Quotes

I genuinely love the old series of Doctor Who (1963) and I especially went back in my mind to the 60s - you know their imagination back then was limitless. It's just now that we happen to have a chance that we have a nice budget and that we can actually show some of these things. In its heart Doctor Who (1963) was always this imaginative and it was always this big.

I love Doctor Who (1963) and I love the old Doctor Who (1963). But, even with all that love, you have to admit that the name of the programme had become a joke and its reputation had become a cheap joke at that - you know rubber monsters and shaky sets. And Chris (Christopher Eccleston), as one of the country's leading actors, by being willing to step up to the line and take on that part has proved himself to be magnificent and has turned it around. So now you get actors like David Tennant who is the next generation and just about one of the best actors in the world. David himself says he wouldn't have touched this part if Chris hadn't done it because the part had become a joke. But Chris has salvaged it and made it new.

[on The Talons of Weng-Chiang: Part One (1977)] Take The Talons of Weng Chiang, for example. Watch episode one. It's the best dialogue ever written. It's up there with Dennis Potter. By a man called Robert Holmes. When the history of television drama comes to be written, Robert Holmes won't be remembered at all because he only wrote genre stuff. And that, I reckon, is a real tragedy.

Before we started, we talked a lot about "eccentricity". Well, the Doctor's got two hearts. He's 900 years old. And he travels in time and space. He doesn't need funny clothes.

[on the death of Verity Lambert] There are a hundred people in Cardiff working on Doctor Who (2005) and millions of viewers, in particular many children, who love the program that Verity helped create. This is her legacy and we will never forget that.

If you channel-hop on a Saturday night, you're up against the big Light Entertainment shows, like Ant (Anthony McPartlin) and Dec (Declan Donnelly), with a shiny black floor and a huge audience. With background music behind everything. They're phenomenally loud, those shows, and I believe that's what draws an audience. So we decided to make Doctor Who (2005) really noisy.

[on Newsnight (1980)] I very rarely watch it, but, when I do, I end up throwing stuff at the screen. I think they're hugely pretentious. I saw them once reviewing The Lion King (1994), which is one of the most brilliant films ever made. And the snobbery, talking about Disney. I couldn't believe it.

There are still thousands closeted, but they are a proper little subset of gay life: 'out' 15-year-olds. It's the most magnificent shift in the whole culture.

[on introducing gay references to Doctor Who (2005)] I keep thinking, 'Where are the headlines about this in The Sun?'. There has been a cultural shift.

I was a child when Jon Pertwee handed over to Tom Baker. I was 11 when Jon Pertwee left and it broke my heart. But then along came Tom and he was just spectacular in it. We change our cast every year, and our viewing figures go up. It just proves that Doctor Who (2005) is bigger than any actor. I couldn't say David (David Tennant) was the best Doctor ever because you are talking to an old Doctor Who (1963) fan, and I love them all.

I have got about 27 ideas boiling in my head and that is the main reason why I've left. I love Doctor Who (2005) and I never want to go off it or get bored. Right now, I want to go and work on [Season] 5, but I know that means it is the right time to leave. I get a lot of people who want me to come and make a family drama for them, but having done Doctor Who (2005) I have done the best ... anything else would pale in comparison.

I'm ever so happy with Mine All Mine (2004). I suppose I could have written a depressing drama about cancer, but, instead, I wrote something lively, sexy and very Welsh.

[on reality TV shows] I love them, they are just fantastically riveting and anyone who suggests otherwise is a pretentious arsehole.

[on Queer as Folk (1999)] So there I was, having to defend myself against all manner of idiotic shock jocks on the radio and some very stern journalists, as well as the people of Gay Land who were horrified that I chose to depict homosexuals as people who liked drinking and shagging. I remember thinking I could either sink or be brilliant in this situation. I chose to be brilliant.

I hate the idea that I have to represent any particular section of society; I just write good telly, that's all.

[on casting for the part of Doctor Who (2005)] It's 12 hours a day, 6 days a week for 9 months of the year. If we cast someone who was 50 they'd be dead now.

[on The Ark in Space: Part One (1975)] Nothing creates terror and claustrophobia like the good old-fashioned walls of a BBC studio. You can almost hear the cameras hum. The regular cast make bubble-wrap truly terrifying, but in the unfamous, unsung guest cast, there are heroes. An actor called Wendy Williams creates a character who is frigid, humourless, ruthless, and eventually, through contact with the Doctor, completely human. I must have watched this a hundred times. It's not enough.

It seems a bit easy to condemn both John Inman and Mr Humphries for the failings of a bygone age. As a young, gay viewer, back then, I loved that character, and even watching it now, it strikes me that in a sitcom full of failure and frustration - as the best British sitcoms are - Mr Humphries was the only one with an active, successful sex life. He's the only character in Are You Being Served? (1972) who is essentially happy. And that's how I will remember him.

Drama's not safe and it's not pretty and it's not kind. People expect the basic template of television drama where there might be naughty villains, but everyone ends up having a nice cup of tea. You've got to do big moral choices and show the terrible things people do in terrible situations. Drama is failing if it doesn't do that.

[on the death of Barry Letts] The whole of the Doctor Who (2005) production team took pause when we heard this sad news. None of us would be here without Barry's brilliant work in the 1970s. As a child, his show filled my eyes and my heart and my mind; he fostered the imagination of an entire generation, and his work will never be forgotten.

I've watched all 26 years of the show's original run - I have, literally, seen just about every episode there is to be seen - so I'm quite adept at the shorthand of science-fiction. I know my way out of situations. I might accidentally find myself writing something that the Third Doctor did in 1972 - you know, to help speed up the plot, if a character is stuck in a room or a conversation is going on too long. There's like 26 years of research that went into Doctor Who (1963) before I did it. That's a great pool of talent and resources to rely on.

The marvelous thing about Doctor Who (2005) is that it tells stories that no-one else can tell.

I've never been to a convention. As much as I love Doctor Who (2005), I'm not giving up another weekend to it - I lost every weekend for six years.

I remember the regeneration of William Hartnell, so I've seen all 11 Doctors and it's always slightly contradicted itself. If you're determined to be rigid in your continuity, it doesn't make much sense to be a Doctor Who (2005) fan because you're never going to be happy. It's almost 50 years old but essentially it's still the same story without a reboot or cannibalization. We're so lucky as fans to have that.

It transmitted the day after September 11 and no one wanted to watch an ITV comedy drama - we all thought we were getting anthrax in the post. The first episode of that is the best thing I've ever written. They repeat every other show on ITV3 but where's Bob & Rose (2001)?

He was brilliant in that role and that show changed my career - I wouldn't have had Doctor Who (2005) without it. We auditioned every male actor under 30 in Britain for that and Aidan Gillen stole it.

It's tough and it should be tough - it should never be easy to be given millions of pounds to make a drama. The coalition government is doing terrible things to the BBC but drama will survive even if we end up putting on a play in a backroom of a pub.

I don't want to do more science fiction but I get offered a lot of it. Every week someone phones up saying: 'Do you want to reinvent Lost in Space (1965)?'

[on Doctor Who (2005)] There is no way you could go back to the old production values, and they worked very, very hard under very difficult circumstances, bless those people who made the old show, but now you've got Buffy [Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997)] and Smallville (2001) and all those wonderful shows, and Harry Potter films and my nephews and nieces have watched the Harry Potter films just on constant rewind, and so you've got to be able to match that and give something new to it as well.

[on why Doctor Who (1963) acquired a big gay following despite its sometimes poor production values] It takes a lot of nerve and a lot of work to love Doctor Who (1963). I'm going to be really bold now and say you've got to be cleverer than the normal viewer. You've got to take more of a risk, you've got to invest in it. Because you need to fill those gaps where it's looking cheap or it's looking poor. It's a very imaginative act to watch Doctor Who (1963). And I think gay people are better and cleverer and more imaginative than anyone else!

[Doctor Who Magazine in 1999, on a potential revival of the series] God help anyone in charge of bringing it back - what a responsibility!

[on his adaptation A Midsummer Night's Dream (2016)] I do remember... um, what's her name? That "Apprentice" woman... Katie Hopkins, complaining in the Daily Mail about the fact that Titania and Hippolyta had a kiss, that they shared a lesbian kiss. She said it's wrong and it's corrupting Shakespeare. This is a drama in which a woman falls in love with a donkey. [laughs] Come on, woman! [laughs]