Mervyn Pinfield

Mervyn Pinfield
Birth date:	28 February 1912
Death date:	20 May 1966
Work in the DWU
Main jobs:	Associate producer, Director
Main time period active:	1963-1965
Career highlights
Notable non-DWU work:	Starr and Company, The Franchise Affair, The Monsters, Compact
IMDb profile

Mervyn Pinfield (born Reginald Mervyn Pinfield on 28 February 1912 in Evesham, Worcestershire, died 20 May 1966) was the associate producer of Doctor Who from An Unearthly Child to The Romans. He also directed episodes of The Sensorites, (episodes 1-4) Planet of Giants (episodes 1 and 2) and all the episodes of The Space Museum.

Although uncredited, he began directing duties on Galaxy 4 before Derek Martinus took over the remainder of the production as a result of ill-health preventing him being fully commit to the story. (DCOM: The Trouble with Chumblies)

Career

Before working on Who, Pinfield developed an early prompter system similar to autocue which he called the piniprompter.

His non-Doctor Who directing credits include The Monsters, The Franchise Affair and Compact. Before joining the BBC early in the 1950s to work on live drama at Alexandra Palace, he spent over four years in "weekly rep" as director/theatre manager at the Royalty Theatre, Morecambe.

Assigned to Doctor Who because of his technical experience, he was originally intended to assist the young and inexperienced producer Verity Lambert. However, Pinfield's role became more advisory in nature after Lambert proved herself to be a competent producer. (INFO: The Sensorites)

Mervyn Pinfield in the title sequence test footage.

He performed for the face insert test footage of the original title sequence that was considered too scary by Verity Lambert, along with Jim Stephens. This is instead attributed to Tony Halfpenny in the documentary Origins.

Pinfield was originally supposed to direct Galaxy 4 and Mission to the Unknown, but fell ill while conducting pre-filming for the former at Ealing Studios. (TCH 5) He did direct some of the film inserts that were eventually used in Galaxy 4. (DWMSE 7)

Out of all the people who worked on Doctor Who, his death was one of the earliest to occur over the long history of its production, less than three years after it had debuted.

Death

The INFO text on the 2010 DVD release of The Space Museum erroneously gives Pinfield's date of death as 20 August 1966. However, TCH 5 and other sources have given his actual death date of 20 May 1966.

Legacy

He was portrayed by Jeff Rawle in the 50th anniversary docudrama An Adventure in Space and Time.

External links

• Mervyn Pinfield at the Internet Movie Database