DR. WHO’S APPRENTICE – MARTIN AND TEDDY THE COSPLAYING DOG

Martin Colligan and his canine companion Teddy are well-known faces on the Northern Irish genre convention circuit. Here, Martin introduces us to Teddy and some of his outfits, including several Dalek-based ones!

Malachy Coney: Chances are if you have been to a comic convention, a science fiction con or any gathering of the open-minded in the last ten years or so you will most likely have seen a familiar face among the crowds which throng such events. Not because of some colourful costume or piece of event-related cosplay but because of an unconventional series of genre visual bullet points, i.e. he looks like a Bohemian boffin in a wryly thrown together loose ensemble of sartorially endearing clothing, an unintentional series of genre fonts projected by this figure as he searches the displays and convention retailer tables with a Holmsian precision for some specific piece of merchandise. There is a touch of the Fourth Doctor there, a smidgen of patched around the edges Troughton, with a flair of “The Good Old Days” end-of-the-pier familiarity. You did not know who he was but part of your brain did. Although that degree of easy anonymity was dashed when he found himself partnered with a more exhibitionist character in the shape of the stentorian canine chameleon cosplaying dog Teddy, who has brightened many an event with his range of costumes uncannily accurate to the personas he doggedly – literally – mirrors. 

     Although it is Teddy who fronts the duo, it is Martin who researches and designs, measures, cuts and scissors, recreates and dazzles with prop and costume accuracy, all to make con attendees smile and camera phones to click like itchy crickets. The pair’s pleasure in their performance is all surface, a joy to all, but in digging for inspiration it has unearthed the archive of Martin’s imagination, the engine behind the talent and craftsmanship, all entirely self taught. A few canny eyes have become wise to the outré value of these ostensibly trivial attempts to amuse, seeing, or rather sensing, something beyond merely dog clothes designs. They see and value the warmly endearing mirror they hold up to the lovingly crafted tropes of the past glories of science fiction and fantasy television. So where did this all begin for him, the obsessions for Doctor Who, for the Beatles, the works of Charles Dickens, toy collecting and model-making, his appreciation for pre-1990s television? Not to forget his interest in design, set recreation and exploring the mysteries of storytelling and all the aspects that combined to make memorable works of entertainment and fiction.

     We asked him where it all began, what was the er . . . “genesis”, so to speak, of the passions that have carried him a lifetime. What were young Martin Colligan’s earliest genre experiences?

Martin Colligan: I was born in 1974, by which time television had an already established stable of successful programmes which were part of the home environment. Had I been born a decade earlier, I suspect I’d have sensed less confidence in the justification of shows which were still in the process of refining themselves into something more professional. I think this is more true of the UK shows than the US imports, which were lavish by comparison. I’m pretty sure that despite the introduction of colour broadcasting in the late 1960s, that there were some items still being made in black and white when I was learning to toddle. I hope that is true. I’d like to think I caught the end of that era. 

I don’t ever recall feeling that television tried to own your time. Serials may have invited us back; but in those days before video recorders, it would be normal to miss episodes, and so shows were designed to be more accessible to those who didn’t know the full story. That box could be a reliable companion; providing information and entertainment during the hours of its service.

     As a child I didn’t get much say in what was watched, and so I grew up on an eclectic mix. I would find myself watching The Money Programme, Picture Box or World in Action, just as easily as I’d watch Are You Being Served? or The Krypton Factor. Some of it seemed boring (but was probably well explained). Some were intellectually stimulating and others were imaginative – and therefore magical. Doctor Who had magic. His cabinet would just appear into a new world or time and for the next few weeks a story would unfold around each new set of characters. It could feature the sort of people with whom you were familiar, or it could involve aliens, robots or spaceships. On its original run from 1963 to 1989 – which is nowadays referred to as “Classic” Doctor Who (although I prefer to think of it as “Definitive” Doctor Who) – even those times when it asked for a little indulgence in order to suspend disbelief, it was never an intellectual insult.

This programme has undoubtedly been the most meaningful piece of creative entertainment for me throughout my life. It may seem difficult to believe but I have memories of knowing it as part of my regular viewing from perhaps before I was two years old. I base this on the fact I can remember watching Melvyn Bragg’s Whose Doctor Who documentary which was broadcast in early 1977. I can recall being fascinated that I was watching a TV show about a TV show! I also remember my Dad reminiscing about the various companions’ miniskirts. It would be another four years before Tom Baker would regenerate into Peter Davison, but I had been made aware that other actors had played the part. This would most likely have been my introduction to the Daleks, who would not reappear in the programme proper for another two and a half years.

     Being surrounded by forgettable realities and wish-you-could-forget 1970s wallpaper space programmes inspired awe. I was happy to let each show tell me what I needed to know in order to understand its concept and I had the sense to regard each series as a separate entity. I never allowed myself to believe that Star Trek could inhabit the same reality as Doctor Who or evenStar Wars when it came along. 

     I always read the credits. When I started collecting Doctor Who videos in 1989, it came as some surprise to me to realise that I recognised the names of some of the production staff as names I remembered reading ten years earlier. Jean Steward is one of those names (I think there was something about the tunnel effect of the end credit sequence with its recurring patterns that drew me into reading all the names). As an aside, I once told Tom Baker in a letter that the earliest two names I can remember from television were his own and Floella Benjamin. He replied with a very wordy Christmas card!

     Throughout my life, I have been aware of the Target novelisations of the Doctor’s old adventures. I had seen hem in bookshops and libraries; I would look at the covers with genuine awe and wonder. They suggested what a time-traveller’s photograpgh album might be like, but I couldn’t afford them when I needed to save up regular £1.50s for Star Wars figures, then even greater amounts for those later ranges. Irony would have it that the first “proper” book I would read would be Doctor Who and the Androids of Tara by Terrance Dicks, based on the television serial by David Fisher. I was in Primary Four; my class were taken to choose books to borrow from the school library and which we were to read at home! Horror! The first time we selected I choose Black Beauty by Anna Sewell because of the popular series on television at the time. I never read it. However, this time, with the promise of Tom Baker’s Doctor with K9 (Mark II) by his side, I couldn’t resist reading it in instalments over the next six evenings. This was quite an achievement for someone who preferred to play with toys – or just examine the details, wondering what Boba Fett kept in his pockets (my Dad had already told me that Stormtroopers kept their lunches in the compartment on the back of their belts!).

     Before she died, my paternal grandmother had given me £100 which was invested in the Post Office for a few years. Eventually, my Dad had me transfer the account to a different bank, and after having bought my first Doctor Whovideo with Christmas money from my maternal nanny and my Aunty Margaret, I used to raid my Halifax account once or twice a week for whatever amount I needed to make up the price of a VHS video. The rest came from helping my brother on his car-washing rounds in the Ardenlee area of Belfast. I was so desperate to have an archive of all available Doctor Who that I took to washing cars. My fascination with the achievements of those old shows has never diminished. They’re the most important collection I’ll ever know.

In the case of Doctor Who, the most important thing to own as a collector is the actual series and in the best possible quality – and so as VHS gave way to DVD (with all those glorious commentaries and documentaries), I found myself disposing of the cassettes, but retaining the covers for my archive. Now that Blu-rays have superseded the DVDs, I’ve been storing the discs in protective sleeves and retained their covers too. Storage space is a problem. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t actually have a TARDIS . . . if I remember correctly . . . Sadly, I am at a stage where I have to get rid of something every time I get something new. It doesn’t help that Teddy the Cosplaying Dog has collections of toys and coats. He needs his own furniture.

     Outside of wanting a classic television archive, I only ever intended to have some random examples of memorabilia. I have rarely ever managed to complete a collection. The first time I ever did was with the Marvel UK Secret Wars comics published between 1985 and ’87; but alas and alack, that fateful day did come when my mother decided I was to grow up and I came home from school to learn she had given away all my collection, with the exception of my Thundercats comics, which I still have.

Blake’s 7 was my first ever favourite TV show I could easily enthuse about. It has the distinction of being the last original sci-fi to be broadcast before Star Wars brought about a succession of popular cash-ins such as Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers in the 25thCentury. Surprisingly, V was never intended as sci-fi, but I got to enjoy all these programmes for what they were. The Star Trek movies were essential viewing and I could appreciate the creative imagination of The Next Generation whenever I watched it. Another highlight I would discover was the wit that is Lost in Space. I could not choose between the outlandishness of this programme or the intensity of Blake’s 7 for second place in my science fantasy affections. They are equally compelling but for completely different reasons! (Incidentally, my second favourite programme of all time is Prisoner Cell Block H.)

Malachy: You have some remarkable collections which you curate with great insight; this archive of yours, was that your intention when you started your various collections?

Martin: A cousin introduced me to Star Wars in 1978 or 1979 via the action figures and that was it! – I could love no other imaginative conceit more than science fiction that had a science fantasy backbone. My first ever collection was a selection of Mr. Men books. My second was Star Wars and I can remember well the first time I ever saw those figures on a shop’s wall display. I glanced over the toys from Disney’s The Black Hole, and when prompted as to which I wanted to have bought, the presentation of the Star Warscards had won me over and I chose my first two sci-fi collectables; Arfive Defour (R5-D4) and See-threepio (C-3PO). Nostalgia is a wonderful sounding word, but it translates along the lines of “the pain of loss”. I don’t feel a loss for days gone by. I’m happy to have lived them and they reside in my memory. We are also in an age when we can revisit most of the shows and toys we have enjoyed through DVDs and modern reissues which sometimes improve upon the originals. 

     As a child, I was delighted with popular ongoing ranges such as Star Wars, Masters of the Universe and Transformers; but there comes a time when the brain changes and I found myself with a thirst for knowledge about the history of a certain show I had always taken for granted because it always seemed to be in production. It didn’t need support. It just was a part of our lives. What was it? Who is it? Doctor Who.

“Diddley-dum, diddly-dum . . .”

     They exist as the link that bridges the gap between those collections I began forty-eight years ago and those I have since moved on to. It amuses me (as I am sure it does so many others) that the things I most enjoy collecting now are based on those I originally enjoyed during my formative years. It’s also noteworthy that the people responsible for the original concepts of many popular characters aimed at today’s youth would have had their own childhoods almost a century ago. One can see more in the way of logical rationalisation in the invention of those concepts, rather than the mere whims involved in most of today’s efforts. 

     My other compulsory collections are the Target Doctor Who novelisations with all their various covers and I have all the Big Finish Doctor Whoproductions. To my knowledge I’m only missing three titles out of the entirety of the spin-off ranges.   

Malachy: You talk with great affection about certain actors and actresses and even comedic performers. What is it about such people that affects you so?

Martin: Back in the days when television assumed its audience to be individuals, it was very sure to prove itself as a valuable addition to their lives. Storylines that are nowadays prolonged over entire series would be effectively dealt with over a few episodes of an ongoing show. Producers and writers knew their function to be to provide our brains with stimulation. Each new drama situation that was encountered would have its dilemmas pragmatically discussed in relation to those concerned before being developed upon. In days before every movement was precisely shot over a couple of weeks (for a forty-five-minute drama), then edited, programmes tended to have a week of rehearsal before being recorded for posterity within perhaps two and a half hours. I can think of two 1964 episodes of the Doctor Who story, ‘The Aztecs’, which were recorded within twenty-five minutes of real time – even allowing for the inclusion of a couple of brief film inserts featuring a cast member who was on holiday. Who better to rely upon for this kind of storytelling than theatrically trained or experienced character actors?

     Stage has no edits; so actors must be reliable to know their lines and movements. Other media can concentrate a camera on a particular individual; but all actors on stage are exposed to their audience for the duration. They therefore need to be capable of sustained performances. If they don’t have any lines for a time, they must be able to demonstrate that their characters are affected by the events around them, and they do this through facial expression and nuances. The best of these adapt their expression to the proximity of the receiver, i.e. their gestures will be bigger on stage than they would be if they’re in a five-person shot in a television studio; or perhaps somewhere between the two if they are to play to a studio audience. 

     They must not try to be the star; the story decides that. If an actor is in the background, they must enhance it so as to help speaking performers create believability; or if they have the lead, they need to be able to rely upon the sustained credibility of those around them to make their own character work. It’s teamwork, with the aim of delivering what a director requires in an efficient manner. From the 1960s to the early 1990s, television demonstrated what I regard as its best work in terms of storytelling and performance, with effective studio techniques and editing. 

     Growing up, I never knew anyone who regarded programmes as anything other than productions. Some shows were events, and we would talk about what we’d watched; sometimes it would be the model work of spaceships. Sometimes it would be to impersonate a line delivered by an actor. I have not met many actors I grew up with, although I used to write to a great many of them and in almost every case I would get a reply. But when I met John Levene (Corporal/Sergeant/RSM Benton in Doctor Who), I told him that when I watch television from his acting era, I feel I can put absolute trust in all of its aspects as a storytelling medium. 

John’s period of the programme ably demonstrates the points I’ve made. He would be included in scenes designed to clarify what a viewer needed to know; but where a writer had to respect a “pecking order”. The Doctor (Jon Pertwee) had to be the lead figure in the series and his established regular assistant could not be sidelined, thus they were numbers 1 and 2 in that order. In addition, there were the leading members of the UNIT organisation that the Doctor cooperated with; these would be the Brigadier, his Captain and his Sergeant, so although Benton comes fifth in that pecking order, John’s contribution is essential to the credibility of what goes on; and it can be demonstrated thus: The Doctor’s assistant is already familiar with a lot of what is already going on so she can make space for the other character actors to move up a notch (although she may join in with an enthusiastic comment at any time). This allows the Brigadier to become the most important character for a time, for it is his reaction to what the Doctor reports to him that will determine how the story will progress. The Captain is seen to be an efficient aide to the Brigadier, so he will have questions of his own, so he is temporarily number 3. All the while, in the background (assuming that he hasn’t been reporting throughout), you will see Benton paying attention to all the different characters in the room; he will be seen to mull over the suggestions; he will be seen to have made realisations about what is going on, and that he is deferentially waiting his place as the lowest-ranking officer to have his say – although if it’s urgent, he will be seen to step forward. John has therefore played the human element of the scene that makes it matter to the viewer. He does it so well – its little wonder that Anthony Hopkins once told John that he was the best “face actor” that he’d ever seen.

Malachy: Have you noticed a change in the way genre television – indeed entertainment in general – has changed? Do you even own a television set anymore?

Martin: I became disillusioned with television in the early 1990s, when those glorious ITV networks like Thames/London Weekend – you know the rest – lost their franchises. ITV shows recorded in studio always seemed less polished than their contemporaries, but they were still very good at producing entertainment, some of which were inventive concept dramas like Sapphire & Steel or The Tomorrow People. I really noticed the quality drop when Carlton arrived. TV became pretentious hype. The National Lottery destroyed the fun of Saturday evening entertainment, as the so-called fun became about someone you’re not likely to ever learn the name of winning a large sum of money. There were the phone-in scandals later on, but for me TV began to take its produce too seriously; and as time went on, the first of new styles of performance was introduced. I ceased to marvel at the cleverness of actors, as they were encouraged to murmur, or speak with that standardised EastEnders’ husky male voice. In reality, I don’t find people who behave the way that TV would present them. People are capable of far more inflection than that. 

     I don’t know why they invented Widescreen and High Definition, because they instantly counteracted these advances by grading the picture quality so that everything is murky. This loses the costume and design detail. It doesn’t demonstrate any ability on the part of the lighting engineers who once drew attention to all manner of onscreen delights.

     I’ve lived without a TV since moving into my flat in 2000. I do see it when I visit my parents every couple of weeks and I find it a marvel to see how people have been placed into pre-conceived boxes, with characters becoming convenient representations of a spurious morality. At home, I enjoy DVDs of classic programmes on a portable DVD player that cannot receive TV signals; but I do encounter people who tell me how suspicious they have become of modern television with its government-backed programmes, and its sudden interest in social campaigning (or grooming). They are frustrated that casts of characters have become a tick-list of social inclusions. It’s easy to imagine the executives looking over their lists of disabilities that they intend to represent, and declaring, “Oh, we can’t use that one, such and such already has one of those!” As an outsider, I could put a month and a year as to when many of today’s “normalities” began to be seeded into public consciousness. I think the use of mere phenomenalism as an intimidation could be used to describe the way in which services have brought about today’s presented cultures in favour of accountable logical progression. It is not strange that little groups of hired fiction writers are having it made their duty to tackle issues in order to justify pre-determined helplines being empowered to offer advice. All the services are being made to collaborate within a limited sphere under one authority. People are turning away from television now. It won’t survive if it keeps simplifying itself.  

Malachy: What about the doggy in the room? Can you introduce Teddy?

Martin: Mr. Teddy is a fourteen year old Jacairn – a Jack Russell/Cairn Terrier mix – who has been trotting around Belfast as all manner of cultural icons and artefacts for the past five years. He has inspired the creation of more than sixty unique dog coats which are tributes to programmes, films, people and even himself. Others are likely to follow.

     His original owner was a neighbour of my parents in Bangor, who was advised by her landlord to have him rehomed owing to limitations with the size of her property. And so I’ve had the privilege of accompanying him on his journey throughout life for more than nine years now. Teddy has been described as my muse. He has somehow brought about circumstances where I have learnt to paint, design, embroider and sew, although due to health problems this does take a lot out of me. 

I’ve become accustomed to living with both inflammatory and thoracic problems since 1995; but after a quarter of a century of non-stop awareness that it hurts to sit or move or breathe I find a welcome distraction to potter back and forth on the “Teddy coats”, despite the fact that the efforts aggravate all my symptoms. 

     As with everything in my life, bizarre circumstances led to the existence of the coats. My mother, who was known locally as “Dressmaker May”, had bought leatherette to cover the back seat of Dad’s car because Teddy can cast a lot of hairs. She asked me if I’d like to have a basic dog coat made from the leftovers (I’m assuming she did not intend it for me). I immediately exclaimed, “Roman Centurion.” She dismissed the idea, but because I had grown up with the familiar sight of the cut-outs of her patterns on floorspace I’d much rather have seen occupied with my Millenium Falcon and Star Wars figures, I’d rationalised that clothes design was two steps up from fuzzy felt. You see, with fuzzy felt the shapes are already there, and you make the picture on the box by placing them similarly on the backdrop. With a leatherette coat, you just cut out the shapes required, and stitch them into place, so that’s one step up. With fabrics however, you also cut out the shapes you need, but this time you must allow a little excess for the seams so that they can be joined on the inside of the garment. I imagine that real/proper/other designers are going to hate me for that analogy. 

     After his Teddy-boy biker jacket and his Gladiator coats, the possibilities for culturally recognisable homages flooded my brain, and the first of these was a 1979 Dalek, followed by Artoo-deetoo and Teddy’s notorious Titanic – a 3D model of the liner that is comfortable for him to wear and which can also be stored flat. 

     I’ve always regarded Tom Baker as having had the biggest influence on my life and so after having been invited to Forbidden Planet Belfast to show my dog coats to a now former staff member called Katrina who did embroidery, the reaction of fans to a feature they did on Teddy prompted me to realise my desire to translate the design of Tom’s Dr. Who into a viable fabric replica that Teddy could wear. Teddy made it clear that he did not want to be slipping his paws into sleeves, so I was not to make a conventional dog costume. What I created for my mother to stitch was something that was worn over his back, but which could be placed on him like a bib in order to allow for cosplay photography. When not in use they could decorate a room on mounting boards or be placed over cushions. Safety is always a priority. Anything that could catch on a branch is fitted with a snap-fastener; and owing to the flammability of materials he isn’t allowed to wear them indoors if there are heat sources nearby. In order to protect the coats themselves, one has to keep mindful that someone petting him isn’t going to drop cigarette ash; or that their fingernails aren’t too long, or that they aren’t wearing jewellery that might pluck or tear the fabric. He’s very patient about modelling them. The shapes and weights may vary to a small degree but they’re all designed to be worn the same way and should feel familiar.

     I’ll never have a better friend than Teddy. He’s so witty to live with. He gets to be a dog outdoors but when we’re at home he’s always plotting mischief.

Malachy: Teddy’s appeal is very broad. Do his admirers extend to the wider world?

Martin: I don’t use the internet so I just go with the flow of things. Teddy has been invited to provide features for a number of local businesses. None of this has been done for money but I have been given to understand that he has also been on student radio after they asked him to sum up Belfast in one word (you can guess his reply). He’s been offered several exhibitions, one of which was at a respected gallery which I turned down because I’m pompous enough to do so. An art gallery tried contacting us with a view to buying his Sgt. Pepper coats (No! They’re Teddy’s! I can’t sell them!). However, when his friends at Bradbury Art said they’d like to exhibit some of his coats, I felt flattered because they sell very professional pieces through their own gallery and so for the past year they’ve displayed a number of Teddy’s photos at the counter with a lovely little plaque stating, Our Number One Customer – Teddy!

     I should at this point mention there are four local businesses that have enabled me to bring about these achievements. They are Paragon Fabrics in Donegal Pass for most of the materials, Sew ’n’ Sew in Calendar Street for other fabrics, wool and an intense array of haberdashery, the aforementioned Bradbury Art (also in Calendar Street) which sells the best quality art supplies and fabric paints; and also Forbidden Planet in Ann Street where they have a very enthusiastic manager who often invites Teddy to events; and who having grown up on quality television and film himself has carried the joy of these concepts into more senior years, and is keen to share this with others. 

     Gosh, I do go on! You can also find Teddy in the March 2024 edition of the Ulster Tatler, which gave my Dad a shock when he found it in a dentist’s waiting room recently – that magazine being over a year out of date now! We’ve been offered to be featured in a couple of short films too. I’m happy for him to do features which are aimed at people with a collective interest because they get what we’re doing and support it; but I’d be reluctant to do a TV or newspaper feature that presented him to a wider audience because we’d be more likely to encounter jealousy. It can be fun to hear people we pass saying they recognise him from features, or to have people come up to us to say how much they’re enjoying his coats over the years. I like it when people exclaim how wonderful we both are!

     Teddy gets an extraordinary amount of attention even when he isn’t dressed up. We’ve found ourselves in the company of a musician from North Dakota who has toured with Megadeth.; with another guy who knows one of Tom Baker’s sons, and a young woman who said her best friend back home in New Zealand is the daughter of director Peter Jackson. And on one occasion the President of the Council of Irish Fashion Designers had to excuse herself from a gathering in order to take photos of Teddy in his mirror-sequin disco jacket! Typical!

Malachy: Now that Teddy has attended a number of cosplay events, how do you think he feels about humans dressing up?

Martin: I was witness to some of Teddy’s development as a puppy. He would try to converse, but realising he wasn’t getting the same response as the people around him, he would give a grumble and he only tries to talk if he’s really excited about something. He would always be amazed if someone did something he recognised as something he could do too. So I have learnt to pretend to bark at birds, or to be interested in the smell of his biscuits. The result is that Teddy doesn’t see much difference between people and himself. Before he was a year old, my Mum was adapting an unwanted pullover into a simple coat for Teddy. It had a magical effect on him – he proudly paraded around the house and went up to everyone in turn to show off that he now wore a garment. It eliminated another of the differences between us, so yes, he does have an appreciation of costume. Mention “socks and shoes” and he gets excited about going out. When it has been cold, he has insisted upon finding my hat for me, or nudging where my Mum’s coat is hanging so she knows to put it on. 

     When he’s with the cosplayers it doesn’t matter to him that they might be covered from head to foot as a character from a film or the comics – it is the sense of camaraderie amongst enthusiastic people who are enjoying entertaining the public that he picks up on. Sometimes a fan will pose with one of his coats which give an insight as to what the costumes must really have been like, as there are no local places that actually get to display those which survive. I have to say, before I ever made a Teddy coat, I did consider making Transformer Megatron for myself; this would have used cardboard, but I’m happy that Teddy has his version instead.

     I don’t know how sincere they were at the time, but when the local professional cosplay group Eye of HarmoNI first saw Teddy dressed as Tom Baker (for the Dr. Whos are known better by the actor’s name than their number), they instantly declared Teddy an Honorary Member!

Oh! Another incident that might interest you has come to mind. A few years ago, I took Teddy to have his photo taken next to the Nomadic, which you probably know to be the last surviving White Star Line ship to have ferried passengers to the Titanic (which of course is what Teddy was dressed up as.) I waited for a while for the background to clear and then took my pictures. As we were about to leave, a tourist approached asking if he could take some pictures too. I agreed, only to find that about thirty people had been waiting with the same intention. We were mobbed! A number of the group were carrying professional cameras, and others videoed Teddy whilst recording what I had to say, so don’t be surprised if when this magazine comes out that you get complaints from abroad to say they’ve heard some of this before.

Malachy: Looking to the future, are you optimistic about the history of the various genres of creative fantasy?

Martin: No. Not if society continues to follow the path it’s been forced onto. Those who make shows today are made to fulfil the requirements and agendas of those who hire them, which has led to a detraction from the original purpose of what is after all, a mere concept for what should be escapism. We see histories being rewritten in order to suit such purposes. If they were to tell us this is not the case, then it is clear that they have no clear love or understanding of the genres concerned. Future generations will never know the depth of the intellectual understanding that fiction would examine. They will come to it with a lesser understanding and it will weaken again. The present fad for multiverses merely provides for fans’ wish-lists, and if they can gain control over fan-love which can blind itself to faults it could never have anticipated, then you could be onto a money-maker. Perhaps Machiavelli is still around . . .

     A few years ago, the BBC entertainment news reported that decisions had been made to intellectually simplify modern films (and no doubt television) in order to alow for greater worldwide profits from countries with policies sensitive to the freedoms that are being made less acceptable. Having looked at a number of modern outputs, I find a lot of similarity in the various productions. The characters have lost their nuances; they speak in soundbites. The effect of this is seeping through into society. We now see media-created personality types that would never have been recognised at the start of the century. Media is increasingly creating the viewers themselves into characters that are easy to cater for. I am just glad there are shiny discs out there that enable me still to watch and appreciate the shows that mattered to me. I’m not really a sentimentalist, but I feel that I carry the brilliance of some of these in my heart and I’m proud to have gotten to share a timeline with so very many of the creative minds and performers who have mattered to me throughout my life. 

     Thank you for being nosy enough to interview me for the Phantasmagoria Daleks Special. We rarely get to read a fan’s understanding of a subject, other than on letters pages. I’ve no doubt you will like the Dalek-related Teddy coats I’ve made especially to coincide with your featured subject. I think the fact we’re here today with a dog dressed as Davros sixty-two years after the Daleks’ conception helps to demonstrate that the Daleks’ most successful invasion is clearly that of our culture. 

     Although, if there’s one thing in all creation that is capable of upstaging them then I believe it’s . . . Teddy the Cosplaying Dog!!