EXCLUSIVE: Doctor Who expert lifts lid on set’s props and how stars break them
Propmaker Nick Robatto recalls the moment Matt Smith destroyed a sonic screwdriver - who took two painstaking weeks to craft - in seconds on a beach while filming iconic series Dr Who
With a flick of Matt Smith’s wrist, the sonic screwdriver tip flew into the air and landed on the beach, destroying two weeks of hard work in an instant.
Another Doctor Who prop painstakingly made by expert Nick Robatto was broken. The 45-year-old laughs off the destruction and says: “You have to try to make them actor proof.” On the eve of a series of specials this weekend to mark Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary, Nick lifts the lid on the creation of props for the show he has worked on since 2004. Apart from the sonic screwdriver, he has also made the vortex manipulator, psychic paper and sonic TARDIS docking port at his workshop in
Barry Island
, South Wales.
And he is behind many of the larger props on the set of the show. But not all involved complicated techniques or expensive materials. Nick says: “I had to make a huge Dalek laser that was mounted on the ceiling. Around this laser was like a big ring, and I thought, ‘How the heck, am I going to make the ring?’
Mirror’s Lydia with Nick and sonic screwdriver (
Rowan Griffiths / Daily Mirror)
“I was at home and I just looked around the room, I always look around and kind of get influenced by shapes, and in the corner was my daughter’s hula hoop. So I nicked it and that solved the problem. I sprayed it up and just kind of made some fancy brackets and stuck it on. Nobody knew. I was really lucky to make the TARDIS console when Peter Capaldi was the Doctor. I did a big machine early on, the GMD (genetic manipulation device), which is the size of this room. It is a massive anti-aging chamber.”
But despite his hard work, often props Nick makes do not make the final edit. He adds: “You have to look at it as just a job. These things get binned, a lot of them. The problem with making things for TV is you don’t get enough time.” Nick will now be busy getting to work making replicas of the newest incarnation of the 14th Doctor’s sonic screwdriver. The device first appeared on the show in 1968 and has been seen by a host of stars over the years, including Catherine Tate as Donna Noble and Karen Gillan, who played Amy Pond.
The 14th and latest Doctor’s screwdriver (
Rowan Griffiths / Daily Mirror)
It has been used for everything from tracking alien life to repairing the TARDIS by Doctors including Tennant and Matt Smith. A model of the new one to be used by David Tennant as he returns to the role, will cost fans £1,452. The screwdriver is made from more than 60 parts, using aluminium, brass, leather, resin, stainless steel and nickel, as well as some electronic components.
Tennant and Catherine Tate in BBC special show (
BBC Studios/Bad Wolf)
Nick, who studied product design at Bournemouth University before getting a job on Doctor Who in Cardiff, says: “I get people telling me they carry their sonic screwdriver around with them. They say the thing gives me loads of confidence. When The Doctor Who Experience was open in Cardiff there were loads of Americans coming over to see it. People would come on their honeymoon with their tardis T-shirts on to have a chat.”
Nick, who has worked on Doctor Who spin-offs Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures, also makes ceramics and was a contestant on Channel 4 ’s The Big Pottery Throw Down in 2022. He now runs his Rubbertoe Replicas website.
30 facts… Who knew?
1 Hollywood film director Ridley Scott at the BBC in the 1960s and was originally assigned to design the Daleks – but a clash of dates meant he couldn’t.
The Daleks are instantly recognisable (
Publicity picture)
2 Fourth and Seventh Doctors Tom Baker and Sylvester McCoy originally planned to have careers as monks.
3 David Tennant’s first appearance in a Doctor Who adventure came in an audio story, Colditz, in October 2001, playing a Nazi in a Sylvester McCoy story.
4 Peter Capaldi featured in a local newspaper, the Bishopbriggs Times in 1975, as a super fan of Doctor Who, including pictures of him with Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker.
Paul McGann as The Doctor and Daphne Ashbrook as Dr Grace Holloway (
BBC)
5 Paul McGann became the Eighth Doctor for the 1996 TV Movie – but among the unsuccessful people to audition for the role was his own brother, Mark.
6 Patrick Troughton’s sons David and Michael have appeared in the show, David appearing three times, starting in 1967, with Michael debuting in 2014.
7 Christopher Eccleston’s first part after leaving Doctor Who was in US show Heroes – and his catchphrase of “Fantastic!” was including in his new role.
8 Jon Pertwee worked alongside James Bond creator Ian Fleming during his spell with Naval Intelligence in the Second World War.
9 Patrick Troughton served in the Royal Navy during the war, and survived his ship being torpedoed.
Tom Baker as Dr Who (
BBC)
10 Oscar-nominee Carey Mulligan appeared in Doctor Who episode Blink, which introduced the Weeping Angels, playing Sally Sparrow, in 2007.
11 Future Spider-Man Andrew Garfield featured in another David Tennant adventure, Evolution of the Daleks, also in 2007.
12 Future Who writers including Russell T Davies and Mark Gatiss has their first stories with the Time Lord published in the New Adventures novels in the 1990s.
13 Future showrunner Steven Moffat took part in a Doctor Who short story collection in 1996 with Continuity Errors – partly reworked as A Christmas Carol for Matt Smith.
14 Moffat also reworked a story from the 2006 Doctor Who Annual, What I Did On My Christmas Holidays by Sally Sparrow, as the TV episode Blink.
15 Rowan Atkinson, Richard E Grant, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant and Joanna Lumley all played the Doctor in a 1999 Comic Relief story, The Curse of Fatal Death.
William Hartnell was the first Doctor (
BBC/Hal Shinnie)
16 Richard E Grant also played the Doctor in a 2003 animation The Scream of the Shalka, with a cameo from David Tennant.
17 When David Tennant was a little boy, he once asked his granny to knit him a cricket jumper like Fifth Doctor Peter Davison – now his father in law.
18 Pretty Woman star Julia Roberts’ brother Eric played the Master in the 1996 TV Movie – beating Back To The Future’s Christopher Lloyd to the part.
19 When Matt Smith and Karen Gillan filmed their final scene together before he regenerated, both actors were wearing wigs, having both had their heads shaved for recent film parts.
Smith and Gillan in 2013 (
PA)
20 Russell T Davies has borrowed story ideas from previously published Doctor Who novels, audio adventures and comic strips – David Tennant’s return this weekend is based on a 1980 strip The Star Beast.
21 Although Paul McGann has only featured in one full-length story, he has made two brief returns on television, and in more than 150 original audio adventures.
22 William Hartnell’s time as Doctor Who was made into a biopic in 2013, written by Mark Gatiss, with Harry Potter star David Bradley playing Hartnell. Bradley has since appeared as the Doctor in the TV show on several occasions.
23 Sixth Doctor Colin Baker appeared in 1983 story Arc of Infinity as a Time Lord commander who shot Peter Davison’s Doctor. He took over in the TARDIS a year later.
24 Future Doctor Who showrunner Chris Chibnall appeared on the BBC’s Open Air in 1986, complaining about the direction of the show. He later cast the first female Doctor, Jodie Whittaker.
25 Peter Capaldi, a former singer/guitarist with punk band The Dreamboys, played the Doctor Who theme on his guitar, which featured on the opening credits of 2015 episode, Before The Flood.
26 Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith’s sister Laura Jayne appears in the video for Eric Prydz’s 2004 hit Call On Me.
27 Sheridan Smith’s her favourite role of all time is Lucie Miller, the companion to Paul McGann’s Doctor in audio adventures.
Actress Nicola Walker (
Graeme Hunter Pictures)
28 TV crime queen Nicola Walker has been playing McGann’s companion Liv Chenka on audio for a decade.
29 Jon Pertwee asked accomplished artist Peter Capaldi to illustrate his personal Christmas cards in the 1970s.
30 The design of the Daleks was influenced by the Georgian State Dancers, whose legs were hidden by flowing dresses.
