240 The Space Pirates: Episode Three

EPISODE: The Space Pirates: Episode Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 240
STORY NUMBER: 049
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 22 March 1969
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: Michael Hart
SCRIPT EDITOR: Derrick Sherwin
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
RATINGS: 6.4 million viewers
FORMAT: CD: Doctor Who: The Lost TV Episodes Volume 5 (1967-1969)

"That's what this whole spaceship's made of, tillium. Lasted me a lifetime round the galaxy. Makes a lousy cup of tea!"

Clancy has just stunned Jamie: he rescues them from the station segment, deploying copper needles which immobilise Major Warne's ship. Zoe works out where the space pirates went: The planet Ta where Clancy wishes to hide under the nose of Madeline Issigri. Pirate leader Craven orders his subordinate Dervish to route the space station segments to Lobos, where Clancy's headquarters is located, to throw suspicion on him. Once on Ta The Doctor, Jamie & Zoe leave the ship but are chased by pirate guards and end up falling down a chasm.

Oooooh Clancy is annoying! It's a somewhat eccentric performance from Gordon Gostelow with an awfully annoying accent! He's heavily featured in this episode which, combined with the rather rough quality of the audio recordings, makes it a job to follow what's going on. Thankfully I've found the scripts online!

Gostelow is not an actor I'm familiar with but, like Jack May who plays General Hermack, he appears in the acclaimed An Age of Kings BBC production of William Shakespeare plays.

Not a lot of the credited cast of this story have prior/future Who form. Donald Gee playing Major Warne in this Troughton's penultimate story later returns as Eckersley in The Monster of Peladon which is Pertwee's penultimate story.

One if the most recognisable faces here is obscured by a moustache the owner doesn't usually wear! George Layton (2nd March 1943) plays Technician Penn. Famed for his role as medical student Paul Collier in Doctor in the House he's got an extensive TV CV both writing and performing. He memorably appears as Australian Ray Stackpole in Golden Fleece & Trojan Bus, two episodes of The Sweeney.

Now we're back on audio we can pick up the story of how Phil listened to these episodes for the first version of this blog which was published daily.

As you'll know I try to watch/listen to an episode of Who every day, and then write about it. Sometimes I'll do more than one and that's why at time of writing, I'm 50 episodes in front (Enemy of the World 4 went up today) Having watched Space Pirates 2 at the weekend and thoroughly despised the experience, a train journey on a Bank Holiday Monday has given me the opportunity to deal with the remaining four episode of this story and the last four missing episodes. We start with Philip on Swindon station and Jamie lying on the floor.....