New books from Miwk

Miwk Publishing have released details of two forthcoming memoirs of men who have worked on Doctor Who.

A Peculiar Effect on the BBC is the memoir of visual effects designer Bernard Wilkie. The book will feature a foreword by visual effects designer Mat Irvine and an afterword by visual effects designer Mike Tucker.

A Peculiar Effect on the BBC
Written by Bernard Wilkie
Foreword by Mat Irvine
Afterword by Mike Tucker
Cover design by Robert Hammond
Published in September 2015

Bernard Wilkie is a pioneer in the world of visual effects. Along with Jack Kine he co-founded the BBC’s Visual Effects Department in 1954. Between them they worked on too many BBC productions to list, but chief among them were Doctor Who, Out of the Unknown, Quatermass, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and Some Mothers Do ‘ave ‘em. He passed away in 2002, writing this book in the late 1990s.

A Peculiar Effect on the BBC is his previously unpublished memoir and looks back on his career as a whole, covering each programme in detail with a light, but still educational, and often cautionary tone.

Whether it’s trying to make a smoke gun, encase an Ice Warrior in a block of ice, creating a Loch Ness Monster or simply coming up with a way of presenting a photo collection on screen utilising only one studio camera, Bernard and Jack rose to the occasion – often choking, soaking and terrifying their colleagues in the process. And almost all of these effects had to be done live – the pressure was on!

Bernard also talks in detail about the BBC taking over Ealing Studios and the construction of the now-defunct Television Centre. For anyone interested in the history of television, this is a fascinating eye witness account.

Foreword by visual effects designer Mat Irvine and afterword by visual effects designer Mike Tucker.

To Put You in the Picture is by Robert Banks Stewart, who wrote Terror of the Zygons and The Seeds of Doom, and will feature illustrations by Jamie Lenman, who illustrated Doctor Whoah! for Doctor Who Magazine under the pseudonym ‘Baxter’.

To Put You in the Picture
Written by Robert Banks Stewart
Internal illustrations by Jamie Lenman
Cover design by Andrew Orton
Published in October 2015

The memoir of Robert Banks Stewart, one of Britain’s most legendary television writer/producers, whose career has spanned five decades. Viewers who have watched television and its development over this period – including viewers of today – will be hugely entertained by this splendid autobiography.

The author has penned a host of behind-the-scenes anecdotes, most of them hitherto untold, plus descriptions of his considerable work experiences with refreshing candour (successes and failures) and delightful humour.

Credited with breaking the mould of early UK thriller dramas with ground-breaking series like Shoestring and Bergerac, he purposely set them away from the usual easy, endlessly grim metropolitan street backgrounds derived from BBC Radio, instead exploiting different locations – like the West Country and the Channel Island of Jersey. He also cleverly cast new actors such as John Nettles, Trevor Eve, Greta Scaachi and Catherine Zeta-Jones, rather than established stars, whilst also featuring film veterans like Terence Alexander and Michael Medwin in regular roles. Writing, adapting and producing – with what was called ‘the touch’ – Robert Banks Stewart was also responsible for many more hit television series, among them the initial productions of The Darling Buds of May and Lovejoy.

To regular Miwk customers, Robert Banks Stewart will be most recognisable as the author of two of the most popular Doctor Who serials, ‘Terror of the Zygons’ and ‘The Seeds of Doom’, the titular creatures from the former having recently returned to Doctor Who in the recent 50th anniversary special.

‘To Put You in the Picture’ is illustrated by Jamie Lenman, with cover design by Andrew Orton.

The book is available to pre-order in hardback here, priced £13.99 when ordered direct from Miwk.

(with thanks to Matthew West / Miwk Publishing – Source GallifreyBase)

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