Russell T Davies gives us the latest update from Doctor Who headquarters...

I know nothing.

Nothing. I walk around Wolf Studios and know nothing about what people do. Not a blinking thing. There are fleets of them, hordes of staff, the hardest-working crew in the land, all heaving, sweating, groaning, measuring, staring, hammering, bewailing. Doing what? I have no idea.

Case in point.

There’s a great set in the very last block of the 2024 series. It only appears for one scene. But a crucial scene! With a really lovely guest star, unseen by the public, unannounced in the press, cos the scene takes place secretly within the studio, so you’ve got a nice surprise to come. Oh, but this scene has been hotly debated. This much I know! Should it exist? Is it needed? It’s been in, it’s been out, it’s been reinstated, it’s been cut again. Until finally, it stayed, its in-and-out status betrayed by its designation, Scene 27B.

So I’m in the Art Department with Phil Sims, our designer. He shows me the design for Sc.27B, drawn up by Rhys Ifan, our senior art director. And it’s great, it’s lovely, it’s haunting and atmospheric and beautiful, but… I look at a pile of rocks in the drawing. And bear in mind that I know nothing, but I say, “Could that be… I don’t know, more?”

“More?”

“I don’t know, more.”

“More what?”

“Can it be… oh, I don’t know, an actual thing?”

“Most things are. What do you mean?”

“Like… ooh, like a statue? A fallen statue? That’s very modern, fallen statues!” I glow with my modernness.

Phil sighs and says, “Well, that wouldn’t fit. Look at the dimensions, there isn’t room for a statue. But what about a statue’s head?”

“Ooh,” I say, thrilled with my idea, “like a great big giant statue’s head. Great!” And then I spy a dog with a puffy tail and run after it. Leaving behind…

An awful lot of decisions.

Scene 27B is being shot in ten days’ time.

So! Phil asks Rhys to make some adjustments to the sketch, adding an eight-foot high, ancient sculpted head. Within a couple of hours, Rhys then sends Phil a sketch back (officially known as Head_Sketch2) which is great! And once that’s okayed, quickly, he draws up a revised sketch with precise dimensions.

Then our supervising art director, Robyn Paiba, asks the sculptors at Polypros if they have time, at short notice, to build a Giant Head and provide a quote. Please. Quickly. Please. They do! Quote provided, budgets rearranged, so Robyn commissions the Giant Head, plus additional matching rubble, as fast as she can, on Wednesday 31 May.

Bang, crash, saw, clatter. Four working days later, the Giant Head is delivered to Stage 3 of Wolf Studios at the end of Tuesday 6 June in all its polystyrene-and-polyurethane-coated glory. But wait, hold on, the design isn’t finished! Rhys sends Phil a Photoshop paintover of the head with an idea for blue markings on the face. Phil’s thinking fast, says, hmm, yes, wonderful, but maybe tone the blue down? Desaturate? But yes, off you go!

A team of painters then spends a couple of days sealing, texturing and painting the sculpt under Rhys’ supervision. Finally, on the day of the shoot, at 6.00am, Rhys and the set dressers haul the Giant Head into position on the set. They bed it into the floor with grit and rubble, and scatter dust all over it. They stand back. And it’s beautiful. They did it. Phew.

And then! Look! It’s me! Wandering onto the set. Coming to have a little shufti. (But really to meet the guest star, cos, y’know, famous, okay?)

So I stand there. I look around.

There’s a Giant Head!

“Oh!” I say. “That’s nice! It’s a Giant Head!”

A perspiring team nods.

I say, “That’s a good idea!”

More nods.

And then I say, “It’s amazing what you’ve got lying around, isn’t it? God, your job’s fun. Ooh look, there’s a famous person, bye bye!”

And off I go.

I. Know. Nothing.