Robert Holmes: A Life in Words

‘Take “The Talons of Weng-Chiang”. Watch Episode One. It’s the best dialogue ever written. It’s up there with Dennis Potter. By a man called Robert Holmes.’ – Russell T Davies

‘Go find a list of favourite Doctor Who stories and look for the writer with the most entries! That’s our Robert! He took Doctor Who down from space and planets, and slipped all that horror and scariness under your bed and at the back of your hall cupboard.’ – Steven Moffat

‘One of his great talents was for structure and a non-linear approach to building a story, as well as his unique ability to come up with hordes of weirdly convincing names for aliens that would have put J K Rowling in the shade.’ – Robert Banks Stewart

‘Bob Holmes was the first writer I ever script-edited. I probably learned more from him than he ever did from me.’ – Terrance Dicks

‘He was an intelligent, literate writer. There aren’t a hell of a lot of those about, you know. And there’s one less now…’ – Chris Boucher

Those who know the work of Robert Holmes will not be at all surprised by the effusive and expansive appreciation in which he is held today by his colleagues, peers, and contemporaries. Whether writing scripts for the far-flung fantasies of Doctor Who or Blake’s 7, or for the more everyday gritty reality of Bergerac, Shoestring, Juliet Bravo or Public Eye, Robert Holmes was one of television’s most innovative, creative, respected – and least lauded – of talents from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. Now, for the first time, this book examines his work in detail. For this is Robert Holmes’ life in words …

443pp. A5-format paperback. (Now Sold Out)
ISBN 978-1-84583-091-5
Published 29 November 2013

397pp. 6×9 paperback.
ISBN 978-1-84583-140-0
Published 28 January 2020

NOTE ON THE FIRST PRINTING

After this title was printed, we were alerted to the fact that the table of Robert Holmes’ credits in the back of the book was missing its last page. This seems to have happened at the final PDF production stage and was not spotted by us before the book went to print. We’re very sorry that this has happened, and has been corrected in the latest printing of the book. If you have the first edition of the book, then from HERE you can download the corrected table of credits which includes the final page.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Richard Molesworth was born in 1968, and was hooked by Doctor Who when he first saw the Daleks menacing Jon Pertwee in ‘Day of the Daleks’ in 1972. He began writing for various Doctor Who fanzines in the mid 1980s, including DWB, where he first wrote articles about the BBC archive holdings. He has since contributed articles to publications such as Doctor Who Magazine, Starburst and Sci-Fi Now. In 1993, he acted as a researcher for Thirty Years in the TARDIS, the BBC documentary celebrating Doctor Who‘s thirtieth anniversary, and became a member of the unofficial Doctor Who Restoration Team soon after. He worked with the team on various projects for BBC Worldwide/2|entertain in the following years, which included the first restoration of ‘The War Machines’ for its VHS release, and ‘The Five Doctors: The Special Edition’. When Doctor Who started being released on DVD, he was responsible for a multitude of special features on the releases; producing audio commentaries with cast and crew, scripting on-screen production subtitles, and writing, directing and producing a number of documentary ‘extra’ features. He has also written Surf ‘n’ Turf: The Unofficial Skins Companion for Miwk Books, and has occasionally written for the Mail on Sunday.