Marcus K Harmes

[![](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/d3edfd6e7aa2896d3eb94009ea21ea1b-140x140.jpg){.alignleft
.wp-image-5300 .size-thumbnail loading="lazy" decoding="async"
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srcset="https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/d3edfd6e7aa2896d3eb94009ea21ea1b-140x140.jpg.webp 140w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/d3edfd6e7aa2896d3eb94009ea21ea1b-150x150.jpg.webp 150w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/d3edfd6e7aa2896d3eb94009ea21ea1b.jpg 300w"
sizes="(max-width: 140px) 100vw, 140px"}](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/d3edfd6e7aa2896d3eb94009ea21ea1b.jpg)I
have spent much of the last two years in the company of a long dead
British actor. In other words, I have been engaged in writing the
[biography](https://www.fantompublishing.co.uk/product/roger-delgado-i-am-usually-referred-to-as-the-master/){target="_blank"}
of [Roger
Delgado](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0217069/){target="_blank"}, best
known for originating the character the Master in *Doctor Who*. He's
been on other people's minds of late, as January is the anniversary of
his first appearance (January 2^nd^ 1971) in the 25 minute-long first
episode of *Terror of the Autons*. He remains topical because of
developments to the character he originated. The recent regeneration of
the 12^th^ Doctor into the female 13^th^ Doctor played by Jodie
Whittaker is a massive game changer that arguably was only possible
because of an earlier game changer, when the male character the Master
was regenerated into the female Missy played by Michelle Gomez.

[![](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/landscape-doctor-who-the-witchs-familiar-7-300x150.jpg){.wp-image-5301
.size-medium .alignleft loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="300"
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srcset="https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/landscape-doctor-who-the-witchs-familiar-7-300x150.jpg.webp 300w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/landscape-doctor-who-the-witchs-familiar-7-450x225.jpg.webp 450w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/landscape-doctor-who-the-witchs-familiar-7-140x70.jpg.webp 140w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/landscape-doctor-who-the-witchs-familiar-7-768x384.jpg 768w, https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/landscape-doctor-who-the-witchs-familiar-7.jpg 980w"
sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px"}](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/landscape-doctor-who-the-witchs-familiar-7.jpg)The
reaction first to a female Master and then a female Doctor has been
explosive to say the least, and perhaps a valuable reminder that
television programs and their characters are not created in a vacuum but
are actually parts of a richer landscape of contrasting and
complementary shows and viewer expectations. As a result, researching
one actor's life can open up fascinating vistas, especially in following
paper trails and the paperwork which reconstructs these wider television
landscapes. For me, that was especially so for BBC One's 1971 Saturday
night line-up. What a close knit environment television was. That
evening in January 1971 when the Master materialised on British
television, the actor David Garth appeared in episode one of *Terror of
the Autons* as the unnamed Time Lord. Later that night he was back on
BBC One playing another character in *Dixon of Dock Green*.

While *Terror of the Autons* is now experienced as a stand-alone item on
a DVD, Delgado's debut was originally part of a wider world, where
records of the surrounding broadcasts bring back to life the context for
viewing this debut. The 'Program as Broadcast' paperwork for the nights
from January 2^rd^ onwards and now in the written archives of the BBC
meticulously record what happened on screen. The paperwork, banged out
of a typewriter, show Delgado's debut was surrounded by a host of
imported and native productions. There was the Saturday Western, which
on the afternoon of Part Four of *Terror of the Autons* was *Last of the
Badmen*, a 1957 western, then *Grandstand*, then a short trailer
pre-recorded on videotape for Cilla Black's show, and then viewers could
see the Doctor fight the Auton's invasion. Then viewers had Richard
Baker read the news followed by Lucille Ball, Liberace, Cliff Richard
and *Dixon of Dock Green*.

The Program as Broadcast paperwork is a collection of time codes,
references to 'VTR' or film, and the alphanumeric sequences used to
identify what was shown. But they are also time capsules which give an
impression of the world into which Delgado's Master appeared across
1971. For example, included in the typewritten data for the transmission
of Delgado's second story in *Doctor Who*, *The Mind of Evil*, is record
of the trailer for the BBC's broadcast of the Apollo 14 mission, which
had launched on January 31^st^ 1971, including the soundtrack of
Strauss's *Also Sprach Zarathustra*, music already indelibly associated
with space since the release of *2001: A Space Odyssey* three years
earlier. It's curious that as another season of *Doctor Who* was
underway with the Doctor trapped on Earth because of exile by the Time
Lords, the BBC One viewing public were offered footage of space
exploration.

A little further on in the 1971 season, on the night that *The Mind of
Evil* part six was broadcast, the news was read by the anchorman Kenneth
Kendall and included in the data from the Program as Broadcast is
'Actuality Music on Film (Visual). Members of Women's Liberation
Movement Protest Song 00'22''. In other words, Kendall was reading out a
news story about a protest by the Women's Liberation Movement and it
included a film insert of their protest song. With the introduction of
the character Sarah Jane Smith in 1973, Women's Lib would be brought on
screen with her character. For the time being however in 1971 it was
part of the same world but not part of the story in *Doctor Who*. When
*The Dæmons* was broadcast in June 1971, the BBC One line-up was
similar. Did viewers who had just seen the Master celebrate a Black Mass
in rural England then want to tune into Cilla or Lulu?

In 1971 Delgado leaps into the Doctor's adventures, doing so amongst a
mixture of football, Apollo 14, Women's Lib, Liberace, Cilla Black,
Lucille Ball and the BBC News, and that's just BBC One. The mixture is a
bright tapestry. What did viewers who had just enjoyed the football or
the scrambling on *Grandstand* think of the Master? Did the coverage of
Apollo 14 complement or compete with the Autons? Did people watching the
Master murder his way around the Home Counties stay around to watch
Liberace or Cliff Richard? How did 'my dear Jo' or 'my dear Miss Grant',
or Jo spraining her ankle, seem compared to a Women's Liberation
Protest? Season Eight, especially *Terror of the Autons*, has been
called garish and cartoonish. But on BBC One on Saturday nights, the
Master, Jo and the Doctor were part of a colourful line-up, and the
science fiction mayhem was a brief interlude amongst the sport and the
native and American light entertainment, which courtesy of these messy
typewritten paperwork gave me a true journey back in time to see how 25
minutes of television is part of something much larger.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Dr Marcus Harmes** is a senior lecturer at the University of Southern
Queensland (Australia). His most recent publication is *[Roger Delgado:
I am usually referred to as the
Master](https://www.fantompublishing.co.uk/product/roger-delgado-i-am-usually-referred-to-as-the-master/){target="_blank"}*
(Fantom Publishing, 2017).


I have spent much of the last two years in the company of a long dead British actor.

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