Doctor Who theme added to national sound archive to honor innovation, longevity

The theme music to iconic British sci-fi TV show Doctor Who has been immortalized by Australia’s National Film and Sound Archive.

Wait? What? Why is music from the UK’s most substantial contribution to broadcast sci-fi worthy of inclusion in an Australian archive?

Because, as explained by the Archive (NFSA), it was written by an Aussie.

“While the theme for the long-running BBC series, with its otherworldly pulsing bassline, was recorded by English musician Delia Derbyshire, it was written by Australian composer Ron Grainer,” the NFSA explainedbefore going on to remind us all that the theme is thought to have been the first piece of electronic music used as a TV theme – and remains in use to this day, albeit modernized.

“Each note was painstakingly realized using musique concrète techniques – cutting, splicing, and manipulating analog tape recordings of white noise, a test-tone oscillator, and a single plucked string,” NFSA noted in its account of the tune’s creation.

That description accords with one The Register published in 2010when we brought readers news that the BBC planned to air a previously un-aired interview with Delia Derbyshire.

That interview can be heard here as part of a 58-minute BBC program celebrating her life and work.

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NFSA’s”_blank” rel=”nofollow” href=”https://www.nfsa.gov.au/latest/ron-grainer-australian-doctor-who-theme-composer”>biography of Grainer explains that he was a musical prodigy who moved to London in 1952 and was once hit on the head by a grand piano lid – an incident that threw him into an orchestra pit.

He eventually found himself in the orbit of the BBC and in demand for his composing skills, which he used to create themes for classic programs Steptoe and Son and The Prisoner.

His IMDB profile lists him as also contributing to many Doctor Who episodes, Charlton Heston flick The Omega Man, and a program featuring UK comic Benny Hill. That’s an oeuvre surely worth archiving in some form! ®