Four separate Doctor Who stories you worked on. The first one was sort of late 1965, Galaxy
4. What do you remember about that one? That's the one with the chandlers. I was too ambitious,
I remember that. I tried to do too much, I tried to make it look too big. I wanted it
to look like a planet, a plain planet with very little stuff on it, just this open vast
colossal planet. And with some shots it worked, but it was too ambitious, I shouldn't have
done that. So it looked a bit of a muddle sometimes. But what about the chandlers, what
do you remember about designing the chandlers? Again I was too ambitious, always too ambitious.
I wanted this little thing on the floor to be able to come up, out, grow, almost naturally.
So this thing grew out of this little thing. But because of television and you haven't
got time, you never saw the thing grow up out of nothing, it was just there and it didn't
look natural. Some of the sets, the set photos that survived
the spaceship interiors, they look very good designs as well. Is there anything specific
you can remember about those interiors? Only that we hadn't got in contact, we weren't
talking. The costume designer wasn't on the same wavelength with the set designer, so
the costume designer produced three gold and silver women and my sets were all working
things and just didn't match at all. The following story was actually just a single
episode that featured the Daleks and you were co-designer on that with Ray Kuzik. What do
you remember about that? I can remember bits and bobs, lots of small
sets, nice atmosphere, pleasant, it was a pleasant show, not demanding in any way.
The next Doctor Who story you worked on was the following year, that was The Smugglers
directed by Julius Smith. What do you remember about that?
Went very well, everybody seemed to like the designs. I think it was a successful show,
what more do you want me to say? It's the one that was filmed in Cornwall,
do you remember anything about Cornwall? Oh yes, I nearly drowned the whole team. It
was difficult because we didn't have a big boat, we had a tiny boat and tried to make
it look bigger. I don't know if it worked, but the weather got worse and worse and we
had to go home before we got drowned, so we didn't get everything we should have done.
I think that was one of the first times in Doctor Who that extensive location filming
had been done, especially that far from London. You were actually involved with being out
on location, were you? Yes, we did a lot of building on that. They
got some very good shots and I don't know where they got the money from, but I think
it must have cost more money than usual being spent on so much time and money on sets. So
they did some very good shots. They look very good, what visual material
does survive looks very good. It's a pity you've lost all that one because
that was a good one. Your final encounter with the world of Doctor
Who was a Patrick Troughton story a couple of years later called The Invasion. This is
the one with the cyber planner, which is this object behind the door in Episode 1. What
do you remember about that particular thing? Well I just remember it was about 6 foot tall
and I just wanted to get as much different movement into it as possible, as many things
working and nearly all of them worked. So that worked very well. It looked magic and
mysterious and that worked. I understand you've been doing some writing
over recent years as well. Would you like to tell us a little bit about writing?
No, I mean, well yes, but it's not recent years. Once I left the BBC all my effort has
been to write the book on how to change the world. And everything I've been doing ever
since I left the BBC is how to get the book published and then how to use the book to
change the world. So it took me 30 years to get the book published, which I did, and now
it's just how to use the book to change the world. To end poverty it's called.
Have you had any feedback at all from your book?
Not really any. There's a group in the Midlands, I can't remember, which agrees, says it's
right, it re-writes economics. It's a new economics. It says that trade and industry
don't create wealth. Wealth is created by growing crops. And there is a group that agrees
with that, whose name I can't remember at the moment. And we are working together to
spread this idea and change the world.
So finally, apart from driving your book and trying to change the world, are there any
other unfulfilled ambitions that you've got?
No.
That's your singular ambition?
That's all I think about. That's what I want to do. Yes, that's all.
If you could somehow communicate with Richard Hunt from 40 years ago, would there be any
advice you'd give that younger Richard Hunt?
No I don't see. I don't see that he could have done anything different. He was what
he was and he had to do what he did and he grew out of that quite properly. And I don't
see he could have done it any differently.
Okay, I think we're about finished. Thank you very much for your time.
Pleasure. Thank you very much for asking.