RIP: Verity Lambert

[faustus]

 Guardian obituary is a little h'mmmm-some:

Verity Lambert, who has died aged 71 of cancer, will always be remembered as the presiding genius behind Doctor Who, the science-fiction romp which has intermittently flourished on television for nearly 45 years. [...]

She contrived to get an opening in ABC Television, where Sydney Newman was in charge of production. Lambert's enthusiasm caught his eye. She worked on the regular Sunday night Armchair Theatre, and when Newman was headhunted by the BBC in 1963 she was one of several colleagues he took with him. Doctor Who, dreamed up by Newman himself with the writer Terry Nation, and starring William Hartnell, was an immediate project. Lambert was involved from the outset, and for the second batch of episodes was producer, credited with introducing the most celebrated of the doctor's adversaries, the Daleks.


This gives Nation a little too much credit, I'd think.

Comments

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

A quick glance over the Who reference to hand confirms my suspicion that the obit is wrong on two counts. Nation had no involvement in the creation of the show until commissioned to write what was planned to be the fifth story in the first season. And Lambert was producer on the show right at the off, from 'An Unearthly Child'.

[drasecretcampus.livejournal.com]

My memory (but that is from The Making of Doctor Who) was that Nation was reluctant to be involved (being a writer for post-Galton-and-Simpson Hancock at the time) until he lost his gig. I think there was an exec producer of some kind (she being a mere slip of a lass at the time and all that) who was quickly found to be surplus to requirements. Mervyn Pinfield, that's the name. I'm not sure what it means by second batch (the second season? Planet of Giants to Time Meddler? or The Mutants/Dead Planet/Daleks?)

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

You're quite right on Nation, but it was the commission to write what became The Daleks (or whatever - YPTMV). He was never offered any role in the process of determining the show's format. But because the Daleks have become so closely associated as being central to Who, it becomes assumed by some that he was the show's creator.

Pinfield was an Associate Producer, there to provide an experienced pair of hands to give support to Lambert, but nevertheless in a subordinate role. He lasted until the middle of the second season of 1964-5, which is perhaps what the obit means. But possibly it's an oblique reference to the fact that, having forced through The Daleks against the advice of Head of Serials Donald Wilson, once she had been emphatically been proved right in her judgment, Wilson then ceased to closely oversee what she was doing

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

I just looked and a couple of days later they printed a correction, in text rather similar to the e-mail I sent them.