Sydney Newman

[on his inspiration for Doctor Who (1963)] We required a new programme that would bridge the state of mind of sports fans, and the teenage pop music audience, while attracting and holding the children's audience accustomed to their Saturday afternoon serial. It had to be a children's programme and still attract both teenagers and adults. Also, as a children's programme, I was intent upon it containing basic factual information that could be described as educational, or, at least, mind opening for them. So my first thought was of a time-space machine with contemporary characters who would be able to travel forward and backward in time, and inward and outward in space. All the stories were to be based on scientific or historical facts as we knew them at the time. Show less «

I came to Britain at a crucial time in 1958 when the seeds of Look Back in Anger (1959) were beginning to flower. I am proud that I played some part in the recognition that the working man was a fit subject for drama, and not just a comic foil in middle-class manners. Show less «

Damn the upper classes -- they don't even own televisions!