NFSA finds lost episode of cult UK TV drama featuring Second Doctor Who actor

21 November 2017

NFSA finds lost episode of cult UK TV drama featuring Second Doctor Who actor

The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA) has found and restored a ‘lost’ 1960 episode of the British police drama No Hiding Place (featuring future Doctor Who Patrick Troughton) in its vast television collection.

To mark the United Nations’ World Television Day, the NFSA has published a clip from this episode (titled Two Blind Mice, series 2 episode 5) online, along with an excerpt of Australia’s first ever television series produced in colour – 1958’s Australian Walkabout.

These are two recent ‘finds’ in the NFSA’s collection, which includes many iconic moments in Australian television from its beginning in 1956 to the present. The excerpts can be viewed on the NFSA website (http://bit.ly/WorldTVDay2017).

No Hiding Place (1959-1967) was a hit for British broadcaster ITV, with seven million viewers at its peak. In Australia it screened on the ABC, premiering locally on 3 May 1960. Only 20 complete episodes out of 236 were known to survive, until the recent discovery of another one, held and preserved exclusively by Australia’s audiovisual archive.

This episode, titled Two Blind Mice (2/06/1960), is the second earliest surviving episode; it features actor Patrick Troughton as a criminal plotting his escape from prison. Troughton would go on to play the Second Doctor in 1966, in the cult science fiction series Doctor Who.

The NFSA has created a new digital broadcast master of this episode, which will have its premier in Birmingham on 2 December 2017, followed by a screening at the British Film Institute’s Missing Believed Wiped event on 16 December.

Another remarkable discovery is Australia’s Walkabout (1958), the final project completed by legendary filmmakers Charles and Elsa Chauvel.

After three decades in the Australian film industry, the Chauvels joined the then new medium, producing the first major travel TV program for the BBC. Shot on location from April to September 1956, the Chauvels and their crew filmed their 15,000 km journey from Sydney to Darwin. Their adventure was enjoyed by seven million viewers when it premiered in the UK, and it was also well received in Australia (ABC).

The ambitious 13-part series was shot in colour. The NFSA has scanned Australian Walkabout’s 16mm prints, to ensure its digital preservation.

For more information, please contact NFSA media team: Miguel Gonzalez on (02) 8202 0114, Miguel.gonzalez@nfsa.gov.au, or Amanda Diaz on (02) 6248 2248 or Amanda.Diaz@nfsa.gov.au.