#derekritchie

(One of the strangest experiences I’ve had was interviewing an old friend about Doctor Who. Derek Ritchie was a pal of mine in the Glasgow Doctor Who group in the late 90s, so I was delighted when he started work on the show. The interview appeared in the Ayrshire Post, which I was editor of at the time,  and appeared on 23 October 2015!)

Troon man Derek Ritchie is getting ready to have his work scrutinised the world over this weekend.

The 37-year-old has produced four episodes of the current run of Doctor Who, with his final episode being screened this Saturday, the sixth in the current 12 episode series.

Derek, a former pupil of Marr College, studied Film and Television, and English Literature at Glasgow University, before pursuing a career in television, which has seen him work on shows including Taggart, Being Human, and Wizards vs Aliens, the latter which he produced in 2014.

Last year, he told the Ayrshire Post how he had enjoyed working on Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary special, as well as Matt Smith’s final story as the Time Lord, before  handing over the TARDIS key to Peter Capaldi. It was a dream come true for Derek, a former member of the Glasgow Doctor Who fan group.

But this year, he has been responsible for bringing the four episodes - Under the Lake, Before the Flood, The Girl Who Died and The Woman Who Lived - to the screen, and the Ayrshire Post met with Derek at BBC Wales in Cardiff last week.

He said: “I was just finishing up on series three of Wizards vs Aliens when Brian Minchin, the Doctor Who executive producer, asked to meet me, and offered me two blocks of Doctor Who. That’s how simple it was!

“Wizards had gone down well and he knew how much I loved the show, and I had worked as script editor on it before going on to produce.

“I’d proved myself as a producer of the genre.”

With Doctor Who having millions of fans all over the world, not just in the UK but countries as diverse as Australia, New Zealand, the USA, South Korea and Brazil, Derek’s work will be scrutinised by the show’s dedicated fans.

He explained that the producer’s job on Doctor Who is a complex one: “It’s incredible, mainly because you are the person in the middle of everything, coordinating the entire team with HoDs (Heads of Department), both creatively, financially and practically, and you have to bring these people together on a daily basis. It’s very intense because there’s so many factors involved in a programme like Doctor Who that you may not get in your common or garden drama.

“We are not just building one set at the start of the series, and that set does as was the precinct for the rest of it.

“Every block, we have big, new changes, which is what makes it such thrilling to work on, with great costume designers, makeup designers, a great designer and his team, the effects teams, CG (computer generated) teams, all those people, as well as the director and cast.

“You are constantly spinning a lot of plates, every day, and that’s what makes it such a delight. It’s not just the scale, but the creativity behind it, that keeps everything fresh and exciting.”

Derek’s four episodes have been divided into two blocks, with stories being thematically linked.

His first two episodes were set in an undersea base in Scotland in the future, while the second batch are set in the past.

He said: “I was very lucky as my two blocks are extremely different - the first was a sci-fi story very focussed within particular set builds, two great new monsters we got to concept up from scratch, and had four weeks in studio and one week on location.

“The next block is two back-to-back historical episodes, almost completely on location, with all the different logistics that come with that: again designing two brand new monsters from the ground up, working with a different director and whole lot of other aspects because it’s historical. It’s most about the locations than the sets.

“We are up against discovering new ways to achieve things. We’re very ambitions, but don’t have a lot of time. We’ve got a good budget, but not a vast budget, and the amibition always pushes it to the absolute limit. That’s what keeps the show fresh. That’s the big joy of the job.”

Derek was able to have a bit of impact into his first story, by having the story set in a military base underneath a loch in Caithness. He laughed: “It wasn’t really a coincidence. Initially, it didn’t have a setting. It was never described in the script, so I cheekily suggested Scotland!

“It wasn’t a coincidence because I made it that way, and everyone said, ‘yes, I’m sure there’s glens in Scotland that could flood, so that will work’.

Doctor Who’s fans are famously possessive of their show, and are very active on social media. Derek admits that he’s been delighted by their response to the episodes he’s produced so far.

“It’s been absolutely amazing. We knew the first was was a more traditional adventure, with Under the Lake, and weren’t quite sure how people would repond to that because (showrunner) Steven Moffat’s opener, which was so big and mythic (featuring classic villains the Daleks, Davros and the Master) in its ambitions.

“It was such a joy to make and it comes through on the screen.

“Daniel O’Hara, the director, is fantastic and invested in it - we pushed it as far as we could.

“People really liked that change of pace, going from the more traditional into something very modern (in the next episode), when we did things like break the fourth wall, and then have a rock version of the theme tune.

“We played around with it, and the audience have really responded to it. It’s an absolute pleasure.

“For me, to make Doctor Who is a dream come true. People loving it is incredible.

“You make a TV show and the audience respond to it. That’s the only reason we do it, for people to engage with the storytelling, and enjoy it.

“For better or for worse, Doctor Who is a show people which will always be vocal about about. I say for better or worse because, if they don’t like it, you will hear about it. If they do like it, you will hear about it, which is glorious - so far, I’ve only had the nice part of it!

“It’s been an absolute joy to have a happy and responsive audience!”

However, Derek’s busy workload has had one downside.