This time we watched Tomorrow, the Rat — Episode 4 from Series 1 of Doomwatch, first broadcast 2 March 1970 and written by Terence Dudley. That’s four years before James Herbert published The Rats (which we covered in episode 4). It’s highly likely he was inspired by this vintage BBC sci-fi thriller—pen in hand, watching Doomwatch unfold.

Doomwatch was a vintage BBC science fiction series that aired from 1970 to 1972. A prime example of British sci-fi, it followed a government scientific agency led by Dr Spencer Quist (John Paul) investigating futuristic environmental and technological threats. Think of it as classic BBC sci-fi with serious Black Mirror energy.

The show was created by Doctor Who masterminds Gerry Davis and Kit Pedler—the very same duo who invented the Cybermen. Davis had been a Doctor Who story editor; Pedler served as scientific adviser. Their fascination with the dangers of science run amok became the foundation of Doomwatch, this cult BBC science fiction drama.

Series 1 and 2 each had thirteen episodes; Series 3 had twelve (though one, Sex and Violence, was never broadcast). The BBC got cold feet, possibly due to real execution footage and unflattering portrayals of public figures like Mary Whitehouse and Cliff Richard.

As with far too much vintage BBC content, parts of Doomwatch are missing—wiped or taped over. At its peak, the show pulled in over 13 million viewers, cementing its place in classic British sci-fi history.

Dr Quist was a Nobel-winning physicist haunted by his involvement in the Manhattan Project. (Yes, he appears in Oppenheimer.) John Paul, who played him, was a familiar face on British television: I, Claudius, Triangle, The Avengers, The New Avengers—proper BBC veteran.

Toby Wren, played by Robert Powell (who we talked about in episode 46, The Survivor), was a key figure in Series 1. He met a legendary end in the finale, Survival Code. Powell asked to go out with a bang—literally. The BBC received more letters about his on-screen death than any issue since World War II.

This episode, Tomorrow, the Rat, was written by Terence Dudley—then the producer of Doomwatch. Dudley directed three episodes and went on to work extensively in Doctor Who, including directing Meglos (1980), and writing Four to Doomsday, Black Orchid, and The King’s Demons. He also wrote Target novelisations and K-9 and Company. Classic vintage BBC sci-fi pedigree.

Simon Oates plays Dr John Ridge—you may remember him from Beasts (The Dummy episode, which we reviewed in 44a). He also played Steed in the stage version of The Avengers.

Penelope Lee appears as Dr Mary Bryant. She once auditioned to play Barbara, the Doctor’s original companion. She later voiced Lyn Driver in The Plague Dogs (a British animation not for the faint-hearted) and a computer in Doctor Who: Revelation of the Daleks. She also featured in Richard Donner’s Superman as the Ninth Elder. Peak British sci-fi credentials.

Hamilton Dyce turns up as the Minister. You might recognise him as Major General Scobie in Doctor Who: Spearhead from Space—another vintage BBC sci-fi staple.

And no, before you ask, none of this cast ever turned up in Boon.

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Sorry to audio-spam you all, but we've got two things on the go that we thought you might like to hear about:

First up, Jon’s teamed up with his designer mate Sean Rees to create a photography book celebrating his 25-year love affair with the South Wales Valleys. It’s 72 pages of full-colour images and B5 sized.

He’s currently crowdfunding it, so if you’d like to get a copy, head here:

👉 https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/valleys-photography-book

And secondly, the second issue of our General Witchfinders horror ’zine is now out!

76 pages of pagan rites, glam rock ghosts, Catholic dread, murderous roadies and more. Strange stories. Fantastic articles. Killer art.

You can pick one up here:

👉 https://ko-fi.com/s/b70a30924c

We’d love your support — whether it’s a purchase, a share, or just telling your spooky mates.

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In this episode of General Witchfinders, we take a close look at The Creeping Flesh (1973), a British horror film from cult studio Tigon British Film Productions. Best known for low-budget horror that ran alongside the likes of Hammer Horror and Amicus, Tigon was founded in 1966 by Tony Tenser and operated out of Hammer House on Wardour Street in London. This marks our first dive into their back catalogue—and what a place to start.

The Creeping Flesh stars Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee (#BigChrisLee) as brothers on opposing ends of a bizarre scientific discovery involving an ancient skeleton, reanimation, and some very shaky ideas about inherited evil. Lorna Heilbron plays opposite them as the increasingly disturbed Penelope.

The film was directed by Freddie Francis, a key figure in British horror cinema. Francis replaced Don Sharp at the last minute and brought his usual visual flair, having previously directed Paranoiac, The Evil of Frankenstein, Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, and Tales from the Crypt. He’s also better known in wider circles for his cinematography—earning two Academy Awards and five BAFTAs for work on Sons and Lovers, The Elephant Man, The Innocents, Return to Oz, and Glory. He also worked on Dune, Cape Fear, and even music videos for All Saints and Jimmy Nail.

Cinematographer Norman Warwick handled the visuals on The Creeping Flesh. Warwick was also behind the camera for The Abominable Dr. Phibes (see Episode 10), Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, and Confessions of a Window Cleaner. The film was shot at Shepperton Studios and Thorpe House in Surrey.

We believe The Creeping Flesh was the 20th film pairing Cushing and Lee, likely falling between Horror Express (Episode 7) and Nothing but the Night (Episode 42). We’re happy to be corrected—find us on BlueSky @generalwitch.

Subscribe, listen, and join us as we explore the world of British cult horror, Tigon films, and everything in between.

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Join us for Hammer’s Hands of the Ripper, a 1971 British horror film released as the second half of a double feature with Twins of Evil. Directed by Peter Sasdy, produced by Aida Young, and written by L.W. Davidson from a story by Edward Spencer Shew.

Making good use of the large Baker Street set at Pinewood Studios—left over from The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes—the production was denied permission to film its final scenes at St. Paul's Cathedral, so a replica was constructed instead. If the Pritchards' home and staircase look familiar, it’s because Hammer’s ever-resourceful set designers reused elements from The Curse of Frankenstein years earlier (see episode 2 of our podcast for more on that classic).

Director Peter Sasdy, who cited Hands of the Ripper as his favourite film, also directed the original Adrian Mole TV series (both The Secret Diary and The Growing Pains), three episodes of Hammer House of Horror, and two other Hammer features: Countess Dracula and Taste the Blood of Dracula (the latter coming to the podcast later this year, hopefully). Most monumentally, he directed the legendary BBC sci-fi thriller The Stone Tape (definitely check General Witchfinders number 5—our third most popular episode to date!).

Eric Porter stars as Doctor Pritchard. Renowned for his work in film, television, and theatre, he famously played Professor Moriarty opposite Jeremy Brett’s Sherlock Holmes and Soames Forsyte in The Forsyte Saga.

Angharad Rees plays Anna, the daughter of the Ripper. She appeared in Boon (take a drink), starred as Demelza in 28 episodes of Poldark, and, the year after Hands of the Ripper, featured in Under Milk Wood alongside Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole, and Elizabeth Taylor. She was made a Fellow of the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, had a pub named after her in Pontypridd (sadly now a card shop), and founded a Knightsbridge jewellery company, Angharad. Pieces she designed were featured in Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Wikipedia also notes she was once in a relationship with Alan Bates, which we mention only to plug episode 35, where we talked about The Shout.

Lynda "Nurse Gladys Emmanuel" Baron appears as Long Liz—a curious name choice considering Long Liz was an actual canonical Ripper victim. Here, she’s depicted alive and well (at least initially), years after Saucy Jack's supposed demise.

Baron appeared as a recurring character in both Coronation Street and EastEnders, and played three different characters in Doctor Who across three Doctors.

Dora Bryan turns up as Mrs Golding, one of two clairvoyants in the film. You may know her from 50 episodes of Last of the Summer Wine, Boon (drink), or as Helen in A Taste of Honey (written by Jon's mum's mate Shelagh Delaney). She (Dora, not Shelagh) also appeared in both a Carry On and a St Trinian's.

Lastly, Norman Bird pops up as the Police Inspector. If he looks familiar, it's because he had over 200 TV and 60 film roles. He was in Spywatch (as Mr Jenkins), Boon (drink), Woof!, Whack-O!, and Help! (with Stephen Mangan). He also did a stint in Jim Davidson’s Up the Elephant and Round the Castle—only mentioned because Ross was convinced it was alongside Marina Sirtis, but IMDb says she was in just one episode?

Anyway, back to Norman Bird. He appeared in The Adventure Game, Whistle Down the Wind, Steptoe and Son, Fawlty Towers, Please Sir!, and The Medusa Touch (on our long list since day one). He was Mr Braithwaite, the farmer, in Worzel Gummidge and voiced Bilbo in the 1978 Ralph Bakshi Lord of the Rings.

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Bear with us this month, listeners, as we take a left turn down Duckett's Passage to talk about something a little different from our usual classic British horror.

Nicholas Simon Lyndhurst, born April 1961, is an English actor who began his career as a child actor and is best known for his role as Rodney Trotter in the BBC sitcom Only Fools and Horses, which ran from 1981 to 2003.

PART ONE:

Tonight's first topic covers his role as the time-travelling bigamist Gary Sparrow in the British sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart. Created by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran and produced by the BBC, Goodnight Sweetheart ran from 1993 to 1999, broadcasting a total of six series.

The sitcom follows Gary Sparrow, an accidental time traveller living a double life through a time portal that connects 1990s London with 1940s wartime London. While the show's creators, who also made Birds of a Feather and The New Statesman, wrote most of the episodes, we chose to watch series six, episode one ("Mine's a Double") and episode five ("The 'Ouses in Between") because they had at least a tenuous link to our podcast's premise. These episodes were written by Gary Lawson and John Phelps (as a writing team) and Geoff Rowley, respectively.

‘Sweetheart featured Victor McGuire as Ron Wheatcroft, Gary's best friend in every episode of the show. McGuire is best known for playing Jack Boswell in Carla Lane's Bread. Related to our areas of interest, he appeared in an episode of Chernobyl, was a bar patron in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, played Police Officer No. 1 in 2005's Hellraiser: Hellworld, and portrayed Gerald Hardy in the 2012 Daniel Radcliffe version of The Woman in Black.

Dervla Kirwan played Gary's wartime love interest and later wife, Phoebe, in the first three series before being replaced by Elizabeth Carling. Carling was briefly engaged to Neil Morrissey, whom she met while both were in the oft-mentioned Boon; she also appeared alongside him in an episode of the BBC sitcom Men Behaving Badly. After ‘Sweetheart, she released an album of wartime covers, also titled Goodnight Sweetheart.

Similarly, the role of Gary's modern-day wife, Yvonne, was initially played by Michelle Holmes, who rose to prominence as Sue, one of the babysitters in Rita, Sue and Bob Too. After three seasons, she was replaced by Emma Amos, who appeared in Vera Drake, Bridget Jones's Diary, and an episode of Murder Most Horrid with Dawn French (cue Jon singing the theme tune). We've mentioned "Rear of the Year" a few times on this show, so it's worth noting that Amos was (according to Wikipedia — although Ross can't verify this) voted as having "TV's Best Legs" by readers of The Economist.

PART TWO:

We also listened to Channel Crossing by Rosemary Timperley. This was an episode of Haunted: Stories of the Supernatural, which ran for several years on the BBC World Service in the early 1980s and has since had a second life on Radio 4 Extra (thanks to Mysterious Magpie on YouTube for sharing some of these stories so we count listen to review it today).

Rosemary Timperley was an author of over sixty novels and hundreds of short stories and feature articles, best known for her classic ghost stories The Mistress in Black and Christmas Meeting. Although primarily a mainstream writer, Timperley wrote numerous short stories that explored different aspects of the supernatural. She was well known for editing five volumes in a series of ghost story anthologies. Timperley also wrote several acclaimed radio and television scripts, and her short story Harry has been adapted to film multiple times.

This episode featured Nicholas Lyndhurst as Jack, Peter Sallis as Edward, Patsy Rowlands as Frances, Gregory de Polnay as Gregory, and Sonia Fraser as Annabelle.

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It’s 17th February 1964 – You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ by The Righteous Brothers is at number one in the UK. Sir Alec Douglas-Home is Prime Minister, Beatlemania has erupted in the United States, Southampton has been granted city status (can you tell this script was running short?), and the Channel Tunnel Agreement was signed, with an estimated completion time of five years (though it would actually take 30). Meanwhile, at the cinema, released as a double feature with The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb, is today’s topic – The Gorgon.    

Anthony Nelson Keys, one of four filmmaking sons of comedian Nelson "Bunch" Keys, is well-known in this parish for a number of topics we’ve discussed before, including Quatermass and the Pit (Ep 34) and The Reptile (Ep 19). He joined Hammer in 1956 as an associate producer, later becoming a producer and occasional screenwriter. Keys also served as General Manager of Bray Studios in the 1960s and eventually co-founded Charlemagne Productions with Christopher Lee—or should that be production (singular)? As we know, they managed only one film together: Nothing but the Night (covered in Episode 42).     

Richard Pasco plays Paul Heitz. Late in his career, he starred as Tom Colley in The Watcher in the Woods, a favorite film from Ross’s youth that we must cover one day. Before that, he played Cardinal Richelieu in the 1966 TV adaptation of The Three Musketeers and Dr. Boris Zargo in Rasputin: The Mad Monk.    

#BigChrisLee appears as Professor Karl Meister, while his best buddy Peter Cushing plays Dr. Namaroff. Despite popular belief that they always worked together, the pair hadn’t shared the screen in four years before this production began.    

Barbara Shelley stars as Carla Hoffman. Born Barbara Teresa Kowin in 1932, Shelley appeared in over 100 films and TV series. She’s celebrated for her roles in horror classics like Village of the Damned, Dracula: Prince of Darkness, Rasputin: The Mad Monk, and Quatermass and the Pit.    

For the role of the monster, former ballerina Prudence Hyman was cast, as the creature was intended to float gracefully, almost like a wraith. (Spoiler alert!) Shelley had hoped to play her character’s Gorgon form herself for continuity and even suggested using a special wig with live green garden snakes for realism. Unfortunately, the idea was rejected due to budget and time constraints. After seeing the disappointing Gorgon effects in the final cut, Keys admitted to Shelley that her suggestion might have been the better choice. As #BigChrisLee quipped, “The only thing wrong with The Gorgon is the Gorgon!”    

Visually, this film is stunning, so let’s give a shoutout to Michael Reed’s cinematography and Bernard Robinson’s production design. Michael Reed’s CV includes Dracula: Prince of Darkness, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and five episodes of CITVs Press Gang. Meanwhile, Bernard Robinson designed some of Hammer’s greatest productions, spanning from the very first to the last of their classic horror films.    

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The original run of A Ghost Story for Christmas aired on the BBC from 1971 to 1978, bringing classic ghost stories to television and keeping alive the tradition of sharing supernatural tales during the Christmas season. 

In our journey through the series, we’ve covered A Warning to the Curious and The Signalman in Episode 21, Whistle and I’ll Come to You and Stigma in Episode 32, and The Stalls of Barchester alongside The Treasure of Abbot Thomas in Episodes 41a and 41b. 

Just five days ago, on Christmas Eve, we delved into The Ash Tree. If you missed it, you can find it in our podcast feed. And tonight, as we stand on the brink of the space year 2025, we’re excited to bring you Lost Hearts. 

Written by Robin Chapman, produced by Rosemary Hill, and directed by the series' creator Lawrence Gordon Clark, Lost Hearts is based on the 1895 ghost story of the same name by M.R. James. It first aired on BBC1 on December 25, 1973, marking the first installment in the series to be broadcast on Christmas Day itself—and one of only three to ever air on that date. 

Robin Chapman also wrote 30 episodes of Tales of the Unexpected. (Seek out episode 29, where good old Bernard Cribbins makes an appearance.) 

The film features Joseph O’Conor as Mr. Abney. O’Conor lent his voice to the narrator in (the best Muppet movie) The Dark Crystal, played Mr. Brownlow in Oliver! (cue James mentioning the exclamation point here), and portrayed the Coroner in The Gorgon—but more on that soon. 

Simon Gipps-Kent plays Stephen, the young protagonist. Tragically, Gipps-Kent passed away at just 28 years old. However, in his brief career, he appeared in several notable films and TV shows of interest to our listener. He played Paul in The Tomorrow People, had a brief role in Quadrophenia, portrayed Seth in the Doctor Who serial The Horns of Nimon, and starred in something called A Traveller in Time from 1978. which was filmed at Babington House, a farmhouse owned by the parents of Blue Peter presenter Simon Groom. 

In 2018, Severn Film Productions released a new adaptation of Lost Hearts, directed by Max Van De Banks. This version updated the story to the 1940s (and later 1953). After the death of Stephen’s parents, the young boy is evacuated to the countryside during World War II. Unusually, this production was filmed in two parts: the main elements were shot in 2005, while the beginning and ending scenes were filmed in 2016. Louis Newton, who played Stephen in 2005, returned to portray him as a young man recounting the events to his bride-to-be ten years later.

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A Ghost Story for Christmas is a series of annual British short films first broadcast on BBC One from 1971 to 1978, and sporadically revived by the BBC since 2005. With one exception, the original films were directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark and shot on 16 mm color film. The series aimed to adapt classic ghost stories for television, echoing the tradition of telling supernatural tales at Christmas.

So far, we’ve covered A Warning to the Curious and The Signalman in Episode 21, Whistle and I’ll Come to You and Stigma in Episode 32, and The Stalls of Barchester along with The Treasure of Abbot Thomas in Episodes 41a and 41b.

This year, we’re bringing you Lost Hearts on New Year’s Eve. But tonight, Christmas Eve—the traditional night for ghost stories—we’ll be discussing The Ash Tree.

Written for the screen by David Rudkin and based on M.R. James’s short story, The Ash Tree was directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark. Looking back at Clark’s credits, it’s surprising we haven’t mentioned that he also directed one of our favorite monkey-man TV drama events from the 1990s—Chimera. That’s definitely something we should cover, assuming we can find a way to watch it.

The Ash Tree aired on December 23, 1975, and featured Edward Petherbridge in the dual roles of Sir Richard and Sir Matthew. According to IMDb, Petherbridge began his career in 1961 and appeared in a wide range of film and TV roles. He’s apparently best known as the sharp and snooty sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey in The Dorothy L. Sayers Mysteries. Impressively, he kept working until 2017, with one of his final roles being the voice of a gentleman fish in one of Tim Burton’s Alice films.

The cast also included Preston Lockwood as Dr. Croome, Barbara Ewing as Anne Mothersole, and, happily for our status as a secret Doctor Who podcast (though perhaps less happily for James), Lalla Ward as Lady Augusta.

Barbara Ewing had an impressive career on the small screen, appearing in shows like Peak Practice, Casualty, The Bill, an episode of Hammer House of Horror, and even the Pertwee-fronted game show Whodunnit?. She also appeared in Chiller, a British horror/fantasy anthology series from 1995 that Ross has somehow never seen but seems to pop up constantly on people’s CVs. are you two aware of this and should we be covering it?) Beyond acting, Ewing is also an accomplished novelist, with nine books to her name. Her novel A Dangerous Vine even made the long list for the Orange Prize.

Lalla Ward had a fascinating career trajectory. Her first film after leaving the Central School of Speech and Drama was Hammer’s Vampire Circus. She was close friends with Douglas Adams, who famously took her as his date to a screening of The Empire Strikes Back in the early 1980s. Adams also introduced her to her second husband, Richard Dawkins (for whom she would later provide illustrations for his controversial books), at his 40th birthday party—they were the only two who showed up on time! Of course, her first husband was Tom Baker, with whom she starred in Doctor Who as the second incarnation of the Time Lady Romana from 1979 to 1981.

There really should be a General Witchfinders drinking game where you take a sip every time we mention someone in this next bit: In 2019, a modern-day audio adaptation of The Ash Tree was released by Bafflegab Productions. Written by Matthew Holness, it starred Amanda Abbington, Reece Shearsmith, and John Sessions.

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Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter is a 1974 British swashbuckling action horror film, written and directed by Brian Clemens in his directorial debut. Clemens was celebrated for his work as a screenwriter, particularly for his contributions to British television series. Prior to Captain Kronos, he wrote and produced Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde for Hammer. Other films he wrote that fall into and circle around our areas of interest include And Soon the Darkness (which he wrote with Dalek creator Terry Nation), See No Evil (the 1971 Mia Farrow film,), The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, The Watcher in the Woods (one of Disney's forays into horror and one of Ross's all-time favorites), and one of the most bizarre sequels of all time—Highlander II: The Quickening. According to his son Samuel, Clemens' last words were, "I did quite a good job," spoken after watching an episode of The Avengers.

In Captain Kronos, the titular character is played by Horst Janson, famous in Germany for his role in Salto Mortale, where he portrayed a trapeze artist. He later became familiar to younger audiences as "Horst" in Sesamstrasse, the German adaptation of Sesame Street, which he hosted from 1980 to 1983. The Captain's voice was dubbed in this film due to Janson's strong German accent, with Julian Holloway taking on the task. Holloway, who featured in eight Carry On films before moving into voice-over work, has recently voiced Prime Minister Almec and Admiral Kilian in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. He also appeared in Doctor Who's last story of the classic era, Survival. In 1976, he had a brief relationship with Tessa Dahl, daughter of Patricia Neal and Roald Dahl, which produced one daughter, the author and former model Sophie Dahl, who was born the following year.

The supporting cast includes John Carson as Dr. Marcus, a physician who enlists Kronos's help to investigate strange deaths in his village. Carson, often noted for his voice that bears a striking resemblance to James Mason’s, was a Hammer regular with appearances in Taste the Blood of Dracula and The Plague of the Zombies.

Caroline Munro appears as Carla, a Romanian girl who becomes Kronos's feisty sidekick. Known for her glamorous looks, Munro rose to fame as the "Lamb's Navy Rum" poster girl, a role she held for ten years. She initially caught Hammer’s attention through her work on The Abominable Dr. Phibes, where she played Vincent Price's silent, deceased wife, and its sequel Dr. Phibes Rises Again (check out episode 10 for our review of the first of those two "classics"). As well as this film, she of course appeared in the subject of our very first podcast episode, Dracula A.D. 1972. Outside Hammer, Munro went on to play the slave girl Margiana in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, the princess in At the Earth's Core, and the deadly Bond girl Naomi in The Spy Who Loved Me, turning down the role of Ursa in Superman to accept it.

The film’s score was composed by Laurie Johnson, who, from the 1960s to the 1980s, composed over fifty themes and scores, including the theme used on This Is Your Life (entitled "Gala Performance"), The Avengers (from 1965), Animal Magic (entitled "Las Vegas"), Jason King, The New Avengers, and The Professionals.

Though Captain Kronos was shot in 1972, it was delayed and eventually released in 1974. The film was intended to kick off a series featuring Kronos and his companions, but no sequels were made—although there have been a number of follow up comic book adventures.

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The Dæmons is the final story in the eighth season of Doctor Who, with Jon Pertwee playing the eponymous hero (see episode 48 covering The House That Dripped Blood for some fantastic Pertrivia). It aired over five weeks on BBC1 from 22 May to 19 June 1971.

In The Dæmons, the Master, played by Roger Delgado, awakens the ancient horned alien Azal, hoping to gain his immense power. Delgado, a close friend of Pertwee, worked extensively on stage, TV, film, and radio. His work included the BBC’s Quatermass II, Battle of the River Plate, Hammer's The Mummy's Shroud, and English dubbing for The Horror Express (see episode 7). He often played villains in British action-adventure series like Danger Man, The Saint, The Champions, and Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). Tragically, Delgado died in a car accident in Turkey while filming a Franco-German mini-series. He was only 55 years old.

The Dæmons began as an audition scene for Jo Grant, played by Katy Manning, and was later reworked into episode four. Manning attended Miss Dixon and Miss Wolfe's School for Girls, becoming close friends with Liza Minnelli. She socialized with stars like James Mason, Dirk Bogarde, and had tea with Noël Coward at The Savoy. As a teenager, she modeled for Biba and dated Jimi Hendrix, Richard Eyre, David Troughton, Derek Fowlds, Stewart Bevan, and Peter Bardens, Rod Stewart’s keyboard player.

Manning had a close bond with Pertwee, who would pick her up daily for filming, either in his car or on his motorbike, where she would ride pillion. They even raced with Dick Emery and Sir Ralph Richardson to see who could reach the BBC studios first. After three years on Doctor Who, Manning left to pursue other acting work. Pertwee was saddened by her departure, citing her exit and Delgado’s death as two major reasons for leaving the show a year later.

Producer Barry Letts wanted to write a story about black magic to tap into the zeitgeist of the Age of Aquarius and frighten young viewers. However, script editor Terrance Dicks had concerns it might be seen as Satanist. The story was revised to focus on a scientific threat with occult themes. Originally, the Master was to worship the demon in a church, but to avoid offending religious viewers, the scenes were moved to a crypt, later referred to as a cavern (though the set remained crypt-like). Letts co-wrote the script with playwright Robert Sloman under the pseudonym Guy Leopold, as the BBC frowned on production staff writing for their own shows.

Much of the serial was filmed on location in Aldbourne, Wiltshire, with two weeks allocated for filming—more than double the usual time—leading to more outdoor scenes.

The cast included comedy actress Damaris Hayman, who starred as Miss Hawthorne. Hayman had an interest in the supernatural and served as an unofficial adviser on the production. Her friend, a practicing witch, praised the accuracy of the scripts. Future Sooty puppeteer Matthew Corbett had a brief role in the final episode as a hooded coven member who objects to Jo’s sacrifice. Corbett, whose great-uncle was Harry Ramsden of fish-and-chip fame, had to change his name when joining the actors' union Equity, as there was already a Peter Corbett registered.

Studio taping for The Dæmons was completed on 16 May 1971, just weeks before the final episode aired. This episode included footage of a model church being blown up, which was so realistic that it prompted viewer complaints. If the clip of the Brigadier's helicopter crashing into the heat shield looks familiar, it was borrowed from the James Bond film From Russia with Love.

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