RWCMD’s Adventures with The Doctor

As the 50^th anniversary of the world’s most famous Doctor approaches, we thought we’d indulge in a bit of time-travelling ourselves and revist the College’s links with one of television’s most iconic series.

When Doctor Who first returned to our screens in 2005, RWCMD Fellow Edward Thomas (pictured above) was the show’s designer. Ed recruited dozens of our theatre design students and graduates to work on the show.

Writer Russell T Davies said: “The way [Ed Thomas] introduces work experience schemes and gets students involved is phenomenal. They’ve had 32 graduates from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama alone going through the doors, 15 of whom are now on contract, not just work experience. The scheme he has initiated is the most extraordinary and revolutionary scheme and should be adopted by every drama department in the country.”

James North is one of the graduates who worked on the show, and went on to carve out a successful career in television. He explains:

“I joined the series as Assistant Supervising Art Director in 2006 at the start of Season Two. It was my first role in TV and I soon learned the ropes under the watchful eye of Stephen Nicholas and Edward Thomas, who ran the Art Department at the time.

Then, ten months later, Russell T Davies announced the beginning of the Torchwood series and our brief changed completely; we were now designing and shooting two high-profile shows at the same time and this quickly became three with the arrival of The Sarah Jane Adventures. I became the Associate Designer on Season Three.

RWCMD gave me the practical experience, work ethic, and technical ability to sit anywhere within a TV art department. I’m still Edward’s Associate Designer, and we’ve just finished working on the second seriesof the Starz/BBC Wordwide co-production Da Vinci’s Demons – another huge creative adventure. It’s no surprise that on this production, which has an art department of 50, we’ve had 15 RWCMD graduates working with us on a permanent basis and many more ad-hoc additions.”