Sunday 30 January 2011

James Acheson -
Dressing Doctor Who

I had a nice surprise through my letterbox today: my copy of the Jon Pertwee story The Mutants on DVD (see right).
It is officially not out until Monday, so it was a bonus to get it a couple of days early.

I know it’s a Third Doctor release, but of considerable interest to Fourth Doctor fans is a 20 minute featurette talking to James Acheson. The Mutants was the first time he worked on the series, but of note he would later go on to design Tom Baker’s costume for Robot.



He talks at length about his work on The Three Doctors and dressing not only Jon Pertwee, but also William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton; about devising a suitable costume for Elizabeth Sladen on her inital outing as Sarah Jane in The Time Warriror; about perpex bowler hats for Carnival Of Monsters; building Giant Robots; creating the Zygons; going on wild goose chases for period costumes for The Masque Of Mandragora; before becoming disillusioned with his work on The Deadly Assassin.