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Doctor Who: The Fires of Pompeii

Catherine Tate as Donna Noble in Doctor Who
  • Posted at 10:32am
  • 14 April 2008
  • by WilliamGallagher-RT
  • 3 comments

No. You can't see the photo of me playing chess with K9. Thanks for asking, phoning, emailing, stopping me in corridors, but it will not happen. You're thinking that I'm embarrassed, uncomfortable and maybe even ashamed, to which I can only say: what else would I be? But, look, if I showed anyone, I'd show you.

There's really just a small practical problem. The guy who took the photo used to think I was a bit of an eejit, so in my very first national newspaper article I tried my best to get him arrested and sent to prison. This is quite true. I see now that it was also an overreaction, but you can understand why we'd have other topics to discuss before I could bring up K9.

Like so much of what I've done, there was a Doctor Who element and I think - I'm not 100 per cent sure of this now - that it was through this man that I got to see a dodgy pirate VHS of the William Hartnell story The Romans. It might have been an audio-only copy, as those circulated a lot back in the day, but whatever it was, it was enough that I got the joke in this week's The Fires of Pompeii about the Doctor being responsible for Rome burning.

And I also got that this new episode was far, far funnier than the Hartnell one. Dennis Spooner wrote that 1965 one and it was actually borderline sitcom, truly intended to be much more farcical than normal. It didn't work: it clanged a bit, maybe it even contributed to the show ceasing to do historical stories. In comparison, James Moran's new tale was much more successful: very funny but not at all at the expense of the story.

It had a good time with Asterix-style gags, it had a Roman Del Boy in Phil Cornwell, it had the Tardis being seen as modern art - just as it was in 1979's City of Death, when John Cleese and Eleanor Bron admired its "exquisite" dematerialisation from an art gallery.

But it also had the Doctor carrying terrible responsibility and it had vivid Catherine Tate bringing home the reality of this unreal tale. It had full-strength, raging rows in the Tardis. It didn't really conclusively answer the question of why the Doctor can't go back in time and save people, but it bravely raised the point where the original Who only ever gingerly alluded to it.

My mind's still on the man I tried to put away. I'd like to apologise to him now, but the problem is that naming him is what got the fella into such hot water.

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  • Posted on 21 April 2008
  • at 5:17pm
  • by alan_buttifant

Hello William -- Thanks for the info. I will try it out, and promise to only read your posts :) All the best, Alan.

  • Posted on 14 April 2008
  • at 5:21pm
  • by WilliamGallagher-RT
Thanks, Alan: much appreciated. And the answer is... sort of, yes.We don't have a specific RSS feed of this blog but there is an overall one for all Radio Times bloggers, which I'll tell you if you promise to ignore everybody but me. That seems fair.Here's what you need: feed://talk.radiotimes.com/rssthreads.jspa?categoryID=7William
  • Posted on 14 April 2008
  • at 1:32pm
  • by alan_buttifant

Hello William -- I am enjoying your column (I have yet to watch the second episode of the new Dr Who series, though).

However, is there a way to receive your weekly contribution via RSS? I have looked to find an RSS fed, but can't!

Any help would be greatly appreciated; many thanks.

All the best, Alan.

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