31 Who

The 31 Who title card

31 Who was a factual, entertainment magazine programme that ran on British Satellite Broadcasting's Galaxy Channel during its famous Doctor Who Weekend in September 1990. It served as a kind of "bumper" between the various serials being shown that weekend, offering moderated discussions on each story before it began. As such, it was one of the earliest examples of televised, behind-the-scenes Doctor Who commentary.

The name was a play on Galaxy's mainstream entertainment magazine programme, 31 West — itself a reference to the position of the Marco Polo satellite which broadcast the network's programming.

It was presented by Debbie Flint, Shyama Perera and John Nathan-Turner, who was likely the highest-profile presenter of 31 Who. Indeed, depending on when the 31 Who segments were filmed, it is possible that he was technically still the producer of Doctor Who at the time, since the Doctor Who production office didn't close until 1990.

Since the network folded little more than a year after the Doctor Who Weekend, it's unclear how many of these 31 Who segments still exist. However, what clips do exist are still technically copyright John Gau Productions, who was the head of programming at Galaxy.

Parts

On each day there were two main parts of the programme, a 15 minute edition in the morning and a 30 minute edition in the evening. Amongst these there were shorter bumpers between stories.

Saturday 22 September 1990

9:00am Morning edition (15 mins)

5:30pm Evening edition (30 mins)

This part featured an interview with Sylvester McCoy; a report from the Unicon 90 convention in Concord, California with interviews with John Levene and Doctor Who historian Eric Hoffman; a report on fan Andrew Beech about the DWAS and their meet up's in London's Fitzroy Tavern; a report about two sixth former's Adrian Himpson & Robert Moss from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, who organised their own convention called Whoniverse 90; and a Doctor Who quiz with contestants John Nathan-Turner, Jean Riddler, Andrew Beech and Jon Preddle.

Behind the scenes bumpers

There were seven short bumpers throughout the day.

Sunday 23 September 1990

9:00am Morning edition (15 mins)

5:15pm Evening edition (30 mins)

This part featured an interview with Pat Godfrey about the Sixth Doctor's coat and other costumes; a report on the BBC Radiophonic Workshop with Brian Hodgson & Dick Mills talking about how the TARDIS dematerialisation sound, Dalek voices and theme tune were created; interviews with Sylvester McCoy & Wendy Padbury; Sue Moore & Stephen Mansfield finished their demonstration on how they made the masks for the Haemovores for the previous years' The Curse of Fenric; Raymond Cusick & Barry Newbery talked about the design of the Daleks; and Peter Hawkins talked about voicing the Daleks.

Behind the scenes bumpers

There were four short bumpers throughout the day.

Home media releases

In 2003 two excepts from the programme were included on the official BBC DVD releases.

A 5 minute except called Modelling the Dead featured on The Curse of Fenric DVD, in which Sue Moore and Stephen Mansfield demonstrated how they made the Haemovore masks; and a 10 minute except called BSB's Doctor Who Weekend Highlights featured on The Three Doctors DVD, which included interviews with Bob Baker, David Martin, Nicholas Courtney, Terrance Dicks and Jon Pertwee about their memories about that story.

External links

• "A Continuous Panorama of Pure Entertainment": Chris Hughes on the forgotten broadcaster, BSB. December, 2008.