- Born
- Died
- Birth nameTerrance William Dicks
- Nickname
- Uncle Terrance
- Born in East Ham, London, England in 1935, Terrance Dicks was educated at the local grammar school and went on to study English at Downing College, Cambridge. After two years' National Service in the British Army, he got a job as an advertising copywriter. This lasted for five years, during which time he started writing radio scripts as a sideline. Eventually he switched to full-time freelance writing, first on plays and comedy series for radio and then in television on programmes including The Avengers (1961) and Crossroads (1964).
He became a junior script editor on Doctor Who (1963) towards the end of the Patrick Troughton era, working under producer Peter Bryant and script editor Derrick Sherwin. During this period he has said that he felt like "something of a spare part", although he would make a very significant contribution in bringing Robert Holmes to the series, who would go on to become the series' most popular writer. Dicks also co-wrote (with Malcolm Hulke) Troughton's final story, the epic The War Games: Episode One (1969). Following the departure from the series of Bryant and Sherwin in 1969, Dicks formed a close working relationship with the next producer, Barry Letts, and they were responsible for the five popular seasons which starred Jon Pertwee as the Doctor. During this period they also co-created the science fiction flop Moonbase 3 (1973), which lasted just one series.
After writing Tom Baker's debut story Robot: Part One (1974), Dicks returned to a freelance writing career. He also script-edited some of the BBC's classic serials, which reunited him with Letts as producer on the likes of Great Expectations (1981) and Jane Eyre (1983). He was also made a producer for the first time on the highly popular Oliver Twist (1985), which according to Dicks saved the classic serial strand from Michael Grade's axe when he was controller of BBC One.
Dicks made two contributions to Doctor Who (1963) during the John Nathan-Turner years in the 1980s despite the producer's reluctance to use established writers. He wrote State of Decay: Part One (1980) and agreed to pen the 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors (1983) when Robert Holmes turned it down. He has also written two spin-off plays, "Doctor Who and the Daleks in Seven Keys to Doomsday" in 1974 and "Doctor Who - The Ultimate Adventure" in 1989. He has written well over fifty novelizations of televised serials and several original Doctor Who (1963) novels for Virgin's "The New Adventures" range. Today he is, among his other writing projects, one of the UK's most prolific authors of children's fiction.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous
- SpouseElsa Germaney(1963 - August 29, 2019) (his death, 3 children)
- In the mid 1990s, a parody Doctor Who (1963) fanzine called "Auton" printed a telephone conversation with Dicks in which they pretended to represent a group of fans presenting him with an award for being a "Criminally Underrated National Treasure". The humour, for those who fail to spot it, lies in the initials of the award's name.
- He was a very good friend of writer Malcolm Hulke, who helped him start his own career as a writer. He has called Hulke his mentor in the business and later commissioned several scripts from him during his time as script editor of Doctor Who (1963).
- Following his death, author Jenny Colgan expressed her surprise that he had never even received an OBE for his efforts in introducing so many children, especially boys, to reading books. In fact, he hadn't even received the lowest honour, an MBE.
- Although Barry Letts and Dudley Simpson both received tributes upon their deaths from BBC Radio 4's "Last Word", Terrance Dicks' death was ignored.
- I always said Bill Hartnell (William Hartnell) played him (Doctor Who (1963)) as a grumpy old man because he was a grumpy old man.
- I always used to say about Mary Whitehouse, if there's one thing she hated more than sex, it was Doctor Who (1963).
- I'm no great believer in rewrites anyway. During my time there was a programme called "The Ambassadors of Death", which David Whitaker - a very good writer - had done four or five rewrites and the show wasn't getting better, it was getting worse. You know the kind of Hollywood type thing where you have several writers and seventeen drafts and it's all crap. I've always felt that in an efficient operation, you do two drafts. You write your first draft and the script editor and the producer and maybe the director comment on it and you go and write your second draft and that should do as a writer.
- It turned out I had a ghastly talent for doing soap operas! Soap opera is fun, it's innocuous entertainment, but it's fat really. What's astonishing and I guess a part of worldwide 'dumbing down' is the way it's taken over the television schedule in Britain. Five of the top shows are now soap operas. Crossroads (1964) was unique because it was the first soap opera. It was never very good. It was very cheap but people loved soap opera. And the company that produced it hated it and wanted to get rid of it but it kept coming to the top of the ratings every week. In those days, the BBC would never have done a soap opera, it was like pornography, and now they live on EastEnders (1985). I have a saying that 'all drama tends inexorably to soap opera'. There are disguised soap operas all over television.
- Never let the actors get above themselves. The idea of a Pertwee (Jon Pertwee) or a Tom Baker directing a Doctor Who (1963) would strike terror in us. You must never let the inmates run the asylum.
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