This article was originally published in The Scotsman on 20th December 2011.
As
tireless overseer of the multi-award-winning Doctor
Who
and Sherlock,
two of Britain's biggest – and in the case of the former, most
globally successful – TV dramas, Steven Moffat's pre-eminent
position within the cultural firmament is at once impressive and
unenviable. “I never find any time to relax,” he sighs. “At
this very moment I'm supposed to be at a big lovely, boozy lunch that
I had to call off because I haven't finished this Doctor
Who
script that I'm very late on.”
Not
that he's necessarily complaining, you understand. Like his
predecessor on Doctor
Who,
Russell T. Davies, the Paisley-born writer has been a devoted fan of
the series since childhood, so it's little wonder that his slight
edge of weariness pales in comparison to his evident enjoyment of the
job.
Although he admits there are days
when he wants to run screaming from the room, he claims it's not
because of the programmes themselves as such. “All the stuff that
surrounds it can be... not so much bad as relentless. I have one of
those jobs that a lot of people have, where I check my emails in the
morning with trepidation. You know, is there a bomb in here, what am
I unwrapping today? But in the main I wouldn't be here if I didn't
love it.”
Although Moffat can often come across
as rather prickly in interviews, the man I speak to makes for
amusing and avuncular company. At the risk of sinking into armchair
psychology mode, he exhibits that not uncommon combination – at
least among creative types - of shyness, self-deprecation and bolshy
confidence. The latter is hardly surprising, given that he's one of
the most feted screenwriters of his generation, renowned for his sly
wit, quicksilver dialogue, vibrant imagination and ingenious
plotting.
But
it was that very audacity which led several of your actual adult
critics to complain that the most recent series of Doctor
Who
– Moffat's second in the showrunner chair – was far too
complicated for children. Unsurprisingly, he's having none of it.
“When
you say 'adult critics', there's about three,” he chuckles (he
chuckles a lot). “The truth is we don't have any audience feedback
about it being desperately hard to follow. All
the kids got who River Song was, all
the kids knew that the little girl regenerating would turn out to be
River. It really isn't that hard to follow. Because it was
momentarily more arc-based they decide to say it's too complicated.
Because Russell was gay they had to say it was all far too gay. No it
wasn't! If anything, I think Russell should be credited as the man
who made the Doctor definitively heterosexual. But it's just finding
something to say about it, they'll do it every year and you never
know what it's going to be.”
There
has been some confusion lately surrounding the scheduling of the next
series, with conflicting reports suggesting that not all of the 14
episodes will be shown in 2012. Can he clarify? “I can clarify that
we start shooting in mid-February, but literally I can't tell you
what the schedule is. What headlines are you planning for that time
of year? I've only just found out what the transmission schedule is
for Sherlock,
and I've finished making that. I've barely started writing Doctor
Who.
Loads of things about that are in flux, all for good reasons
actually.”
He
can confirm, however, that it's part of his grand-plan to remove
Doctor
Who
from its usual Spring/Summer slot and back to the Wintry habitat it
enjoyed when he was growing up. “It's done very well in the Summer,
it's not like we've ever suffered from it, but it's almost like an
aesthetic thing. If you're having to close the curtains so you can
see the screen, that's not a good time to be watching a show that's
largely about tunnels and torches. Somehow I think it's a show you
watch in the dark.”
As
for the 50th
anniversary in 2013, Moffat has already promised an appropriately
special episode, although when pressed he teasingly replies, “Why
talk in the singular? Again, genuinely, the plans are at an early
stage, but we have some very clear ideas about some of the things
we're doing, and I think Doctor
Who
fans and kids will think it's the best thing ever. We've got a load
of very big plans – the mere fact that we're talking about this two
years before the event should tell you how seriously we're taking
it.”
Fans are obviously clamouring for an
anniversary special featuring current incumbent Matt Smith alongside
many of the previous Doctors.
“Apparently,”
he shrugs, and chuckles again, with absolutely nothing more to say on
the matter.
Extracting
new information about the revived Doctor
Who
has never been easy. A magnet for rumour and misinformation, the
series attracted confusion
again recently when Harry Potter director David Yates claimed he was
making a rebooted movie version with an entirely different cast and
mythology.
“It's
completely inaccurate!” hoots Moffat, “there's nothing there! I
mean it would be lovely, yes. If anything, the only good bit about
this is that it might actually focus our minds on thinking that we
actually should do [a film]. But to state the bleeding obvious, it's
not going to be a different version of Doctor
Who
with two different Doctors at the same time. Of course not, we're not
that silly. That would be no way to run a franchise, would it? I'd
love it to happen, but that version you heard was just a guy getting
cornered on the red carpet and not really being on-message.”
When asked what it is that attracts
him to such flamboyant characters as the Doctor and Sherlock Holmes,
he unequivocally cites their mutual brainpower and thirst for
knowledge. That's perhaps hardly surprising coming from a former
schoolteacher.
“The
thing that unites both those shows is that they absolutely fetishise
intelligence. It's about being clever, and that being clever is a
good thing. In the Clarkson-isation of television I think it's rather
good that we have two very popular drama series that expect the
audience to be intelligent, and are right in that expectation. The
only superpower those two heroes have is the fact that they're
smarter than anybody else in the room. It says you don't have to be
the fastest, the best-looking, the sexiest, you can just be smart.
You don't often get the message, especially in American movies, that
smart is good, that smart doesn't have to be geeky and silly, it can
actually be amazing and powerful. And particularly in the case of the
Doctor, he's such a moral man, he's a good, clever man, that's all he
is. I think that's about as positive a message as you could possibly
give.”
The Doctor and Holmes aside, Moffat
also previously reinvented the tale of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde for
the BBC, and recently wrote the Tintin movie for Steven Spielberg and
Peter Jackson. Are there any other iconic fictional characters he'd
like to get his hands on?
“When
Mark [Gatiss, co-creator of Sherlock]
and I get together we discuss Doctor
Who,
Sherlock Holmes and James Bond, and I keep saying, 'Oh we can't do
James Bond, because there has to be something left that's still
fiction for us!' I love those films, but I think I shouldn't write
that because then I'll ruin James Bond for myself.”
It's probably just as well, as he
wouldn't have the time. Nevertheless, it looks as though he'll be
steering the adventures of the Time Lord for at least a while yet.
“I
genuinely haven't got a plan,” he claims, “except I'll probably
have to stop at some point or I'll die. And dying would be bad. But
my main concern is not so much how long I do it, but that I
absolutely, definitely am going to be handing it on to somebody else.
I want it to be in great shape, and some day I want somebody else to
come in and knock my socks off with what they do with it. You don't
want to be the last person in the relay race, do you?”
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