was for the BBC and Letts abandoned acting after completing their director's course in 1967. His early directorial work included episodes of the long-running police drama Z-Cars and a soap opera, The Newcomers.
[edit] Doctor Who
Letts' first involvement with Doctor Who was when he directed the 1968 Patrick Troughton serial The Enemy of the World. This was a complex serial to direct as Troughton played both the Doctor and the Mexican dictator "Salamander" in the same story and sometimes in the same scenes - a rare and demanding directorial requirement for the 1960s.
He became the show's producer in 1970 in succession to Derrick Sherwin. Jon Pertwee had just been cast as the Doctor. Letts remained the producer for the majority of the Pertwee serials and was the father figure in the 'family' atmosphere that had developed on the show at that time. It was an exciting era for Doctor Who, with episodes broadcast in colour for the first time. He also oversaw the celebrations of the programme's tenth anniversary in 1973.
Barry Letts formed a particular partnership with two other contributors to the programme: Terrance Dicks, who was the script editor on the programme at that time; and Robert Sloman, with whom he contributed four stories to the Pertwee era: The Daemons (credited as Guy Leopold); The Time Monster ; The Green Death ; and Planet of the Spiders, which was Pertwee's swan song. Barry Letts is a Buddhist, and this has influenced several of his contributions to Doctor Who. Indeed, he provided an official obituary to Sloman in December 2005.
He was still producer when Tom Baker was cast as the Fourth Doctor, taking a strong role on the casting. After one story with Baker, Robot (Doctor Who) he left the position of producer in 1975, having been the longest serving producer on the programme to that time.
Barry Letts also directed several Doctor Who stories during his period as Producer: Terror of the Autons, Carnival of Monsters, Planet of the Spiders and part of Inferno after Douglas Camfield had been taken ill. He returned in 1976 to direct The Android Invasion during the era of Philip Hinchcliffe as programme producer.
In the 1980-81 series, he returned to be executive producer alongside John Nathan-Turner as the producer. This was for one season between The Leisure Hive and Tom Baker's final story Logopolis. Letts' return to the programme was because Nathan-Turner had not previously served as a producer and a restructure of the BBC Drama Department meant that Head of Series & Serials Graeme MacDonald was unable to offer the support previous producers had had. As it happened, 'JNT' as he was known stayed for nine years, overtaking Letts as the longest serving producer on Doctor Who. When the programme returned in 2005, Letts was involved in the hectic round of interviews to promote the show, most unusually appearing for a lengthy discussion piece on The Daily Politics with Andrew Neill on BBC2.
Barry Letts also wrote two scripts for two radio plays broadcast in the 1990s — The Paradise of Death and The Ghosts of N-Space. He has written several Doctor Who spin off novels including Deadly Reunion with Terrance Dicks, The Ghosts of N-Space novelisation, Paradise of Death novelisation and The Daemons novelisation for Target Books. His latest book, "Island of Death", featuring the Jon Pertwee Doctor, the Brigadier and Sarah Jane Smith, was published in July 2005.
[edit] Later work
His other work includes producing and co-creating Moonbase 3 with Terrance Dicks.
He further produced Nicholas Nickleby 1977, A Tale of Two Cities 1980, The Hound of the Baskervilles 1982 and The Invisible Man 1984, amongst others, all as part of the BBC's "Sunday Classics" strand.
Later he was a director on the soap opera EastEnders from 1990 to 1992.
