More Whovian goodness from the BBC. The "Dahl" connection comes courtesy of the late Terry Nation, who is being remembered at his childhood home with a plaque.
Dalek creator Terry Nation has had a blue plaque unveiled in his honour at the house in Cardiff where he was born.
Nation, who died in 1997 aged 66, was a screenwriter on Doctor Who when he came up with the ideas for the aliens who are almost as famous as the Time Lord himself.
The unveiling took place during the week of the 50th anniversary of the BBC sci-fi series.
The Daleks made their first appearance in December 1963.
As it happens, he was not the only writer of note in the neighborhood.
Four years ago, the society unveiled a blue plaque just yards away in memory of another local writer, Roald Dahl.
Mr Barton-Greenwood believes there may be a connection between the name of the famous writer and the name Nation gave to his armoured mutant creations.
He said: "There is a connection in that they are 'Daleks' and Roald 'Dahl' was only from around the corner.
"I think Terry Nation might well have been having a play on words.
"It would be an extreme coincidence that these guys came from such a short distance apart and yet came up with this sort of affinity."
Meanwhile, think you are a real fan of the Doctor? Check out
the story of this couple:
When Neil Perryman decided to call in a favour his wife owed him, he perhaps did not realise what a labour of love it would turn out to be. The diehard Doctor Who fan persuaded Sue to watch all 697 episodes of the show. Two and a half years later their journey through time and space was complete.
Beginning in January 2011 - with the viewings organised in strictly chronological order - the couple sat down to supper at their home in Elwick, near Hartlepool, and watched one of the programmes.
Sue Perryman, a lecturer in media at Sunderland University, said: "I started blonde and now I'm grey."
It's a fascinating tale of marital determination and devotion, including the steps they took to cover the episodes that have gone missing over the years.
For the last bit of Whoviana tonight, the Culture Department at the BBC asks a question: "Doctor Who: The most important electronic music ever?".
...these five everyday figures – Roger Limb, Paddy Kingsland, Dick Mills, Peter Howell and Mark Ayres – represent one of the most adventurous moments in modern music history. This is the reformed Radiophonic Workshop, carrying the banner for a particular and very British strain of handmade invention.
The avant-garde music known as radiophonics influenced pop from The Beatles through to modern dance music and techno, even though its progenitors were not eccentric art visionaries but salaried BBC engineers and composers who never earned royalties from their work.
In its golden period from 1958 to the late ’70s, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop created music by hitting old pieces of machinery, resonating household objects, generating white noise and manipulating the resulting sounds until their origins were lost but new moods and truths about the world emerged. This was electronic music in an age before consumer electronics, utilising the techniques of music concrète and the logic of Futurism to open up a new aural world.
As Doctor Who turns 50 this year, the Workshop’s most famous work is back in the spotlight. In 1963, a member of the group, Delia Derbyshire, transformed songwriter Ron Grainer’s straightforward theme tune into a cosmic fantasia of burbles and alien winds. Grainer famously asked her “Did I write that?” “Most of it,” she replied.
A few weeks ago I heard Thomas Dolby remark that the English had a knack for taking music from elsewhere, putting their own spin on it and selling it back to the world. The Radiophonic Workshop managed to do pioneering work all their own, and inspired a generation that grew up with it. Alas, the Workshop closed in 1998, but…
This would have been the end of the story except that many musicians who reached maturity in the ‘90s had grown up with Doctor Who. Artists from Stereolab to Aphex Twin to Broadcast began to quote from radiophonics. A creative spark previously hidden on sound effects albums became more widely know.
“I’ve been drawn to that sound since I was a child,” says Paul Hartnoll of electronic duo Orbital. “It creeped me out but it also made me feel a bit melancholy, and I loved that. It was the equivalent of looking at a tower block and finding it oppressive but beautiful too.” At the low point of Doctor Who’s popularity, in 2001, he and brother Phil recorded a raved-up version of the theme tune which became a highlight of their show at festivals. “We thought a lot of younger people wouldn’t even know it but it really resonated with them.”
In 2008, for the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Radiophonic Workshop, the British dance duo Coldcut performed a new remixed, re-edited work based on original radiophonic recordings for the BBC Electric Proms. “You can locate the beginning of electronic music as far back as the Futurist Art Of Noises manifesto in 1913,” says the duo’s Matt Black. “But realistically, the Doctor Who theme is where it began. That title sequence was the catalyst for everything that we do with sound, and visuals too.”
Delia Derbyshire's realization of Ron Grainer's theme lives on, regenerating like the Doctor, yet retaining its essence. If you've got a half hour to invest, all of the Doctor's main themes (and some extras) have been collected in these two videos. Enjoy!
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