"Harry Sullivan is an Imbecile!"…or so the Fourth Doctor once declared. But what exactly had Harry done to deserve such ridicule?
To commemorate the tenth anniversary last month of the sudden and sad loss of actor Ian Marter, we’re going to take a look at the adventures and character of Surgeon-Lieutenant Harry Sullivan.
He may have been warm and friendly, and often heroic, but Harry was also a bit dense. Loyalty, too, was a strong quality of his, and he was always there for the Doctor and Sarah Jane as they encountered the Wirrn, a lone Sontaran, Davros and the Daleks and even the Cybermen and the Zygons. Throughout Season 12 and a couple of appearances in Season 13, Harry Sullivan was the Doctor’s right hand man, perfect for helping out in scrapes and applying a bit of bedside manner.
Originally conceived as the action man of the show if an older actor was cast as the Doctor, the eventual casting of Tom Baker rendered this purpose relatively redundant. Harry was well loved by the fans, however, and then series producer Philip Hinchcliffe admitted that writing Harry out of the series when they did was probably a mistake.
With his undeniably old school British qualities of sportsmanship, a quick upper-cut to the chin and an eye for a pretty girl, Harry Sullivan appealed to viewers on several levels: he was heroic in the classic "Boy’s Own" style; his exploits physically tackling enemies bridged the gap with the previous incarnation of the Doctor and his Venusian Aikido; and he was very well portrayed by Ian Marter.
Marter died on his 42nd birthday, on October 28th 1986, suffering a heart attack following due to complications with diabetes. Prior to Doctor Who, Marter worked as an acting stage manager at Bristol Old Vic, as well as filling time as a teacher and a milkman. His appearances outside of Doctor Who include "Softly Softly", "Crown Court", "The Brothers", "Bergerac" and "The Return of Sherlock Holmes", the latter of which occurred shortly before his death. He also appeared in the short film "The Waterloo Bridge Handicap" alongside Leonard Rossiter, Gordon Kaye and Lynda Bellingham.
His first appearance in Doctor Who was as John Andrews in 1973’s The Carnival of Monsters, although his first attempt had been earlier, auditioning for the regular part of Captain Yates in 1971. After Doctor Who, Ian Marter became successful as a writer, producing adaptations of Doctor Who adventures such as Ark in Space, The Sontaran Experiment and adventures that didn’t feature Harry Sullivan such as The Rescue and The Invasion.
It was as a writer, too, that Marter continued a working relationship with Tom Baker, the two of them collaborating on the script "Doctor Who Meets Scratchman". Intended as a feature film, the plot concerned the Doctor meeting "Scratchman" (an old English term for the devil) and would culminate with a face off on a giant pinball machine. Certainly different, the film might well have been a key change of direction and media for Doctor Who, but sadly the situation with the British film industry in the 1970s – reduced to producing on the whole atrocious big screen versions of atrocious comedy series – resulting in "Doctor Who Meets Scratchman" being shelved indefinitely.
Marter also wrote a handful of movie adaptations, but most notable among his non-adaptation works for Target books was Harry Sullivan’s War, a story of Harry’s post-TARDIS adventures.
Harry Sullivan fulfilled an unusual role in Doctor Who, one that hadn’t been required since Ian Chesterton wandered into that junk yard. There is, however, more to it. Sullivan was much liked by viewers and fans alike, and Marter was liked by the production team. It seems strange then - regardless of Hinchcliffe’s regret later on – that Harry was written out. It’s presumable also that since it was rare for the Doctor to wield a gun or strike anyone that with these very actions taking place just weeks after Marter’s last appearance as Harry that Sullivan would have come in useful in The Seeds of Doom; simply the Doctor was just having a bad day?
Of course, too, there are parallels with the Doctor’s apparent tolerance of Harry with his later incarnation’s tolerance of Mickey Smith. "Imbecile" and "idiot" aren’t too far removed, are they?
Ian Marter holds a rare distinction in Doctor Who, being well-loved, an actor and writer who contributed a lot of time to the series, and one of only three writer/actors to have both written Doctor Who novels and appeared in the series (alongside Cyberleader David Banks who wrote the Virgin books Cyberman novel Iceberg and shortly Mark Gatiss who wrote Nightshade for the same series of books and will be appearing in front of the cameras in Series 3).
Many tributes have already been written to Ian Marter in the past. This is ours.
For further reading about Ian Marter’s work on the Target novelisations, I strongly suggest a read of Nicholas Whyte’s LiveJournal page.
Image by Tom Payne
