The Myth of Fang Rock

Uncovering long-standing misapprehensions about the opening story of Doctor Who's fifteenth season.

by Paul Scoones

Working on production information subtitles for the Doctor Who: The Collection - Season 15 blu-ray set uncovered a curious fact about the origins of Horror of Fang Rock. The 1977 serial was a hastily written replacement for another story, but despite what many books and articles on the subject claim, the disruption caused by the substitution was in fact relatively minor.

The version of events that has appeared in print time and time again is that the first story made under new producer Graham Williams was The Witch Lords, a vampire tale written by Terrance Dicks, until that was cancelled at short notice at the behest of BBC management. That cancellation had a significant impact on production. The Invisible Enemy, due to have been recorded second, switched positions and was rushed into production as the first story. Studio bookings at the BBC’s Television Centre were lost forcing the production team to relocate to Birmingham to make Horror of Fang Rock, which had been written in time to be made second in production order.

The problem with this account is that it is largely incorrect. As the production documents show (or rather fail to show), this is not quite what happened.

The opening story was indeed planned to be a Terrance Dicks vampire story, but it wasn’t called The Witch Lords. Production documents consistently give the title as The Vampire Mutation. The Witch Lords appears to have been an early working title that was replaced by the time the scripts were commissioned. Dicks sometimes referred to the story by this name in interviews and it also appeared on a provisional Target books schedule. ¹

The Vampire Mutation was the second story in production order. Correspondingly the production was assigned the code 4V, though some early documents used the notation 4U. ² The code denoted a production slot, to facilitate the booking of crew and facilities. The alphabetical sequence corresponded to the order of production rather than broadcast. The Invisible Enemy, initially titled Invisible Invader, was coded 4T and was the first story made for the season. When Horror of Fang Rock replaced the vampire story, it inherited the 4V code.

Memos issued by Graham Williams show that on 17 November 1976, Derrick Goodwin was assigned to direct the first serial into production, commencing work on 31 January 1977, and Paddy Russell was hired two weeks later, on 29 November, for the second serial, commencing 14 March. Neither memo identifies the stories the directors would be working on though the typed memo for Russell has handwritten “4V”, possibly added later. Scripts for The Vampire Mutation and Invisible Invader were subsequently commissioned on 11 and 14 January 1977 respectively.

Terrance Dicks delivered the script for the first of four episodes on 25 January. At some point during the two weeks between this date and 7 February when the second episode script was due, work on the story was halted.

As Doctor Who producer Graham Williams related in an interview for InVision in 1990, after the script for the first episode was read by Head of Serials Graeme McDonald, he was asked to “please reconsider” proceeding with the story. ³ The reason for this directive was that the BBC was planning a drama adaptation of Bram Stoker’s classic novel Dracula to be broadcast at Christmas 1977 and McDonald didn’t want Doctor Who doing a story about vampires that might be perceived as sending up the high-profile production. ⁴

Curiously, Williams indicated in InVision that The Vampire Mutation was going to be made first and would have been directed by Derrick Goodwin. Due to the loss of the vampire story, The Invisible Enemy “had to be brought forward”, and that in doing so, “failed in the belief of matching the director to the script.” Williams said that he had wanted Goodwin “to do the first story because I felt he could bring a fresh eye to the old, traditional Gothic horror story”. Instead, Goodwin had to direct The Invisible Enemy, described by the producer as “the most technically complex Doctor Who there had ever been up to that point.” ⁵

Williams’ recollection of what occurred is contradicted by the paperwork prepared in 1977. Prior to the decision to stop work on The Vampire Mutation, bookings for the BBC’s Television Film Studios in Ealing had already been issued for that story, dated 20 January, with the documents bearing Paddy Russell’s name as director. Russell confirmed in a 1998 interview that she was initially hired to direct The Vampire Mutation and had the opportunity to read the abandoned script for the first episode. ⁶

If, as Williams claimed, his intention had been for Goodwin rather than Russell to direct the vampire story, this suggests that there might have been a mix-up in the bookings for the two directors.

Once Dicks was informed that he needed to stop working on The Vampire Mutation, he hastily devised a replacement idea prompted by script editor Robert Holmes’ suggestion to set it in a lighthouse. Dicks wrote the four scripts for Horror of Fang Rock during February and March, delivering them by 28 March in time to meet the originally scheduled production dates. The Vampire Mutation was not cancelled outright but held in reserve with the intent to reschedule it for a later season. This did not happen under Graham Williams’ watch, but incoming new producer John Nathan-Turner liked the script and commissioned a revised version from Dicks in December 1979. The story was screened in late 1980 as State of Decay.

While State of Decay was partly filmed on location at Burnham Beeches in Buckinghamshire, it appears that The Vampire Mutation was going to be made entirely in studio. The bookings for filming sequences for the story at Ealing mentioned above were for the first two weeks in May. This would have likely included the forest scenes. This arrangement was not uncommon; in recent years, Planet of Evil, The Brain of Morbius and The Face of Evil all featured ‘exterior’ sequences shot entirely within the confines of a studio. The first of the two weeks in May was used to shoot Horror of Fang Rock’s sequences on the rocks outside the lighthouse in studio at Ealing. This is clear and incontrovertible evidence that the production was not delayed or swapped with another story.

A booking for filming at Ealing also made with Derrick Goodwin’s name attached as director on 1 February, to be shot in late March. This was subsequently cancelled in favour of recording on video at Television Centre.

Horror of Fang Rock was unusual in that video recording took place in the BBC’s drama studio at Pebble Mill in Birmingham rather than at Television Centre in London. While no reason is provided for the change of venue in the production documents, there is nothing to indicate that it was a consequence of the change of story. The production of Horror of Fang Rock was not delayed, so it seems unlikely that the originally booked studio dates for 4V would have been lost or cancelled when the scripts, which in any case were still being written, changed. It is feasible to conclude that had The Vampire Mutation gone ahead as planned, it would have been made in Birmingham.

During February Graham Williams attended a planning meeting with Birmingham personnel to discuss technical requirements for recording at Pebble Mill. His detailed memo, dated 24 February, itemises the discussion points from this meeting and addresses the issues involved in mounting the production outside the usual London studios, but conveys no sense of an urgently arranged relocation.

So, if the change of story wasn’t to blame, why did recording take place in Birmingham with all the logistical problems that the relocation entailed? Unfortunately, the documents do not offer an answer, but it is possible to make an educated guess. Horror of Fang Rock’s second recording block took place during the week of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee celebrations, with Jubilee Day itself, 7 June, being one of the three recording days that week. Studio space in London may have been reserved for coverage of the Jubilee, even if, in the event it appears not to have been used for this purpose. Another explanation is that Doctor Who was being used to test the limits of the drama production facilities at Pebble Mill. John Nathan-Turner, who was Production Unit Manager on Horror of Fang Rock, claimed that there was also a “political reason” behind the move to Birmingham, as it gave Pebble Mill the justification for upgrading their equipment and facilities. ⁷

On the Season 15 blu-ray, Louise Jameson says that the reason the story had to be made in Birmingham was because of a strike, but this notion is not supported by any of the available evidence.⁸

The Invisible Enemy was recorded first but broadcast second. The story was not rescheduled or rushed into production and, as the documents show, was recorded on its original studio dates scheduled before issues arose with The Vampire Mutation.

The reason why The Invisible Enemy rather than Horror of Fang Rock (or The Vampire Mutation) was made first is unclear, but this may have been due to studio allocation. If, as appears to be the case, the first story into production was always going to be made in London and the second in Birmingham, it made good sense for The Invisible Enemy with its anticipated exceptionally heavy special effects requirement, to benefit from the more technically equipped production facilities available in London.

There is no suggestion that The Invisible Enemy would however have opened the season in broadcast order. The absence of K-9 in Horror of Fang Rock would have been reasonably easy to accommodate with a simple line insertion explaining that the newly acquired robot dog will remain inside the TARDIS. The most reliable indicator of the production team’s intentions is the colour of Louise Jameson’s eyes. The actor had worn contact lenses during the previous season to make her naturally blue eyes look brown. Leela has blue eyes in The Invisible Enemy, with the eye colour alteration occurring in Horror of Fang Rock. Nothing in the documents, storyline or scripts for The Invisible Enemy indicates that Leela’s eyes were to change colour in that story. It seems likely that the change was originally due to occur in The Vampire Mutation.

How then did many accounts of the making of Horror of Fang Rock get these details so wrong? Working on the blu-ray production information text allows access to a wealth of production paperwork sourced from the BBC Written Archive at Caversham. Many of these documents are included as PDFs on the discs. Reference books and articles written in the years before access was granted to this invaluable resource were mainly based on anecdotal accounts and secondary sources.

The misapprehensions surrounding Horror of Fang Rock appear to originate with InVision. The fanzine had remarkable access to Graham Williams in the months preceding his untimely death in August 1990. The former producer provided the fanzine with extensive and candid recollections of his time working on Doctor Who. As previously observed, it was Williams who asserted in the publication that The Invisible Enemy was brought forward to occupy the slot vacated by The Vampire Mutation. In the absence of access to production documents, there would have been no cause to question Williams’ memories of what had occurred.

Issue 24 (1990) noted in its ‘Production’ feature that "the season's timetable had been knocked back several weeks by the cancellation of The Witch Lords, so the originally-established date for the director to join was scrapped as well”. The Invisible Enemy was brought forward to first in production order, but couldn’t occupy the same bookings and had to be fitted in. The London studio bookings for Horror of Fang Rock were lost, forcing a move to Birmingham. An interview with Terrance Dicks in the same issue again alleged that his vampire story was meant to be first into production and was rescheduled to second in production order. Notably this part was not in quotes, indicating that this particular piece of information may have been context added by the interviewer rather than from Dicks himself. ⁹

The Handbook: The Fourth Doctor (1992) referred to the story as The Witch Lords, with a working title of The Vampire Mutations, noting that the story “had to be dropped at virtually the last minute”, and “completely disrupted the production schedule”. The Invisible Enemy “had to be recorded first, and consequently ended up looking rather rushed”, and that Horror of Fang Rock had to be recorded in Birmingham as no studio space was available at Television Centre. This information can also be found in other books by the same authors including The Seventies (1994), three versions of The Television Companion (1998, 2003 and 2013), and the compilation editions of The Handbook (2005 and 2016). ¹⁰

The Doctors: 30 Years of Time Travel (1994) stated that “The studio space that had been booked for The Witch Lords had been lost”, and, as Television Centre’s studios were fully booked, “director Paddy Russell settled for” Pebble Mill in Birmingham.

The Doctor Who Yearbook 1996 (1995) discussed The Witch Lords “also known as The Vampire Mutation”, which “was vetoed at a late stage”, and that the season’s production order was changed to allow time for a replacement to be written and prepared for recording.

In the first part of his series of memoirs in Doctor Who Magazine issue 233 (1995), John Nathan-Turner claimed that The Invisible Enemy “was pulled forward in production due to the abandonment of a vampire yarn by Terrance Dicks.”

The Invisible Enemy Archive in Doctor Who Magazine issue 271 (1998) reported that the season’s second planned serial was brought forward to be made first because of the loss of the vampire story. The Archive for Horror of Fang Rock in issue 319 (2002) elaborated on this, claiming that Invisible Invader with the production code 4U, was moved to occupy The Vampire Mutation’s Ealing filming dates and the vampire story was brought forward. Plans then changed so that The Invisible Enemy was again first into production. These details are retained in the revised Archives text included in The Complete History volume 27 (2017).

Doctor Who Magazine’s The Complete Fourth Doctor Volume One (2004) noted, in the Take It To The Limit feature, that to replace The Vampire Mutation, The Invisible Enemy “was pulled forward into the first production slot of the season”.

The original set of production information text subtitles included on the Horror of Fang Rock DVD (2005) stated that while The Invisible Enemy was due to be recorded first, for a time it switched position with The Witch Lords, and and that The Invisible Enemy was moved back to first in production order when problems arose with The Witch Lords. This reshuffling meant that there was no longer studio space available at Television Centre.¹¹

About Time 4 (2005) claimed that “The second story of the season, The Invisible Enemy was produced first so that Fang Rock could be hurriedly prepared – which partially explains why so much of The Invisible Enemy looks half finished.” This information was omitted in the revised About Time 4 Volume 2 (2023).

As observed in Robert Holmes – A Life in Words (2013), The Vampire Mutation had been scheduled as the first story to be made, and when Dicks had to write a replacement, the production slot was instead given to what became The Invisible Enemy.

Space Helmet for a Cow (2015) noted that by the time Horror of Fang Rock was commissioned as a replacement for The Witch Lords, the serial had lost its production slot and had to be relocated to Birmingham.

Many of these publications appear to echo the same erroneous information. It seems probable that InVision was the source referenced by these other publications.

Perhaps the most unfortunate thing about the prolonged misapprehensions surrounding the story is that in making the claim that there was a significant delay in production because of the vampire story cancellation, it underplays the extent of Terrance Dicks’ achievement. Dicks often said of Horror of Fang Rock that he had written it as a hasty replacement. “I’m good in a crisis - if things go wrong, I can buckle down and sort things out…”, he once asserted. ¹²

The most remarkable fact of the matter is that Dicks wrote a replacement set of scripts from scratch in such a short space of time that the production team had them in hand to proceed on the initially scheduled production dates.

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With grateful thanks to Peter Anghelides, Jeremy Bentham, Richard Bignell, David Brunt, Chris Chapman, Marcus Hearn, David J. Howe, Andrew Pixley, James Cooray Smith, Stephen James Walker and Martin Wiggins for their feedback.

Doctor Who: The Collection – Season 15 Blu-ray is available now, including newly created production information text subtitles for Horror of Fang Rock written by Paul Scoones.

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1 The International Science Fiction Yearbook (1978), featured a release schedule of Target Doctor Who books, noting the following for March 1978: Mar Terrance Dicks Dr Who and the Vampire Mutation, Dr Who and the Witchlords, (Target). The first of these titles was likely a replacement for the second. Doctor Who and the Horror of Fang Rock occupied the same slot in the schedule, indicating that Dicks delivered the novelisation within the timeframe for the story it replaced. ^↩

2 The practice of using “U” was discontinued at this point, having been used in previous cycles (U, UU and UUU), because of the risk of misreading it as V, particularly on handwritten documents. This misinterpretation may account for why “4U” can be found on some items of paperwork relating to serial 4V. ^↩

3 ‘Armageddon Peddler’, an interview with Graham Williams, InVision issue 26, p.8. ^↩

4 Count Dracula, written by Gerald Savory, directed by Philip Saville, and produced by Morris Barry, was broadcast on BBC Two on 22 December 1977. This was three months after the final episode of Horror of Fang Rock screened. ^↩

5 InVision issue 26, p.9. ^↩

6 Interview with Paddy Russell by Peter Griffiths in Doctor Who Magazine issue 266 (dated 1 July 1998), p.31. ^↩

7 John Nathan-Turner interview, InVision issue 27, October 1990, p.14. ^↩

8 Louise Jameson made this claim on three separate features, all newly produced for the blu-ray set: Behind the Sofa: Horror of Fang Rock (at 06:30), Inside the Lighthouse - Making Horror of Fang Rock (at 01:30) and Louise Jameson In Conversation (at 40:29). ^↩

9 Peter Anghelides, the co-editor of InVision, considers that this part does not read as if it paraphrased something Dicks said, and believes it was more likely added as context for the interview. ^↩

10 The authors intend to correct the record regarding these details in forthcoming editions. ^↩

11 The relevant section of info text appears on the DVD in Part Three, from 12:44 to 14:21. ^↩

12 Interview with Terrance Dicks by Peter Griffiths in Doctor Who Magazine issue 272 (dated 16 December 1998), p.8. ^↩