An Adventure in Space and Time

An Adventure in Space and Time is a drama about how the science fiction series Doctor Who first came to be made by the BBC in 1963. At its centre are two people whose careers had stalled: the veteran actor William Hartnell, who was tired of being cast as a hard man, and Verity Lambert, an aspiring producer pushing against the limits placed on women in television. When the BBC needed to fill a Saturday early-evening slot, the head of drama, Sydney Newman, wanted a time-travel adventure aimed at children, and he handed Lambert the job of producing it. Working with a small group of collaborators, including the young director Waris Hussein, they set about putting the programme together, and what they made ran for decades.

The film was directed by Terry McDonough, his first feature, made before Damaged in 2024. Mark Gatiss wrote the screenplay, Matt Strevens produced, and the cast of thirty-two includes David Bradley as Hartnell, Jessica Raine as Lambert, Sacha Dhawan as Hussein, Brian Cox as Newman, Lesley Manville as Heather Hartnell and Jeff Rawle as Mervyn Pinfield.

Released in 2013, the same year the series marked its fiftieth anniversary, it runs eighty-three minutes. It holds an 8.2 rating from around 7,900 votes on IMDb, while on TMDB it sits at 7.7 from a much smaller number of votes, showing a strong response from viewers overall.