Dr Who's abandoned Blackpool adventure

Blackpool Pleasure Beach has hosted some illustrious guests in its lifetime.

Gracie Fields filmed parts of Sing as You Go there in 1934, Marlene Dietrich road its Big Dipper that same year, while Chrissie Hind and The Pretenders were spotted enjoying its attractions in 1979.

And there have been many others.

In 1984 the park received a visit from none other than Doctor Who himself, in the form of Colin Baker.

He materialised to open the Space Invader ride, and this invite to cut the ribbon gave the BBC an idea for a Doctor Who adventure set in the resort’s amusement park.

Planned for screening in early 1986, The Nightmare Fair would have seen the Tardis arrive in Blackpool, the Doctor and his companion Peri (Nicola Bryant) deciding to give themselves a holiday.

However people have been going missing in the resort, and when visiting the Pleasure Beach the Doctor is captured by his old enemy the Celestial Toymaker (to have been played by Michael Gough).

The Doctor’s previous encounter with the Toymaker had been way back in his William Hartnell incarnation, when the villain was forcing captives to play deadly nursery games and turning the losers into toys.

This time he is tricking people into playing a video game which feeds on their souls when they lose to it, and from which he can generate powerful creature to take over the Earth.

Having used the amusement park to trial the device, he now proposes to have the game mass-produced in America and complete his conquest.

The serial was written by Graham Williams who had previously produced the series itself during the Tom Baker days of the late 1970s.

The villainous Toymaker had been created for a story 20 years earlier by Brian Hayles who was best known as a writer for The Archers!

Though only appearing in the series once, the Toymaker as played by Michael Gough remained popular with long standing fans and the actor readily agreed to reprising the role.

Apart from the Pleasure Beach itself, other planned locations included scenes of the Doctor and Peri enjoying themselves on the promenade, and south shore police station for a sequence where a teenage boy, Kevin, reports the disappearance of his brother last seen at the amusement park.

The question is did the Doctor defeat the Toymaker’s nefarious plan and save the Earth once again?

Unfortunately, television viewers never got to know.

Filming was all good to go in May 1985 when BBC Controller Michael Grade cancelled the planned entire season of Doctor Who in a cost cutting exercise which also included the axing of other old favourites such as Are You Being Served? and Crackerjack.

Grade did not anticipate the public backlash at shelving the ever popular Timelord.

Newspapers launched campaigns to save the series and Blackpool’s own record producer Ian Levine even released a charity single called Save Doctor Who, though Band Aid it wasn’t.

The BBC issued an assurance that the series was merely being rested and would return after an 18-month hold.

When it did the production team decided on a change of direction and a new format, and as a result The Nightmare Fair was never recommissioned.

Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant did get their holiday in Blackpool when appearing at the resort’s Doctor Who exhibition in the summer of 1985.

The pair followed in the footsteps of Jon Pertwee who opened the exhibition in 1974, and Tom Baker the day following his switch on of Blackpool illuminations, along with his then companions Elizabeth Sladen and Ian Marter.

However you cannot keep a good story down and The Blackpool based adventure resurfaced in 1991 as a novel written by Graham Williams from his own script.

In 2009 it was adapted into an audio play by John Ainsworth for release by Big Finish productions with Colin and Nicola reprising their roles, while David Bailie replaced Michael Gough as the Toymaker due to the actor’s ill health. So who knows? Maybe the story will be one day remade for television, and the resort paid a visit by Jodie Whittaker.