Rare Doctor Who photographs discovered after 53 years!
The Radio Times has reported finding a set of 25 black-and-white negatives within the personal files of Radio Times staff photographer the late, great Don Smith.
Never catalogued, never scanned nor printed before, they had lain forgotten since he took them in December 1970. Broadcasting historian Steve Arnold stumbled upon them while helping to sort through Don’s collection after his death last year.
“He hated seeing anything go into a skip so took it upon himself to become a sort of archive of the unwanted,” says Steve, who became friends with Don and visited him in hospital the day he died.
Calling at Don’s house in the weeks that followed…
Steve encountered “stacks of material. I’d promised I’d help him but the task was monumental and I’m grateful to Don’s family that they trusted me to get on with it. The sheer volumes meant I couldn’t stop and fully comprehend what was there, although it was obvious there were long-lost Doctor Who images passing through my hands and into boxes to deal with later.”
The pictures were taken on Saturday 5th December 1970 on the set of a story called The Mind of Evil, in Studio 6 at BBC Television Centre in London. It was the recording day for Episodes Three and Four, which were subsequently broadcast in February 1971.
Jon Pertwee was into his second year as the third Doctor, Katy Manning played his plucky companion Jo Grant, and together they were tackling the latest diabolical scheme of the Master (Roger Delgado). He had seized control of a men’s prison with the Keller Machine, which housed an alien parasite feeding on criminal impulses.
Katy is delighted to see the pictures for the first time 53 years later.
“Back in my day they didn’t take a lot of studio shots that we ever saw, so seeing these now is absolutely wonderful. I think they’re extraordinary.”
They’re particularly luminous because they were taken on the higher-quality, two-and-a-quarter-inch-square film, sometimes called “medium format”, which by the early ‘70s Don Smith had been moving away from, in favour of 35mm film.
“The Mind of Evil was only my second story – after Terror of the Autons – and a slightly different one for Jo,” says Katy. “She got to take on a whole prison full of blokes and show that she was made of tough stuff. People often forget that Jo was quite handy when necessary and was already starting to show her colours. It was a great story to have Roger in as well.”
The Doctor and Jo may have been bitterly opposed to the Master on screen but relations were very different off camera. “We all got on frightfully well, and by this point we’d also been to Roger’s house for dinner so we were all bonding, which became so apparent through the three years we worked together. We always discussed how we were going to do something and worked hard to make Doctor Who an incredibly strong show.”
She looks back on that formative period with immense fondness.
“Right from the start, Jon, Roger and I formed such a strong bond. They were mentors to me. I’d had very little television experience so was like a little sponge sucking everything up. I learnt from Roger especially a lot about the art of television acting, and from Jon I was already hearing the most wonderful stories about the entertainment business.
“I soon realised that I was in a very safe and happy place with people who were going to teach me so much but also seemed to warm to me. I adored them all. And I love Jon’s hair in these photos, that length. He was already going to my hairdresser!”
Jo Grant became the first long-running female companion, staying three years and winning the hearts of millions. Katy left in 1973, but the magic of Doctor Who has never left her.
She adores her association with the show and has returned to the role many times. Now Jo Jones, she has featured in dozens of Big Finish audio dramas, in The Sarah Jane Adventures in 2010 and, in more recent times, in films shot especially for the BBC’s Doctor Who Blu-ray box sets. Last year, there was a surprise cameo in The Power of the Doctor, which she describes as “a tiny little ‘Hello, is that Jo?!’ in the 59th”.
How does it feel still being associated with the programme 50 years later?
“I’ve grown into Jo Jones. So it’s the same character but she’s had an enormous life that’s now arced into the loss of her husband Cliff. You’d never have imagined back then in 1971 that all this would happen for this wonderfully wacky, clumsy, naïve person.”
Just this year, Katy was back filming her own moving edition of Tales from the TARDIS. It brings us up to date with Jo, now a grandmother and a widow reflecting on love and loss. “It was very emotional for me,” says Katy, whose Doctor Who co-stars and friends died many years ago.
“I felt a flash of ‘double memory’ as both Jo and myself of some of the people that I had truly loved in my life.”
She even wore one of the Doctor’s original jackets, now owned by writer/actor/fan Mark Gatiss.
“It still feels Jon, it almost smells Jon – it’s filled with Pertwee!” says Katy. “I’d nestled under it on so many cold locations. Whenever someone has a velvet jacket on now, I get butterflies in my stomach. Velvet hugs!”
All of Katy Manning’s Doctor Who episodes are now on iPlayer, as is her 2023 return as Jo in Tales of the TARDIS.