Adrian Rigelsford

Adrian Rigelsford (born 1969, Cambridge) is a writer and TV historian whose factual and fictional work has been subject to controversy. In June 2004, he was convicted of stealing photographs from the Daily Mail/Associated Newspapers archive in Kensington.^[1] Rigelsford has ghost written biographies of Peter Sellers and Brian Blessed and books about Doctor Who.

Non-fiction and fiction writing

Rigelsford has written several articles and books on TV and film history.

In 1993, he wrote the script for The Dark Dimension, a proposed 30th anniversary Doctor Who special. BBC Enterprises supported the project and it was scheduled as a "straight-to-video" project, despite its very low budget. The project eventually earned the backing of BBC1 Controller Alan Yentob, who agreed to invest in it and show the programme on BBC1. However, the programme folded after 5 weeks of pre-production.

In 2004, Big Finish Productions produced the Rigelsford-written The Roof of the World as part of their range of Doctor Who audio plays.^[2]

Controversies

The accuracy of Rigelsford's reference work has been disputed, for example for unsourced and previously unheard-of quotes from William Hartnell and Roger Delgado, or the omission of the entirety of Season 18 from one of his Doctor Who reference works.^[3]

A publication in TV Times of a "final" interview with director Stanley Kubrick brought Rigelsford to the attention of Anthony Frewin, a friend of Kubrick's. Frewin's investigation uncovered that a supposed tape of the Kubrick interview did not exist. In the light of this and Frewin's expert doubts, TV Times ran an apology about the interview.^[3]

In June 2004, Rigelsford was convicted of stealing 56,000 photographs from the Daily Mail/Associated Newspapers research library over an eight-year period and reselling them for approximately ₤75,000. Rigelsford was sentenced to eighteen months.^[1][3]

External links

• Adrian Rigelsford at the Internet Movie Database

References