The Four Doctors in Fiona Cumming’s Who career
(This interview was conducted in October 2013, for the Daily Record's Tartan TARDIS supplement. At the time she was retired and living with her husband Ian Fraser - another Doctor Who alumni - in Dumfries and Galloway, in the south of Scotland. Sadly, Fiona passed away in 2015. This interview is presented in full, with quite a lot that was cut from the print original)
FIONA Cumming has a Doctor Who CV to be proud of, boasting credits with the First, Second, Third and Fifth Doctors.
Indeed, when Peter Davison made his debut as the Fifth Doctor in 1981, it was Fiona, who grew up in Glasgow and Edinburgh, who was directing the story. She went on to direct three more stories with him.
But Fiona's involvement goes further back than the 1980s, having first worked on the show in 1965 as an assistant floor manager on William Hartnell tale The Massacre.
Fiona, said:"I had applied to the BBC in 1964 when they were getting ready for BBC2, and I had been accepted - but they lost my file and because I had a teaching degree, I came back up to Glasgow and started teaching at Bellahouston Academy. I can remember in 1963 when the kids came in, talking about this brilliant TV show they had seen the Saturday night before, and I said, 'What do you mean, it's set in a police box?'
"Then in 1964 I went to the BBC as a relief assistant floor manager, where you were slotted into various programmes. I was doing the twice-weekly soaps Compact and Swizzlewick, and the first time I was moved on to something different it was Doctor Who.
"I was put onto The Massacre in 1965 - so it's now 48 years since I first worked on Doctor Who. Peter Purves was William Hartnell's assistant at that time and the director was Paddy Russell, who had such a great reputation.
"In those days, working in television was like working in a teaching hospital - you learned from the person above you, and in turn you passed it on to the person below you when you moved up the ladder
"There was a feeling of passing on knowledge, but I think now that's not that way, because people are too busy looking after their own backs, and keeping their cards very close to their chest. In those days, there was a generosity of spirit, which was quite remarkable."
A couple of years later, Fiona worked on Patrick Troughton's second adventure after succeeding William Hartnell.
She said: "By 1967 I became a Production Assistant on The Highlanders with Pat Troughton which was one of the lost stories but there is a relic which I think I've still got. It was a piece of film in a tin and in the BBC, you get moved arond from office to office, and then one day someone forwarded this to me, along with a note, saying it was ridiculous I was leaving archive material behind! What they didn't realise was that it was just me with the clapperboard!
"I loved working with Pat Troughton and teamed up again in 1969 with The Seeds of Death. I had worked on Dr Findlays Casebook with him and admired him as an actor greatly.
"In 1972 I worked on my next Who, when Jon Pertwee was the Doctor in a story called The Mutants. That was around the time they had started using CSO, and I remember Katy Manning, who played the assistant, sitting in the middle of what seemed like a lot of custard, with the yellow colour they were using. She was pretending she could see all sorts of things, but really, it was just in the middle of this yellow part of the studio."
"The next years were varied but I'd started Directing and after cutting my teeth on Z Cars, Angels and other programmes in the Drama Serials department."
Fiona was delighted when she returned to the worlds of Doctor Who, launching Peter Davison as the Doctor in 1982 story Castrovalva.
But she didn't think that the show's new star was bothered with the level of expectation being thrust upon him after succeeding Tom Baker.
She said: "With Castrovalva, I think the pressure was on me because until then, I had been doing an awful lot of classical stuff - I was used to directing people in crinolines and long skirts.
"David Maloney had offered me an episode of Blake's 7 and I felt the writer Tanith Lee had done a great script, Sarcophagus, and I thought she was a writer who could work beautifully on Doctor Who. I sent a copy of the completed tape to John, and he did try her but it didn't work out, but out of that came his offer to direct Castrovalva.
"Because it was the first story of a new Doctor, and because it was an area that I hadn't really worked in for so long, not having done a Doctor Who since 1972, that was quite a long period of time.
"The other thing was that by that point, in 1980, the cult that had developed around Doctor Who was underway, so you were quite aware of the mantle of Doctor Who by that time.
"It wasn't so much being the first story of a new Doctor, but the pressure, I felt, was on me coming back to it.
"Peter was absolutely terrific, a real joy to work with, and we kept the feeling of family on the show, which was extremely important as well.
"I thought at that stage, and at all the times I worked with him afterwards, that Peter would have made an excellent director. He had an eye for the right kind of things and knew what was right for the programme. I thought he might go behind the scenes, but instead he perfered to stay as a performer.
"He had been doing particularly well on All Creatures Great and Small, and he already had a big following, and I thought it was a brilliant piece of casting to take a younger man and make him the Doctor.
"Nowadays, it's far more common with the likes of David Tennant and Matt Smith as the Doctor, but back then it was very unusual to have a younger Doctor. Until then he had always been an older man, with Bill Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker.
"I was very lucky with my scripts - it was nice to be able to delve into them.
"I actually got a letter from a man who had not allowed his children to watch Doctor Who, but for some reason he let them see Castrovalva and he jumped on to the fact we had featured the art of MC Escher. He found it so interesting that a children's programme like Doctor Who was looking at Escher.
"JNT (producer John Nathan-Turner) was always very good about casting his crew, as it were. He always good a good combination - he rated me as a director, but he wouldn't have put me onto something that had metal monsters - he worked to the strengths of the crew."
Fiona was back directing two stories in the show's 20th season, the first being Snakedance, which featured the TV debut of Martin Clunes.
She laughed: "Doing Snakedance was lovely - I had been to Morocco and was very aware of the scenes we had in the souks, as I wanted to get the Moroccan feel for them.
"I was very lucky as John would give me carte blanche for casting, although he always kept an eye on things, but I was able to bring in people like Collette O'Neil and John Carson and leave them to do their thing as I've worked with them before and knew I can trust them, and that would leave me more time to spend with people like Jonathon Morris and Martin Clunes who were both working in television for the first time.
"I had found Martin just by flicking through the pages of The Spotlight. They used to have a dedicated to students who were just leaving their various courses, and I saw his face looking back at me. I knew the character of Lon would only work if you could equate him with being a spoiled brat who was totally self-centred, because of his extreme youth. You didn't want to dislike him, but he was totally objectionable! And Martin hit the spot, beautifully!
"The other performance I really liked was Brian Miller - I don't think I could have got anyone better."
Later that year, Fiona directed another story, Enlightenment
She said: "When I did Enlightenment, I think, at the time it was the only Doctor Who which had been written solely by a woman.
"I had originally cast Peter Sallis, but we lost him when we had to remount the story after a strike, and I brought in Keith Barron, who played it very differently.
"Peter arrived and asked, 'Where do I sit?' I told him he was the master of the ship so he would have to stand, but he said, 'No, I only do sitting parts!' I eventually convinced him the master of the ship was a standing part - but I think he was sending me up rotten!
"As a director, you have a company of actors you use regularly, and you develop a shorthand in terms of working, but if they've never done a telly before, they need to be led into it.
"When I did the remake of Enlightenment for DVD, I was able to take out what was the best in the original with the story, the acting and plot, and then go forward. I felt the model shots we had done back then really creaked and groaned to such an extent that I wanted to update them with computer graphics. I had the full box of tricks at my disposal, some 25 years on, and I was really pleased as I felt I was able to get the best out of it."
Fiona's next outing took the Doctor overseas for 1984's Planet of Fire, which was shot in Lanzarote. The location came about by chance after Fiona sent producer John Nathan-Turner a postcard from a family holiday.
"We were on holiday in Lanzarote and had the children with us. I sent JNT a postcard saying, 'Location fabulous, troglodytes willing - how about it?' I took some pictures without the children in them, just vistas, and out of that came Planet of Fire.
"In the heat, it was quite punishing, and we were trying to make sure everybody was drinking enough weather. It was not the most comfortable shoot!
"Poor Nicola (Bryant) was rolling down the jaggy rocks, and it was her first job straight out of drama school - I think she learned pretty quickly that it wasn't all glamour when you were making TV!
"But we all had a fantastic time - because we were there on a package deal, everyone was there together.
"On the days he wasn't filming, Peter Wyngarde would spread himself out on the beach, and I noticed he was always listening to music. I said to him one night, 'What's your choice of music?' He looked at me and asked what I meant. When I explained I'd seen him with his earphones on, he said: 'I'm not listening to anything - I just put the plugs in my ears so no-one disturbs me!' It's now something that I do myself if I'm on planes or whatever, if I don't want someone disturbing me.
"I went back and did a remake of Planet of Fire for the DVD release - it was interesting because I realised that they wouldn't let me into any of the areas which I'd previously worked on.
"We couldn't make it in the same way now, as the footpaths we had used back then were now just for the scientists working there.
"I liked being able to add volcanoes and fire to the long shots and to get rid of the music and just get the sound of the fire in - I appreciate it, but I think some of the fans didn't."
