[Interviewed on stage at the Fairford
Festival of Fiction on Saturday, 3 June 2017.
Transcript posted here by kind permission of Steven Moffat. Thanks
also to Paul Cornell and the team at Fairford Festival.]
Steven Moffat and me at Fairford Festival of Fiction Photo by Pea Green Boat Books |
Steven, I think I'm right in saying
that this year's Doctor Who
Christmas special has
begun production.
No, we've got the
read-through on Thursday. I'm just doing a new draft at the moment,
which I hope to finish tomorrow. I'll get that to the production
office for Monday morning and then probably fiddle around with it a
bit. Then I think we start shooting a week on Monday.
I've
misunderstood. So pre-production
started a couple of weeks ago.
Yes.
Once
you've finished this draft, what else is there for you to do as head
writer on Doctor Who?
Oh,
we have to make the show! I mean, it's not that I write it down and
we just sort of stop at that point. We've got to get the whole show
made. The actual shooting of Doctor
Who is
monstrously complex. It's the most complex show I've ever worked on.
Every day you've got something like green screen, prosthetics or a
stunt scene. There's hardly ever just people sitting round tables
talking – which I intend to write for the rest of my life. That's
much easier. So it's a long, complex process and the script keeps...
Well, it's hardly my only job but the script will have to stay
flexible throughout that process as things fall out or don't work, or
as new ideas happen. So there's quite a lot to do. And then there's
endless post-production. On Doctor
Who,
that's like making a whole other show. The show we actually shoot can
look terrible – just Peter Capaldi shouting at a green curtain.
That's what you get for an hour and you have to sign it off and say,
“Yeah, that looked fantastic!” Then all the CGI comes in, they
grade it and score it and eventually it looks like proper television.
But the Christmas one won't be that terrifying because, unusually for
us, the new team take over after that and we've got really quite a
lot of time to work on this one. But Episodes 11 and 12 of this
series of Doctor
Who going
out now are nowhere near completion. Episode 8 is on shortly – I
expect you all to leave this interview at a designated moment to go
watch it. Episodes 9 and 10 are finished, and then with episodes 11
and 12 we're still getting effects through, and we're still scoring
them. It's very close to the wire.
Do you know when
your last day will be?
Yes,
but I've forgotten. I think 11 July is when we stop shooting but
that's hardly the end of everything. If I were to nominate the very
last time I turn up and do a showrunnery thing for Doctor
Who,
that will be the press screening of the Christmas episode. By then,
Chris [Chibnall] will be working with a new Doctor and a new
production team, so I'll be like a live archive, a fossil, revived
and lurching round the place, hanging desperately on to former glory
and launching the Christmas special. I think that screening might be
on 15 December, and that will be me absolutely finished – in every
sense.
What do you know
about what's to come after that?
Oh,
practically nothing. One of the very few bits of advice I gave to
Chris was, “It's almost impossible to keep a secret on Doctor
Who but
rule 1 is that you don't tell anybody anything unless they absolutely
need to know.” In this case, I don't need to know what they're up
to. They're zeroing in on their casting choice, scripts are in the
works and, to be honest, Chris is already really the showrunner and
I'm the relic. I've got one episode to worry about but he's got years
of Doctor Who
ahead,
so he's really doing the job now. I'm just going round waving at the
crowd. When I first took over from Russell [T Davies], he was doing
all the public stuff and I was doing the job. I remember thinking –
as I think now – that that's a good division of labour. One person
can go round being fatuous in interviews and the other person can do
the actual work. I prefer the fatuous bit.
As
if Doctor Who wasn't
hard enough, you thought, “Let's do another show at the same
time...” But Sherlock has
come to a natural break if not an end, so what are you going to fill
your time with?
Holidays.
Drinking... I don't know that Sherlock
has
finished. People keep saying that, and that it's come to a natural
end. But what does that mean on a show that we hardly ever make? Just
that it gets marginally slower in production. I kind of assume that
at some point we'll show up again, but that's what I assume at the
end of every series. When Sue [Vertue, his co-producer – and wife]
has to reassemble Sherlock,
it's like arranging a reunion party. It's, “Hello, how are you?
What's your diary like?” When you're talking to [stars] Benedict
and Martin that can be an issue. But I assume we'll go again. We
didn't end it on a big cliffhanger this year. I suppose that's the
only difference. But more or less everyone's alive that needs to be,
so if we want to go again we absolutely can.
Is
there a project waiting for you that's not Doctor
Who or Sherlock?
It
would be pretty grim if there wasn't, wouldn't it? But I haven't a
specific one. I've had a particularly hard year on the two shows.
I've done three new Sherlocks
and 14 new Doctor
Whos
in the space of about a year. That's madness so I just want to go and
lie down. I do have a few things in mind, though I haven't chosen one
yet. Mark [Gatiss] and I have a project that we won't do next, either
of us, but that we're very excited about. We've spoken to various
people about that and they're pleased with it. That's not the same as
Sherlock or
any part of his world but I suppose you could view it as a a
stable-mate. So we have another project, another joint piece of
absolute nonsense, that we both fancy working on, but neither of us
will work on that next. Our brains need a bit of a rest.
Can
I take you back to when you started work on TV Doctor
Who? What happened in
December 2003 – did Russell ring you, or speak to your agent, to
see if you were free for the Christopher Eccleston episodes you
wrote?
Around
the time that Russell was announced as doing the new series, I got
his email address from Paul Cornell and emailed him my
congratulations in the hope that he would remember my address. He
emailed straight back saying, “Look, if it goes for more than six
episodes” – ha ha, six episodes! – “then I'd like you to
write some.” I didn't take it that seriously but thought, “Well,
that would be great.” Then I got the phonecall from my agent –
it's about the only time my agent has been the person to tell me I've
got a job. I was asked if I'd do the two-parter, which became The
Empty Child and
The Doctor Dances.
That
was thrilling. I can tell you exactly when that was: it was 10
December, the night of the British Comedy Awards, which we were just
leaving for when I got that call. A long time ago now. I was
genuinely so excited.
You
won an award that night [Best TV Comedy for Coupling].
Yes.
And also met
Doctor Who.
That's
right, I also met Peter Davison that night. But I couldn't tell him,
or anyone, that I'd just got this job. I couldn't tell Doctor Who, so
I just came across to him as a slightly crazed fan – an opinion
that I don't think he's ever had occasion to revise. So yes, that was
a brilliant night and as you say we won an award. But it was nothing
compared to, “I'm actually going to write, 'Interior: TARDIS'.” I
was properly excited about that. Above all, more than getting the big
job on the series afterwards or anything else, it was that moment,
when I knew I was actually going to write proper television Doctor
Who.
I'd done The Curse
of Fatal Death,
the Comic Relief sketch, many years before – again, with Sue. One
of the main reasons I went hell for leather on that was that I
thought it would be my one and only chance to write Doctor
Who.
In a lifetime of bad predictions, that might have been my worst. But
yeah, that was a brilliant night.
I
remember speaking to you in a pub in 2005, about three weeks before
the first episode of new Doctor Who went
out. We asked how you thought it would do, and you said something
like, “Well, we're proud of what we've done and the hope is that by
the time we get to my episode, Doctor Who hasn't
been shunted to Sundays – that it's gone down okay and is still on
a Saturday night.” How surprising was its success?
That's
probably a better question to ask Russell, Julie and Phil [the
executive producers of the 2005 series], who were much more in the
firing line in those days. I sort of had the absolute conviction that
it would be a success because I wasn't right in the firing line in
the way that they were. I'm sure they were properly terrified. I
think we all knew that the first episode would get a big audience
because every time they hauled out anything with the name Doctor
Who on
it, it would get, I don't know, around 10 million viewers. So it felt
like it was going to be a hit. But it became bigger than we thought
it would. I remember Russell saying at the press screening for the
last episode, The
Parting of the Ways,
“Oh, we'll get 10 years out of this.” We're at 12 years now,
which is fairly extraordinary. And yes, by the time it came to my
one, it wasn't on a Sunday and I'd already done a draft of my next
Doctor Who.
And we'd already lost a significant cast member. That kind of thing
was terrifying – again, more for Russell and Julie, who knew more
about it. They had this huge monster hit and they knew they had to
find a new lead. Nowadays, we're all used to the idea – everyone is
used to the idea now of regenerating the Doctor. But can you imagine?
You're one series in and you have to change the lead! Absolutely
terrifying.
Speaking of
changing leads, when did you know, or first start hearing whispers,
that you'd be the one to replace Russell?
Honestly?
I'd worked it out. Sue kept saying, “Oh, they're going to make you
do that bloody job.” I think that was around the time of The
Empty Child.
I was like, “No, why would they ask me?” I sort of didn't want to
think about it. But as I looked around the room, I thought it would
probably be me. That sounds grotesquely conceited, but I just
thought, “It's me, isn't it?” Then I stopped thinking about it
because I was really, really enjoying the job of showing up just once
a year on Doctor
Who,
doing a lot less work than Russell. I'd watch him being shunted out
of rooms and into other rooms. Just as he'd be walking towards you,
saying “Hullo!”, he'd be dragged off to do some other work.
That's my life now and Chris's life in the immediate future. So I
thoroughly enjoyed those days. But I just didn't get it when it came.
I think they spoke to me twice before I really tuned in on what was
being said. Jane Tranter [the BBC's then Controller of Drama
Commissioning], I think at the read-through for Voyage
of the Damned [which
took place on 2 July 2007] came up to me and said, “At some point,
you and I will have to sit down and talk about the next five
years...” Again, I told Sue this. I said, “They're very keen on
me at the BBC.” But I hadn't realised that of course she meant
Doctor Who and
I was being offered the job right there. Then Julie Gardner started
talking about Russell leaving and what they were going to do next,
all while looking very hard at me. That was in LA at some point – I
think it was the TCAs [the ceremony for the 23rd Television Critics
Association Awards was held on 21 July 2007]. But it wasn't until I
got the enormously long, persuasive email from Russell that I
realised what was actually happening and I had to start thinking
about it. You'd think that would be an incredibly easy choice because
it was the job I'd wanted all my life, I already loved the show and
it was a huge hit. But it paralyses you when that email arrives.
You're aware what it's going to do to your life – and I wasn't
wrong about any of that. I remember that about a week before getting
that email I saw David Tennant at a concert and said, “It must have
been great when you were offered Doctor
Who.
You must have been so excited.” And he said, “Um... It's more
complicated when it's real.” “Oh, bollocks,” I said, “you
were just thrilled, weren't you? You just said 'yes' straight away
and were on to designing your costume.” He said, “I didn't, I
didn't – I was just confused.” About a week later I was in the
same state of confusion. I don't know that it's meant to happen, that
when you're in your 40s – as I was then – the job you
specifically wanted when you were eight shows up. That's ridiculous.
That's like discovering that, yes, you can be Santa's elf. It's
unusual.
You said most of
your predictions about the job were right. What do you wish you could
have told or warned yourself at the time?
I'm
not sure because I had watched Russell go through all of that. For
him, I think some of it probably came as a bit of a surprise. For me,
I was at reasonably close quarters and saw someone I knew reasonably
well going through exactly what I was about to. Helpfully, he'd
written his utterly terrifying book, The
Writer's Tale,
with Ben Cook. If you've not read it, it's about his time making the
show. That was like moving into a really creepy mansion and
discovering the diary of the previous occupant, and it's like, “Dear
god, they were never found again!” I suppose there was part of me
that was so shocked and horrified at all the work I would have to do
that I kind of just did as I was told. I slightly worry that – he
says, sitting here – keeping a lower profile might have been more
agreeable for someone like me. You get very visible in a job like
this and I'm not absolutely sure how much I like that. But I say that
in front of an audience. When it comes down to it, I've been through
this thought experiment. I sat with Chris on the night I was talking
him into taking the job, saying, “Here are the things you will
really need...” I'm not telling you what they are but they're all
very dull, just how to organise your life a bit – or how to fail to
organise your life but in the most constructive manner.
You had to
recast the Doctor. Was it a given that David Tennant was leaving?
It
was. The first thing I was told was that David was leaving with
Russell and Julie. They had – as they put it, cheerfully – a sort
of suicide pact. That was great: “Welcome in, we've got a suicide
pact and there'll be plenty of space for you.” But then that got
taken away again because David phoned me up and said, “So, you're
taking over...” I said, “I thought you were leaving.” He said,
“Well, maybe. But maybe I'm not.” He went through a huge,
prolonged wobble, really. I chatted to him a lot and in the end he
listened to my ideas and decided not to do it. (Laughs) He went and
did a show by Chris Chibnall instead – and quite right. I think
he'd 90 per cent made up his mind but because we're quite good
friends there was a moment of thinking, “Should I or shouldn't I?”
Eventually he decided that it was time for him to go. Three years
seems to be the amount of time Doctors do these days – and I
suppose mostly it was in the old days as well. But that does mean I
took his resignation. I was the person who received David Tennant's
resignation. And Matt Smith's resignation. And Peter Capaldi's
resignation. There should be some sort of special therapy for a
grown-up Doctor
Who fan
whose heroes resign to him. I don't want any more Doctors to quit.
It's terrifying. It's like Santa saying, “I've had enough!” “No,
Santa, that's terrible – come back.”
Are the
resignation letters long? I'm sure you can't share what's in them.
They weren't letters but meetings. I had a phonecall with David, I
went out for a boozy lunch with Matt and I had dinner with Peter.
Obviously, in Peter's case I was already off so that was slightly
different. But it is quite a thing when you have to sit opposite
someone who is tearing themselves apart about leaving this role they
love so much. But you're saying, in all three cases, “Are you sure?
What else will be as good? It'll all be despair and misery after
this. You'll just be doing ads. You'll be doing Tom Baker's
voiceovers. Think again.” None of them has not regretted it.
Let's
talk about the casting of Matt Smith. He auditioned for the part of
Watson in Sherlock.
Yes,
the first time I met Matt Smith, I think he was the very first person
through the door for Dr Watson on Sherlock.
We'd already cast Benedict and Matt came in. He gave a terrific
audition but of course he's far more Sherlock Holmes than Dr Watson.
He just doesn't seem like a Dr Watson. But I was looking for a new
Doctor at the time, and the idea of him as Doctor Who did flit
through my brain a little bit. But the thing about Matt is... Well,
Mark Gatiss said at the time, “Matt's absolutely nuts. He's
completely barmy.” Of course, he fitted the other role on Sherlock
perfectly. So the very first time I met him, I turned him down. A few
days later, he was either the second or third person through the door
for Doctor Who and just stormed it. He just romped it. There was
never a question after he gave his audition. We should have stopped
at that point because it wasn't going to happen again with anyone
else. And he'd barely seen the show! He just came in and he was
Doctor Who straight away. I'd been bracing myself for months of it
and there he was, on the first day.
At
that point you'd written at least some of The Time
of Angels – the first
episode you shot. That has all the stuff between the Doctor and River
Song, so were you thinking of an older Doctor who'd be more of a
match for Alex Kingston?
I
assumed that we would go older. But remember, David was in his 30s
when he did Doctor
Who and
nearly 40 by the end. It's not like the Doctor is incredibly young or
anything. I think by then I'd written almost three episodes – The
Eleventh Hour,
The Time of Angels
and
most of Flesh and
Stone.
Yes, you are thinking, “What's it going to be like?” I think I
sent an irritated email to everybody about the names we had on the
casting list saying, “Look, you're sending me all these youngsters.
There isn't a 27 year-old on the planet who won't look as though
he'll just get stuck in Alex Kingston's teeth.” And there wasn't –
it was a 26 year-old. I was like, “Is that going to be okay? I
don't know.” But then it's meant to be a ridiculous relationship
and it sort of works. And such is the schedule of Doctor
Who,
Matt only looked 26 for about two production blocks. You go look at
him in The Time of
Angels and
compare him to, say, The
Vampires of Venice,
and you'll see the truth of our schedule etched savagely on his face.
When Matt left,
I was working on a kids' magazine and we did a spread of all the
regenerations. What that means is you see, right next to each other,
all the Doctors when they began and when they left. You go, “What
have they done to these poor men?”
One
of the very last things that David Tennant did as the Doctor was some
promo photographs for his last episodes. He was telling me this, I
think at a Radio
Times party.
He said to them, “Ah, come on, why am I doing this? I just do this
[strikes a pose], then I do this [strikes another pose] and then I do
my hands in my pockets. I've only got three poses so why are you
bothering to photograph me again? Just put a different background
in.” And the photographer said, “But David, you look so much
older. Look at your face.” David's standing there going, “That's
my life you're casually referring to!”
Matt
Smith's first series ran from April 2010, and Sherlock
started later that year,
so were you making the first series of Sherlock at
the same time as Doctor Who?
Yes,
and that's an incredibly bad lifestyle choice. Yes, there was a
moment where – I had it last year as well – I was doing both.
It's horrific. There's nothing good about it. By the time you get to
the end of your rushes – you watch all the rushes from Doctor
Who and
then all the rushes from Sherlock
–
half the day is gone. I always tried to be really careful about
rushes, which is the stuff we shoot on a daily basis. I found it very
difficult. There's nothing clever about doing that.
They were shot
in the same studios, so were Matt Smith and Benedict Cumberbatch
meeting up, going for drinks...
What
a lovely impression you have of the studio we shot in. I suppose they
could have nipped down to the garage and bought a Topic together. It
wasn't really like that. It was a big blue shed on a wintry hill
somewhere and I assure you that neither Matt Smith nor Benedict
Cumberbatch socialised much in that area. But there were two great
things I remember about that. There was the TARDIS in one studio and
in the neighbouring studio had 221 Baker Street. I remember Mark and
me wandering from one to the other and he grabbed my arm and said,
“It's a map of our brains!” I've also got a really bad photograph
of Benedict and Martin sitting in the TARDIS – but it's really
atrocious. And then I've got the only photograph that exists of
Benedict in costume and Matt in costume together, with me spoiling it
in the middle. We were doing a photo shoot for Sherlock
of all of us, but mainly of Martin and Benedict. This was long before
we knew Sherlock
was going to be a hit, and before Matt had been on television. And
Matt came through the studio in his full regalia as Doctor Who
heading for his set. I knew it would be the only time it ever
happened so I said, “Can I have a photograph?” So I've got a
photograph of me standing there between the two of them, spoiling it.
That photograph is regularly available on the internet, but do you
know what they do? They cut out my face so you can put your face in.
Not Benedict's face, not Matt's face, just my face, carved lovingly
out. A space for anyone. A disposable element to this photograph. I was
so proud. Thank you, the world.
I'd
put my face in there. I'm glad to learn of these photos, because
there's a photo from the 1980s when there was a fire alarm at TV
Centre, and Sylvester McCoy and the Doctor Who cast
are mixed up with the cast from Allo! Allo! But
my favourite example is the film Frankie and Johnny,
where they wanted Al Pacino to open a door and react with surprise.
So they went into the next studio and got Kirk and Spock from the
Star Trek film
shooting there to stand, in costume, behind the door. So Al Pacino
opens the door and does a brilliantly confused face...
Really?
Yeah.
And nobody thought to take photographs, so I'm very glad to hear
there are photographs of this meeting. Anyway, Matt Smith was a very
successful Doctor and you then had to recast him. Peter Capaldi
visited the set of An Adventure in Space and Time
in, what, January or
February 2013 and had a long chat with David Bradley about having
always wanted to visit the TARDIS. Did you know at that point Capaldi
was going to be Doctor Who?
He was in our minds but he certainly had no inkling of it. I think we
had the first, vague conversations about who it was going to be... I
independently asked Mark to give me a list of people. I'd thought of
Peter Capaldi and Mark drew up a long list with Peter's name at the
top and a big space underneath because he thought it should be him.
But Peter had no clue nor any suspicion that he was under
consideration while he was farting about posing with Daleks and the
TARDIS. Obviously, I knew he was going to have plenty of opportunity
to do that.
I should be
handing this over to the audience, and I'm sure there are people
who'll want to ask about Bill, the companion from this year. Where
did her character derive from? I assume the first thought with a new
companion is that she must not be like the last one. But Bill being a
black gay woman made headlines, so at what stage did that come in?
It
didn't arrive like that. Honestly, as most writers would attest, it
started with a tone of voice. I wasn't thinking of a contrast with
Clara particularly but I thought there was something about Peter's
Doctor and Jenna's Clara that was, in a very attractive and charming
way, quite rarefied when they were together. They were quite regal,
these two super-brains off being rather refined. They probably read
poetry at each other, albeit she'd do it in a Blackpool accent and
he's Scottish. But you had that slight sense so I wanted an earthier
tone of voice. Before I thought of anything else, I wanted somebody
like that. So I started messing around, writing scenes. Separately,
looking at our record, our skinny white cast, I also thought, “We
can't keep doing this so let's just make the decision that she is not
going to be white. Just not – we won't even look at anyone who is
white.” But that wasn't an element of the character, it was just,
“Come on, we have to sort ourselves out on that.” As for the gay
thing, it would have been an absolute cliché to say, “Let's
cast a black lesbian.” I never thought of it that way. I'd written
a scene for the audition where she talks about a boy she fancies but
that didn't feel right. I didn't know why it didn't feel right so I
kept on messing around with it. The way you hone in on a character is
like that. I tried making it a girl she fancies – and the scene
worked. It was actually quite good. So for that reason and no other
she became gay. But what we said at that point was, “We don't even
use the word.” She's completely relaxed and casual about it, as
most young people are. They're much smarter than we are and have
ceased to worry about any of this nonsense. I was worried at the very
beginning because it became a newspaper story when Pearl happened to
mention it in an interview. It caused far more of a storm than we
intended or planned. Anything that happens, you can more or less be
certain was not what we planned. I thought maybe that's what would
happen: people would just write about Bill as “the gay one”. But
they didn't. Well, the Daily
Mail did
but that's what the Daily
Mail does.
Every other paper did exactly what we hoped, which was to mention she
was gay but she wasn't “the gay one”. She is Bill who is funny. I
don't think I've seen the word gay applied to her for weeks now, so
that's great. And she's absolutely charmed the nation, she's become a
star in a few weeks. I saw Pearl presenting a BAFTA just recently.
That's astonishing when you see that happening – absolutely
amazing.
I could carry on
nattering but I'll open it up to the audience. Is anyone feeling
brave? There's a very keen hand over there.
I
don't mean to make everyone's hands go down, but there are two
questions that we're not doing. No, there will never be a Doctor
Who/Sherlock
crossover
and I have absolutely no idea who the new Doctor is going to be –
or what they're going to be. It's not my business. So those two,
you're not allowed to ask!
[Question] Have
you ever considered making the Doctor a woman?
That's what I just said – I'm not answering. (Laughs) Listen, I'm
quite serious about this. Obviously, I made the Master into a woman
and so it's part of the continuity of the show. But can you imagine
for a moment being Chris Chibnall right now? I know what it's like so
I don't have to imagine. The entire world is shouting in your ear
about who or what or why should be playing Doctor Who. Shut up and
let him get on with it! It's really stressful. If you get that
decision wrong, you're beheaded – by the Queen. That's the law if
you get the wrong Doctor Who. So let them get on with it and I am not
expressing any opinions out of deference to my good friend and
successor. It's his problem.
[Question]
Do you think you'll ever come back to write an episode or two of
Doctor Who down
the line?
I can't predict the future but I probably won't. I'm quite surprised
to be saying that but it feels like an ending, like I'm done. Maybe
in a few years I'll suddenly want to. In the short term, which is
really quite long, Chris has to get on with it. Imagine if you've
been the boss of something for a while and someone else takes over.
You can't loiter round their office saying, “Can I do that bit?”
You let them have a fresh take and get away from the relic from the
archives claiming that everything has gone to crap now they've left.
You don't want that. So maybe some time in the future.
You made a point
of asking Russell to write for you, didn't you?
Yes,
and Chris has been on at me. Look, the moment you're stuck with the
prospect of having to get all those Doctor
Who scripts
in, you're not saying no to anybody you think might be competent or
able. You say, “Please, for god's sake.” Russell's a genius so I
wanted him but he was tired and made it clear from the outset that he
wasn't going to do it again. I thought, “You bastard.” But now
I'm in the same position, I'm thinking, “Well, time's up.” I've
done my bit. I don't know that I've got anything else left. Such as
it was, that's what I have.
[Question]
Do you have any plans for what you're going to be doing after Doctor
Who?
Hawaii. And probably quite a lot of gin and tonic.
[Someone shouts
out] What about LA [for conventions]?
I
don't know. I will be in LA and I'll be in San Diego. In terms of
projects, I've got the thing with Mark that might happen when we want
to do it. But I was trying to work out with Sue when the last time
was that I didn't have a deadline. It's certainly over 10 and
probably over 12 years ago. When I say “have a deadline”, I mean
“find myself already late for a deadline before I start”. I
arrive at the beginning of a script saying, “How many days late am
I already?” So I'm quite looking forward to that not being the
case, and a chance to just sit and think. There are things in my head
and I'm looking forward to writing something that isn't either Doctor
Who or
Sherlock –
because that will be the first time since about 2008.
[Question] How
did you come up with the names for the Sycorax, the Adipose and
Raxacoricofallapatorius – if you did come up with them?
Well, I didn't. Russell did. Do you mean how did he think of the
names, or the ideas for those monsters? The names. Adipose, Sycorax,
Raxacoricofallapatorius – I said it! Russell loves a
tongue-twister – and that's not just scandalous gossip, I'm
referring to the words. You just think of cool names. I haven't come
up with any names as good as those so the next time I see Russell
I'll ask him how he came up with those ones. I'm much more prosaic:
Weeping Angels.
[Question]
Will you watch the new series of Doctor Who with
Chris Chibnall as showrunner?
Of
course I'll watch the new series of Doctor
Who!
I know why you ask. Will it suddenly seem like I've been displaced
and what the hell is this show doing without me? I was fairly used to
watching it before I did it, so that's not a problem. But yes, I
think there'll be a few moments where I go, “Oh god, I was that
dispensable.” Of course, you wouldn't be human if you didn't do
that. At the same time, Doctor
Who,
personally and professionally, has always meant far too much to me
for me to allow it to become some sort of open wound that I can't
ever go anywhere near again. I want to get back behind the sofa and
watch it with the rest of you. I want it to be something lovely in my
life because it has been, as a show both to watch and to make. I'd
like it to be the show I used to make that I still love. So yes, you
bet I will.
[Question] How
do you make the decision to do something scary – the behind the
sofa thing – without it being too terrifying for children? I
watched the episode with the statues and, frankly, I was petrified!
Well,
I'm a coward. I can't actually watch properly scary movies. Mark
Gatiss loves them and is always recommending really scary films to
me. I'm always saying, “Why would I watch that? I'd be frightened
and I don't enjoy being frightened.” So I think if it's scary for
me, that's probably all right for an eight year-old. You're referring
to the Weeping Angels in Blink,
and I suppose they're not scary to me because I made them up and yes,
people seem to have been scared. But at the same time with the
scariness in Doctor
Who,
it's not just about monsters. It's about the man who fights monsters
without becoming one. Now, that's a very important story to tell
children. Children already have monsters in their nightmares, whether
or not Doctor Who
is
on. All that Doctor
Who adds
is a man who fights them without being one. I think that's the most
important story you can tell. We haven't added monsters. And
honestly, pull yourself together – it's for eight year-olds.
Really, sort yourself out. The Weeping Angels, are you kidding? “We'd
invade Earth but a moth saw us and everything's off. Don't look at
me! Too late!” Ridiculous.
[Question]
Do you think you'll do any cameos in Doctor Who?
No.
It would spoil it for me and for you. I am really terrible at acting.
It would be an offence to me. Many years ago, I did a kids' show
called Press Gang
and
they made me go around in the background in a couple of them. Oh, I
hated it. They make you do stuff over and over again. I just got so
bored. I kept trying to escape. Then Peter Davison made me “act”
– I use the word in its broadest definition – in his beautiful
The Five(ish)
Doctors.
I was in that as myself, a part that proved to be out of my range. I
hated doing that. I discovered I couldn't learn lines. I spent the
entire thing with a clipboard that I pretended to consult, which had
all my lines written on it. But I did discover something else. The
people around me on that had worked for me for years – years! –
and it was the first time they ever called me “sir” or got me a
cup of tea. Being an actor was much nicer in that sense. It was
suddenly, “Mr Moffat, would you come to set now?” It was like,
“You've known me for years! A cup of tea? Wow!”
[Question] I
always enjoy the historical stories – Pompeii, Shakespeare, things
like that. Is there a historical period you would have liked to have
done an episode about but never got round to?
Well,
I always try to avoid the historical ones because they meant I had to
go and read something – you couldn't just make it up. Of course,
the first two I did were World War Two and then Madame du Pompadour.
I had to read, oh, several
lines – it was shocking. Even then, I think I got everything wrong.
I think they were great great settings but I was always that
particularly lonely kid who only wanted Doctor
Who
to have more spaceships in it, more silvery things, robots and
uniforms, and people going, “Stop those robots!” But without
doubt, some of the best episodes are things like Vincent
and the Doctor.
[The person who
asked this question] That's my favourite.
Yes, it's a beautiful episode by Richard Curtis, it's wonderful.
You're right to like them but I was never desperate to do the
research.
[Question] Would
you consider returning to sitcom?
Possibly.
I did quite a few years of that, and I've now done quite a few years
of Doctor Who and
Sherlock.
I'd quite like to write something completely different, only because
– it's a weird thing – expertise makes you dull. The longer you
do something, the more on-the-shelf solutions you have to all the
problems you face. You get very expert and slick but you also lose
that becoming rawness you had when you were just messing about at the
beginning. I vividly remember writing The
Empty Child,
which was the first non-sitcom I'd written in probably a decade, and
having absolutely no idea what I was doing. I was wondering how a
fright worked, how you constructed a fright, how you did this kind of
exposition, how you constructed a scene without a punchline, and
trying to use what limited comedy skills I had and apply them. I was
thinking, “Well, you need a punchline but it's not a funny
punchline.” I remember working out that a fright is like a joke:
it's concealed set-up, concealed set-up, predictable but surprising
result. That's how a fright works, with exactly the same structure as
a joke. I'd quite like to do something so different that I'm
floundering again, that I have none of my microwaveable meal plot
solutions. That's making me sound really cynical and I don't mean to
be. The more you do something, the more expert you get but you can
get duller as well. I'd like to test myself again.
[Question] How
do you start scriptwriting?
Do
you mean how do you start writing a script, or how do you become a
scriptwriter? In one sense, you've never had it so good if you want
to make a film. If you have an idea for a script, you were always
able to write it – just write it. But now, if you want to make it,
you've got more camera and editing equipment on your smartphone than
we used to have to make Doctor
Who until
quite recently. If you make a really good film, you've got somewhere
to put it. You don't have to get a distributor, you can go to YouTube
or any of the other online services. Look at me, talking about the
modern world as if I knew anything about it! You can do all those
things, so don't hang about. The measure of being a writer, a
scriptwriter, a film-maker or TV-maker isn't whether you get paid for
it but whether you make it. If you want to do it, what's stopping
you? Why are you sitting there listening to me? Go and do it. I used
to make little films on 8mm. They were rubbish, absolutely terrible,
but they did feature a Doctor
Who/Sherlock
crossover
– the only one I'm ever going to make – with my sister playing
both parts. Go do it. In one sense, you've never had it so good. In
another sense, you've got a lot of people who aren't really experts
lecturing you from the internet every day. Turn that off. But go make
it.
[Question]
Where did the idea for Heaven Sent come
from, a Doctor-only episode?
Heaven
Sent was
a Peter Capaldi solo episode, where he's trapped in a giant castle
and has to punch his way through a diamond wall for 4.5 billion
years. Now I say that out loud, what was I thinking? It had always
bothered me about teleporters in sci-fi that it seemed you just got
burned up and a copy of you was made. But then that's what happens in
real life anyway, over time. You're not made of the same stuff you
were a mere seven years ago, so that's kind of okay. I'd also always
had the idea of repairing yourself with a teleporter. And I started
to think, “What can we do with Peter? What's specific about him?”
I'd written the big speech he makes in The
Zygon Inversion and
I thought, “If there's ever a character who could be on their own
for an episode just talking to themselves, it would be the Doctor.”
The Doctor's always talking to himself, whether or not there's
someone else in the room. I felt that if anyone could pull that off,
it would be Peter Capaldi. He could suffer enough for an entire cast,
with one anguished look from beneath those brows. So I thought that
could work. And again, a little like I was saying earlier, I wanted
to do something so difficult I didn't know how to do it, so I'd have
to invent a way to write it in the hope that it would be good. I'm
not saying it was but it was different. It's one of those episodes no
one ever gave a bad review to because they were frightened. They just
thought, “It looked awfully difficult so I can't criticise that.
That person worked tremendously hard: well done. But I hope it's
normal next week.”
[Question] Who
do you prefer out of Smith and Capaldi?
[After
a horrified “Oooh” from the audience.] There is no possible
preference. They are better than each other. No, you don't need to
make a list. You're going down the fan route. Don't ever make a list
of preferences, just say they're all brilliant. They're all equally
great. Or, if you must have a preference, how about a different one
every day? Today is a Jon Pertwee day! Today is a Tom Baker day! You
don't have to have one. Personally, I could never choose between
them. They're all brilliant and the genius of Doctor
Who is
that it allows the character to change so much that it is maximised
for each successive Doctor. Genuinely, hand on my heart, my favourite
Doctor is Doctor Who. Have you seen the other doctors? They all just
cure illnesses and hang around hospitals, and never fight marauding
aliens. They wouldn't know what to do with a robot. So no, no
preference. I couldn't have one. They're both amazing.
[Question]
What's your favourite monster that you created and what was the
inspiration for it?
I'd
have to say the Weeping Angels because they were so successful.
That's an influence. I really liked the Silents and the idea of
monsters you can't remember. And I quite like the monks that we're
all missing on television at the moment. But no, I think it's the
Weeping Angels. Where did I get from? We were at a hotel in Dorset
and there was a graveyard next to the hotel. The church was closed
down and the graveyard gates were all chained up with a big sign
saying, “Unsafe structure.” That seemed really frightening. I
went over and looked inside, and saw all these leaning gravestones
and one lamenting, weeping angel. I thought that was really creepy
and strange, and wondered if that was the unsafe structure. So a few
years later I wrote it up as Blink,
including the chained-up gate which we had at the very beginning. A
few years after that, I said to my son Joshua, “When we're back at
that hotel, let's go and look at that graveyard because in there is
the original Weeping Angel.” But it wasn't there! I'm not making
this up. It was gone – oh no! Now, there are two possible
explanations. One is that Weeping Angels are real and we're all
doomed – unless a moth sees them. Or, I misremembered and in my
fake memory created the Weeping Angel in that graveyard. Maybe I saw
it somewhere else. Assuming that was the case, I looked up “weeping
angels” on Google Images. But all I ever get are pictures from
shows I've made. So I don't think I invented the Weeping Angel, that
idea of the angel with wings, and its holding its face in its hands.
I saw that somewhere but I can't find it now because I cannot get
through the forest of Doctor
Who photographs
to the original. So that's where it came from – or possibly it's
real. She [the woman who asked the earlier question] would be in
trouble.
[Question] Can
you describe what it was like being the showrunner during the 50th
anniversary and writing the special?
It
was hell. It was awful. I remember going to a meeting where I said –
and if you're ever at a meeting like this, don't say this – “It'll
be this year's Olympics!” But without the money.” The level of
expectation from just about everybody was so insane. The BBC were
saying, “Well, obviously, this is going to be huge – but you
can't have any more money.” Every fan in the country – and I know
a lot of Doctor
Who fans
– was raging at me about not including William Hartnell. I was
trying to explain that he just doesn't answer his texts. He doesn't;
I've tried to get in touch. I was so stressed and miserable when
trying to write that episode, trying to make it both a party and a
decent story with some dramatic integrity to it, and trying to
satisfy all the different Doctors. Matt and David had very big roles,
but David would say, “Am I just the comic relief in this?” And
Matt would say, “David's got all the jokes!” So I'd say, “Do
you want to swap?” And they'd say, “No!” I can't remember
anything so stressful. There was a moment one evening when I was
going to phone up Ben Stephenson [who'd succeeded Jane Tranter as
Controller of Drama Commissioning] at the BBC and say, “I can't
finish this. I don't know what I'm doing.” Sue persuaded me to wait
until the next day. Sadly, I listened and continued to work. I can
just about watch it now without wanting to vomit but it was
terrifying. I was very relieved that it went down so well. That was a
lovely thing.
[Question] Do
you have a favourite episode from your time in charge?
Oh
god. I love Vincent
and the Doctor.
That's a wonderful episode. There are lots I really like. Maybe I'd
choose Vincent and
the Doctor because
it was such a tremendous thrill to get Richard Curtis to write Doctor
Who.
But there are quite a few... Tonight's! That's my favourite. Get out
and watch it. Go and watch tonight's – the one that's on right now,
which I am competing with. Me and Britain's
Got Talent
are ranged against Doctor
Who tonight.
Please all watch it before 2 o'clock in the morning because that will
count in the overnights.
[Question, from
a child] What's your second most favourite monster?
Okay,
right. I haven't actually told you what my favourite monster is. I
said that my favourite monster I've created is the Weeping Angel but
my favourite monster overall is of course the Daleks, because they're
best. And they're here and I don't want to argue with them. My second
favourite monster isn't the Weeping Angels, either. The Cybermen are
my second favourite monster. I'm a traditionalist, you see. I don't
hold with all this new Doctor
Who malarkey,
I like the old show. What's your favourite monster?
[The child] It's
either a Weeping Angel or a Dalek.
You're wrong: it's the Dalek. No, thank you. I'm very flattered and
pleased that you think the Weeping Angels might be as good as the
Daleks. They're not but I'm glad you think so. What do you think of
Cybermen?
[The child] I
don't really think I've watched that one.
[From next to
the child] He's only just starting watching.
Oh right. But they're all on iTunes. Come on!
[From nearby]
He's only seven.
Yeah, that's enough time.
[From nearby]
Could you choose one for him?
Oh.
Maybe The Tomb of the
Cybermen,
with Patrick Troughton from 1967. Yes, Cybermen are great. They'll be
on in a few weeks, the Cybermen. That's quite a good episode. Look
out for Cybermen. And watch lots more Doctor
Who.
Education? No, Doctor
Who.
[Question] Were
there any episodes that didn't turn out how you originally envisaged
them?
Well,
I suppose that's true to a greater or lesser extent of all of them.
At some point, every writer on Doctor
Who envisages
18 million clanking monsters coming over the hill. And then it's one
monster coming over the hill, saying “You 18 million, stay back
there – and keep your helmets on for no particular reason. I will
go and discuss this with the Doctor.” So to some degree all of
them. But the amazing thing about the Doctor
Who production
team is that they pretty much do anything we ask. Very often, things
come out better than I thought they would. As I was saying earlier,
it's hard on Doctor
Who.
When they finish just shooting and editing it, it looks terrible
because it then needs so much repair work from the CGI, the lighting,
the sorting and grading, and the music to make it the bold and
brilliant show that we know. There have been some, though I'd never
name them, where I felt they weren't what we set out to make. If I
say what those episodes are I'd upset people – including me. I'd
probably just cry in front of you. But there are other episodes that
came out much better. They soared. I remember being worried about The
Doctor's Wife for
a while and suddenly it just zoomed to the front. So mostly it's
better than I think and those occasions when it's worse I'm not
telling you. I'll leave a note after my death.
We've time for
one last question, so can we hear from Doctor Who right at the back?
His beard isn't canonical.
[Doctor Who] The
beginning of this year's series didn't have monsters in, it had oil
that wanted to get home and badly programmed robots. Was that a
concious decision, not to have a monster-of-the-week?
Well,
it did have monsters. It had a rationale for the monsters. If you saw
a puddle that followed you home, you'd think it was a monster,
Doctor. If you saw smiley-faced robots that turned you into
skeletons, you'd probably think that was a monster, too. I've never
really understood the idea – and think it's bad writing – when
you say the monsters are just evil. When as a writer you decide the
monsters are just evil, you have not shown up to work. A monster
wants something that it probably shouldn't want. Why and what for and
what's happening? If monsters are essentially just coming in and
shooting everybody, the Doctor has to become a soldier and that's his
least interesting look. If the monsters seem
to be soldiers rolling and clanking over everybody else but the
Doctor is clever and says, “No, look at it from over here, from
their point of view,” and you see that while what they're doing is
evil they are something much more interesting and intractable than
evil, then they have a point. Understanding that the people opposed
to everything about you and your way of life may have a point is far
more terrifying than believing in evil, and puts the Doctor at the
heart of the story as opposed to just running around blowing things
up. Which I also like. But also, at the beginning of this series he
offers the universe to Bill. He says, “Come with me, I'll show you
the wonders of the universe.” And it occurred to me that in most
Doctor Who stories
what he then does is lead companions down tunnels where people try to
kill them. So I thought it would be fun if she saw the nicer face of
the universe first and the Doctor in his most loveable form, where
he's the man who repairs that which has gone wrong, before we
introduced her to really, really nasty stuff. Again, I always say, I
want to know why the monsters want that. The stupidest fairy tale of
all is evil. It's not that there aren't evil things happening but
saying that people or monsters do evil things just because they're
evil isn't writing and isn't clever, because that's not how anything
ever works.
Thank you very
much, Steven Moffat.
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