Quotes

[on Nigel Kneale] He is amongst the greats - he is absolutely as important as Dennis Potter, as David Mercer, as Alan Bleasdale, as Alan Bennett, but I think because of a strange snobbery about fantasy or sci-fi it's never quite been that way. Now he's gone, perhaps people will reassess - his major works are absolutely of lasting importance. He was a TV giant.

[on his 1992 novel "Nightshade"] What appealed to me enormously, apart from the sheer thrill of being published, was to have a shot at writing Doctor Who (1963). Not only that, but to write Doctor Who (1963) as I thought it should be done, effectively redressing what I felt to have been wrong with the programme in its later years.

[on "Nightshade"] I was reacting against the sort of garish Who of the late Eighties that I'd found an increasing turn-off. Things were undoubtedly getting better, just when the programme was cancelled, but there was still a sort of muddled quality, an almost perverse refusal to tell a straightforward story that I found very frustrating. So I wanted "Nightshade" to be an ultra-grim and horrific adventure in the mould of favourites such as Genesis of the Daleks [Genesis of the Daleks: Part One (1975)), The Caves of Androzani (The Caves of Androzani: Part One (1984)] and Frontios [Frontios: Part One (1984)].

[on Doctor Who (1963)] TV has created very few original and memorable heroes, but the Doctor stands out as one of the honourable exceptions, and it is no accident that he continues to be a source of fascination for many TV nostalgists. At its height, Doctor Who (1963) was part of the nation's life; 25 minutes of wonder, sandwiched roughly between the end of Grandstand (1958) and the start of The Generation Game (1971). It was scary, funny, unique and, yes, dash it, as British as the flag.

I tried to persuade The South Bank Show (1978) to devote an edition to Kneale [Nigel Kneale], only to be told he wasn't a "big enough figure". This was doubly dispiriting, not only because, to anyone interested in TV drama, Kneale is a colossus, but because it seemed to confirm all the writer's gloomy predictions regarding the future of broadcasting. Couldn't the medium celebrate one of its giants?

It's a tradition that comic monsters are actually deeply sympathetic. People like Basil Fawlty or Rigsby, they are wonderful monsters.

[on An Adventure in Space and Time (2013)] I've wanted to tell this story for more years than I can remember! How an unlikely set of brilliant people created a television original.

[on Reece Shearsmith] I just remember thinking, if anyone plays Patrick Troughton, it should be Reece. Like the second Doctor, he's small, saturnine and a comic genius. The complete package.

[on Jodie Whittaker] I've been lobbying for a female Doctor Who (2005) for a very long time, so it's well overdue. I think she's a brilliant choice and it's very exciting to think where it might go next.

The thing that makes me slightly despair is that the well has been poisoned so much of late that people tar all politicians with the same brush. That makes me cross. Many MPs really do want to make sure that people get their hip operations done and their bins taken out. No one gives them any credit. There's no money in being a politician. They have terrible hours, and everyone is encouraged to think that they're only in it to get their faces in the trough. I don't think that's true. If in this film [Coalition (2015)] we can present a balanced picture of the ins and outs of being a politician, then that would be a very good thing. Obviously, there is still massive drama and subterfuge and back-stabbing, but these are nevertheless real people. They have their own frailties and arrogance and fears and warmth and friendships. It's important to see that. The cynical view is that politicians are all the same - but they're not.

[on Boris Johnson}: I hate him.