Doctor Who Club of Australia

Theta Sigma · Joined: 26 Jun 2005 Posts: 4428

Recently finished reading in DWM 379 the synopsis for Doctor Who Meets Scratchman. Doctor Who Meets Scratchman was an unmade Doctor Who movie written in the 1970s by then Fourth Doctor Tom Baker and Ian Marter (who played then companion Harry Sullivan). Until last year little was known about the movie. That was until DWM learnt that that a full script of the movie was part of the paperwork of late producer John Nathan-Turner donated to the British Film Institute in 2006.

The Scratchman of the title referred to the Devil. At times Vincent Price and Twiggy were associated with the production with a view for Price to play Scratchman.

Some of the details of what the movie was about has been included in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_Meets_Scratchman#Doctor_Who_Meets_Scratchman

What's not included in the Wikipedia link is that the script also included were the Daleks and the Cybors which looked similar to the Cybermen. Interestingly the script also included scary scarecrows. Scary scarecrows would eventually found its way to telly Doctor Who last year in Human Nature/The Family of Blood.

The movie was unmade as a result of not getting sufficient funding to make it. At one point Tom even received substantial donations from fans but because of legal advice was forced to return them. Added to this was the complication of Tom's commitment to the TV series. Time kept on running out between seasons.

Having recently read the synopsis I think it would have been great had the movie been made.

asio · Joined: 04 Jun 2008 Posts: 3 Location: Melbourne

I remember reading that article, it had a great movie-style poster in the middle of the magazine, however it's tilted across 2 pages and therefore unable to be scanned.
From the sounds of it, the Doctor Who writers of the day disliked Tom Baker's involvement in their work, and it's a shame, as this sounded like it could've been one of the really great Doctor Who stories.
And yes, unfortunately with The Satan Pit and The Family Of Blood, this storyline has (sort of) been used. Oh well, maybe in a few years when Robert Carlyle takes over as the 11th Doctor, Doctor Who Meets Scratchman can be told the way Tom Baker intended.