Robert Sloman

Robert Sloman (18 July 1926 – 24 October 2005) was an English actor who later worked at The Sunday Times circulation department for more than 20 years, becoming distribution manager; but is best known for his work as a writer for television.

Sloman was born in Oldham, Lancashire but his family moved to Plymouth when he was two years old. He attended Exeter University.^[1] In the early 1970s he made a significant contribution to the science fiction programme Doctor Who on the BBC. Together with then producer Barry Letts, he wrote four stories for the Jon Pertwee era on the programme: The Dæmons (credited as Guy Leopold);^[2] The Time Monster; The Green Death; and Planet of the Spiders, which was Pertwee's swan song.^[3] The first of these is often one of the most well regarded in the programme's history; while the others contained strong moral messages, especially the focus on pollution and globalisation in The Green Death. When The Green Death was released on DVD in 2004, Sloman contributed a feature on the writing of the story

Sloman had also planned to bring the Daleks back at the end of the third Pertwee season, Season 9, in a serial called The Daleks in London. This plan was dropped when the production staff realised that the show wouldn't have a hook for the start of the season to entice viewers, and Sloman's serial was allegedly shaping up to be too similar to The Dalek Invasion of Earth. Instead, writer Louis Marks was asked to alter his serial to include the Daleks – which became Day of the Daleks.^[4]

Robert Sloman also co-wrote two plays in the West End, both co-written with Laurence Dobie: The Golden Rivet, and The Tinker; the latter was later turned into a film, The Wild and the Willing, in 1962.

References

External links

• Robert Sloman at the Internet Movie Database
• The Guardian obituary by Doctor Who producer Barry Letts