Remembering the Brigadier

Nicholas Courtney, aka Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, is sadly no longer with us… at least in person. But he has left behind an immeasurable contribution to my favourite television series, “Doctor Who”, ensuring he will never be forgotten. It all started when director Douglas Camfield cast him as Bret Vyon, opposite first Doctor William Hartnell, in the epic twelve-part story “The Daleks’ Master Plan” in the mid-Sixties. Nick and Dougie clearly had a good working relationship because when the director was hired to oversee the reconstruction of the London Underground, for the Patrick Troughton adventure “The Web of Fear”, the actor was cast as Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart, ready to battle the Yeti in those dark, dank tunnels. A year-or-so later and Lethbridge-Stewart was back, this time promoted to Brigadier, in the eight-part Cyber-infestation “The Invasion”, engaging the silver giants down in the sewers of London and on the steps of St. Paul’s. It’s surprising the term Brigadier ever became a watchword in “Doctor Who” circles because the rank is actually a demotion from Colonel! Even more ironic is that Camfield was an ex-military man and could’ve had the error in the script corrected. But, in retrospect, maybe it’s just as well the mistake was left in because it gave birth to one of the series’ most-enduring and popular characters.

By the time the second Doctor regenerated into Jon Pertwee, and black-and-white pictures gave way to colour, Nick Courtney became a regular on “Doctor Who”. The year was now 1970. The Doctor has been banished to Earth to reluctantly work as scientific advisor to military outfit UNIT, the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, tracking all manner of alien invasion in the style of “Quatermass”! In “Inferno”, just as Patrick Troughton had as Salamander in “The Enemy of the World”, Nicholas is given the opportunity to play an evil version of the Brigadier, the Brigade Leader, resplendent in Blofeld-style eye-patch, when the Doctor ends up on a parallel Earth. A year on sees Nick given one of his most memorable lines in “The Daemons”, “Chap with wings, five rounds rapid!” His time as a regular essentially came to an end when it was time for a new producer to be appointed. “Robot”, Tom Baker’s first story was Barry Letts’ last. New producer Philip Hinchcliffe naturally had new ideas and wanted to direct the series towards a gothic influence. Nick, however, would return occasionally, seeing off the Loch Ness Monster in “Terror of the Zygons”. By the time Peter Davison was the Doctor, Alistair was teaching maths at a boarding school for boys in “Mawdryn Undead”. The twentieth anniversary adventure, “The Five Doctors”, gave the character another of those immortal lines, describing the Doctor as a “marvellous chap, all of them!”

In the final series of classic “Doctor Who”, Alistair Gordon is now retired and married to Doris, played in episodes one and four of “Battlefield” by the lovely Angela Douglas. It was rumoured, at the time, that the Brigadier was to be killed off but, luckily, has a last minute reprieve against the Destroyer. The story includes a poignantly reverberating scene where seventh Doctor Sylvester McCoy cradles his friend’s head in his hands, believing him to be dead, and calls him a “thick-headed numbskull”. The only Doctor Nick hadn’t acted with by the end of the Eighties was the sixth, Colin Baker. Producer John Nathan-Turner corrected this omission, after the show’s cancellation, with the 1993 “Children in Need” Special “Dimensions in Time”. This wasn’t to be the last appearance of the character on television. A few years ago, the Brig resurfaced aiding-and-abetting Miss Smith in the Season Two finale of “The Sarah Jane Adventures”. This story has become his swansong. Former Doctor Tom Baker remembered Nicholas Courtney as “a wonderful companion” with “a marvellous resonant voice”. Quite a legacy and to paraphrase a line from the aforementioned “Battlefield”, Nick just did the best he could!

Warden’s Watch: The Invasion (or… Lifting the Lid on the Cybermen!)

With the news that a pair of Cybermen have been photographed stomping round a cemetery in Newport, filming for this year’s “Doctor Who” Christmas Special, it seemed an appropriate moment to look at the story I consider to be their finest hour! That “The Invasion” is also Wendy Padbury’s best “Doctor Who” serial is a happy coincidence, as well as the fact that this eight-part epic just happens to be my second favourite “Doctor Who” story. When I was consciously choosing an order of preference, perhaps some twenty odd years ago now, it was a toss up between this Cyber-adventure and the previously discussed, ecologically minded, “Fury from the Deep” as to which should claim pole position in my affections, and the tale of the demented seaweed won out in the final analysis! Incidentally, it’s about time the producers of the new version of “Doctor Who” resorted to using one of the programme’s giants as villains in their seasonal offering. The creative choices taken, thus far, to fill the Christmas episodes have been quite odd, to say the least. The Doctor hardly appeared in the first, we were treated to a screaming bride in the second and the third relied on the notoriety of an unsinkable ship that sank! Personally speaking, I’ve always wanted to spend my Christmas with a Dalek!! I know… there’s no accounting for taste! Anyway, onto the main thrust of what I hope will be a very buoyant discourse…

“The Invasion” was directed by Douglas Camfield, the most-assured figure to work in this capacity on “Doctor Who” at any time in the programme’s history, and therein lies the strength of this serial. The Cybermen look very good on screen, due partly to the superb new costumes designed for them by Bobi Bartlett but perhaps more particularly to Douglas Camfield’s excellent direction. The helmets, for example, were now a lot bulkier in appearance with the addition of what can perhaps best be described as “tyres”, preventing the notorious handlebars from attaching directly to each side of each creature’s face. The teardrop effect, on the underside of each eye, was retained in the revamp but dropped from the lower lip, which became wider and narrower. It hadn’t been long since the monsters, originally from Mondas with Telos as their adopted home planet, were last dispatched by the present TARDIS incumbents, with only two five-part serials separating the earlier “The Wheel in Space” from the creature’s surprise reappearance halfway through this escapade. The first repeat of a complete adventure in the programme’s history, “The Evil of the Daleks”, undoubtedly helped put some distance between the two Cyber-serials. One of the really good things about “The Invasion” is the Cybermen’s seeming indestructibility. Attacking them with all manner of military hardware does nothing to stop their inevitable nihilistic onslaught…

Like the second William Hartnell Dalek serial, “The Dalek Invasion of Earth”, “The Invasion” benefits enormously from the use of location filming around familiar London landmarks. Whereas, in the earlier story, we were treated to Daleks patrolling the likes of Westminster and Trafalgar Square, in this Cybermen outing the aliens appear through street manholes from out of the sewers, at the end of the sixth episode, to march triumphantly down the steps behind St. Paul’s Cathedral. It is, indeed, an imposing sight. Also something of an arresting display, and without skirting around the issue, Wendy Padbury’s and Sally Faulkner’s knickers are frequently revealed! Douglas would insist on filming things using low camera angles!! The director had the reputation for organising his shoots with military precision!!! He’s also responsible for my favourite episode of “The Sweeney”, “Thou Shalt Not Kill”, which prominently featured another lovely of the day, Harriet Philpin, better known to “Doctor Who” fans as Bettan in the second half of “Genesis of the Daleks”. As for the Cybermen themselves, and despite not having much dialogue in “The Invasion”, they would never again be this good. After their fifth and final black and white story, writers seemed to forget that the creatures are supposed to be emotionless, when terms like “Revenge” and “Excellent” started creeping into future scripts! They seem harder to write for than Daleks, with only “The Tomb of the Cybermen” being truly comparable in quality to the pièce de résistance that is “The Invasion”.