Cleops

Here’s a restoration, expansion and (in one case) colourisation of two #DoctorWho images from the 1964 Radio Times Christmas colour supplement ‘Barbara in Wonderland’ - the first is the main colour image as it appeared in the magazine and the second is an alternative shot used (in b&w) as a preview the week before. The full feature had a girl taking an Alice-style trip around BBC TV Centre and meeting all the stars of the day. Both photos show William Hartnell serving ‘tea’ (because of course tea always comes in a sinister glass bottle and is served from a ladle) to Babs Lord (later of Pan’s People fame) in what I assume is the TVC canteen, monitored by two Daleks in their DIOE splendour. And just look at the slapdash paint job on the Dalek Supreme! Luckily the preview pic had tons more vertical image to work with, and the four missing corners weren’t anything too complicated to recreate. At first glance you’d assume the shots were taken seconds apart as so much is identical between them, but there’s been some shifting of the background chairs, the teapot on the table has moved, and Babs’ bib is absent in the preview. Maybe they were stuck there for hours doing it… Oh and that thing hanging on the silver Dalek’s gun is Dr Who’s walking stick in case you were wondering.

Here’s another one of those tangentially #DoctorWho related image restorations that nobody in the whole wide world ever wanted, but which I felt strangely compelled to do anyway. After William Russell and Jacqueline Hill made it back to LONDON 1965™ they didn’t run for the hills but decided, rather sweetly, to do a touring play together. Here’s a publicity photo of the cast of ‘Separate Tables’ by Terence Rattigan from July 1965, taken during their successful run at the Leeds Grand Theatre. Forgive any weirdness - there really wasn’t much image information to work with in that halftone newsprint nightmare!