David Agnew (writer)

David Agnew was a pseudonym employed by Graham Williams and others. The BBC in the late 1970's took a dim view as to Producers and Script Editors commissioning themselves, so when the occasion did arise, then-Doctor Who Producer Williams disguised his actual authorship. 2 entertain did a tongue-in-cheek feature on The Invasion of Time DVD called The Elusive David Agnew, It was entitled this as David Agnew never turned up to meetings and when phoned a message had to be left. The featurette included Terrance Dicks stating that Agnew was a good friend of Robin Bland (the pseudonym Dicks used on The Brain of Morbius), and as a final joke the director credit on the featurette is given to Alan Smithee, the infamous pseudonym used for decades by Hollywood film and TV directors who wished to distance themselves from undesirable projects. (Ironically, however, two of the three Agnew scripts for Doctor Who -- The Invasion of Time and City of Death, far from being undesirable, are among the more fondly remembered storylines of the 1970s.

Contrary to the mystery perpetuated in The Elusive David Agnew, the identity of "Agnew" as pertaining to Doctor Who is known:


 * Anthony Read, (the Script Editor, at that time) collaborated with Graham Williams on the scripts for The Invasion of Time, written at the last minute to replace a script by David Weir which would have proved too expensive to film.


 * Douglas Adams (the then-current Script Editor) and Graham Williams on City of Death as a late replacement for David Fisher's A Gamble With Time.


 * The same team of Douglas Adams and Graham Williams on Shada, which was never completed due to an industrial action. Decades later, when Shada was remounted as a webcast production by Big Finish and the BBC's website, the on screen credit for the story was given to Adams.

As a joke, the short story Special Occasions: 4. Playing with Toys in Short Trips and Side Steps also had the pseudonym David Agnew.