How did a low budget sci-fi show widely loathed by its creators the BBC go on to become a bedrock of British culture that means the world to millions of children and adults alike?

Today, the Doctor and his extraterrestrial enemies, sonic screwdriver, and magical blue box are instantly recognisable to almost anyone living on the British isles. But the story of Doctor Who is far more than the story of a family television programme that found its audience: it's the story of how folk heroes and myths are made, how society and the media have transformed over sixty years, and of how works of imagination have the ability to behave in ways that are weirdly and quite specifically like living things.

One of our most perceptive and original cultural commentators and an unabashed lifelong Whovian, John Higgs jumps into his TARDIS to take us on a journey through space and time all the way back to television centre in 1963...

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