A Word on Robert Holmes
Back in Monochrome Malarkey, I resolved to periodically memorialize cast
and crew of Doctor Who when their time with the series ended. In
practice, most of these have been for the Doctors themselves, doubling
as roundups for their eras. The last time I felt it essential to sit
down and do it for someone behind the camera was for Verity Lambert,
way back in 1965. Since then, some other important figures in the
show's history have come and gone. For many of them, I didn't feel it
necessary to dedicate more than a paragraph or two, or else their work
would continue after the cancellation of the show during the "Wilderness
Years".
Robert Holmes is a different figure entirely, and while abler pens than mine have tried to pay him tribute, I still intend to join the choir praising him with as clear a voice as I can manage.
Holmes was a man who always marched to the beat of his own drum. Joining the army at the tender age of 18 under false pretenses, Holmes became the youngest officer in the British Army during his time serving in what is today Myanmar. After the war, he spent a spell as a police officer in London before becoming fascinated with the written word and resigning. His previous work fueled his early televisual career, writing for police serials, but Holmes eventually came to spend more time writing science fiction than anything else.
His work on Doctor Who spans 73 episodes written by him directly, and many more for which he was the script editor. It's almost impossible for me to imagine what the show might have been like without his influence. The list of concepts he either originated or shaped by introducing them in his scripts is a long one, including such important things as the basic picture of Gallifrey and the Time Lords, the Autons and Sontarans, even the Master to some extent.
His impact is easy to understand, but getting a read on him as a person is somewhat more difficult, as he left little behind except for his body of work. I was able to dig up a handful of interviews, where he mostly talks about his work on Who; I get the sense that he was very proud of it, and that it let his best writing habits flourish. He admitted that it could be difficult to write for at times, "because you’re in between Grand Guignol gothic horror on one side, and Monty Python on the other." But he must have liked it, or he wouldn't have kept coming back, even, in the end, at the cost of his own health.
Holmes cheerfully confessed: "I’m not a serious writer. I like to get some fun out of what I’m writing." His twisted sense of humor shows frequently in his work, but also in his commentary about it, seen here when discussing Terror of the Autons:
Beyond his own words, he is mostly memorialized through the words of those who worked with him, buried within so many DVD commentaries and "Behind the Sofa" featurettes which I can't get at from the work desk I'm writing this on. What is clear from the ones I can call to memory is that he was a brilliant guy as well as a good writer, and that he was missed terribly by all of them. Beyond his own tenure as script editor, he seemed to get on with all the others he interacted with like a house on fire: from Donald Tosh when he first attempted to submit a script in 1965, to Terrance Dicks, to Anthony Read and even Eric Saward.
Later generations of Who writers who grew up with his work pay him high accolades as well. Russell T Davies, no slouch of a writer himself, had this to say:
It is remarkable in the extreme that somebody whom I suspect to be one of the greatest television writers of the last century has remained in such obscurity outside of this fandom. He could have done anything, but he did Doctor Who, out of what appears to be a sense of honest affection for the program. I think we must all consider ourselves very lucky to have had him.
Farewell, Mr. Holmes, and thanks for all the memories.
Robert Holmes is a different figure entirely, and while abler pens than mine have tried to pay him tribute, I still intend to join the choir praising him with as clear a voice as I can manage.
Holmes was a man who always marched to the beat of his own drum. Joining the army at the tender age of 18 under false pretenses, Holmes became the youngest officer in the British Army during his time serving in what is today Myanmar. After the war, he spent a spell as a police officer in London before becoming fascinated with the written word and resigning. His previous work fueled his early televisual career, writing for police serials, but Holmes eventually came to spend more time writing science fiction than anything else.
His work on Doctor Who spans 73 episodes written by him directly, and many more for which he was the script editor. It's almost impossible for me to imagine what the show might have been like without his influence. The list of concepts he either originated or shaped by introducing them in his scripts is a long one, including such important things as the basic picture of Gallifrey and the Time Lords, the Autons and Sontarans, even the Master to some extent.
His impact is easy to understand, but getting a read on him as a person is somewhat more difficult, as he left little behind except for his body of work. I was able to dig up a handful of interviews, where he mostly talks about his work on Who; I get the sense that he was very proud of it, and that it let his best writing habits flourish. He admitted that it could be difficult to write for at times, "because you’re in between Grand Guignol gothic horror on one side, and Monty Python on the other." But he must have liked it, or he wouldn't have kept coming back, even, in the end, at the cost of his own health.
Holmes cheerfully confessed: "I’m not a serious writer. I like to get some fun out of what I’m writing." His twisted sense of humor shows frequently in his work, but also in his commentary about it, seen here when discussing Terror of the Autons:
Beyond his own words, he is mostly memorialized through the words of those who worked with him, buried within so many DVD commentaries and "Behind the Sofa" featurettes which I can't get at from the work desk I'm writing this on. What is clear from the ones I can call to memory is that he was a brilliant guy as well as a good writer, and that he was missed terribly by all of them. Beyond his own tenure as script editor, he seemed to get on with all the others he interacted with like a house on fire: from Donald Tosh when he first attempted to submit a script in 1965, to Terrance Dicks, to Anthony Read and even Eric Saward.
Later generations of Who writers who grew up with his work pay him high accolades as well. Russell T Davies, no slouch of a writer himself, had this to say:
It is remarkable in the extreme that somebody whom I suspect to be one of the greatest television writers of the last century has remained in such obscurity outside of this fandom. He could have done anything, but he did Doctor Who, out of what appears to be a sense of honest affection for the program. I think we must all consider ourselves very lucky to have had him.
Farewell, Mr. Holmes, and thanks for all the memories.
(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 5 June 2024.)
No comments:
Post a Comment