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Derek Martinus

Derek Martinus

Directing

Biography

Derek Buitenhuis (4 April 1931 – 27 March 2014), known professionally as Derek Martinus, was an English television and theatre director. Originally an actor, he directed episodes of Z-Cars and Doctor Who, for which he was best known. He also had a long career directing stage productions. For the BBC, he directed several Doctor Who serials, Galaxy 4 (1965), Mission to the Unknown (1965), The Tenth Planet (1966), The Evil of the Daleks (1967), and The Ice Warriors (also 1967). His final serial for the programme, Spearhead from Space (1970), was also the first to be made in colour. His period working on the programme spanned the eras of the first three actors to play the lead role. Martinus also directed the Blake's 7 episodes "Trial" and "The Keeper" (both 1979) and over 50 episodes of Z-Cars. He worked on classic serials too, What Maisie Knew (1968), The Black Tulip (1970), A Little Princess (1973) and A Legacy (1975), plus the dramatisation of a 1970s historical fiction best seller, Penmarric. For ITV, he directed The Paper Lads in 1977, winner of the Pye Award for best children's drama. In addition, Martinus directed the army drama series Spearhead, and several series of the children's drama Dodger, Bonzo and the rest in 1985, which also won the Pye Award. For Swedish television, he directed a two-hour political thriller by Jan Guillou, The Wolf. After having learnt Swedish, he directed several plays in civic theatres in Sweden, many of them translated or adapted by his wife. Among others: The Homecoming by Harold Pinter, Volpone by Ben Jonson, The Shoemaker's Holiday by Thomas Dekker, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (the version by Stephen Lowe) and Mad Forest by Caryl Churchill. At the Gate Theatre in London, he directed the British premieres of some rarely performed Strindberg plays, translated from the Swedish by his wife Eivor.

Known For

Doctor Who
7.9

The adventures of The Doctor, a time-traveling humanoid alien known as a Time Lord. He explores the universe in his TARDIS, a sentient time-traveling spaceship. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. Along with a succession of companions, The Doctor faces a variety of foes while working to save civilizations, help ordinary people, and right many wrongs.

Doctor Who

1963
Z-Cars
7.3

Z-Cars or Z Cars is a British television drama series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby, Merseyside. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.

Z-Cars

1962
Blake's 7
7.3

A group of convicts and outcasts fight a guerrilla war against the totalitarian Terran Federation from a highly advanced alien spaceship.

Blake's 7

1978
The Expert
9.0

The Expert is a British television series produced by the BBC between 1968 and 1976. The series starred Marius Goring as Dr. John Hardy, a pathologist working for the Home Office and was essentially a police procedural drama, with Hardy bringing his forensic knowledge to solve various cases. The Expert was created and produced by Gerard Glaister. The series was also one of the first BBC dramas to be made in colour, and throughout its four series had numerous high quality guest appearances by actors such as John Carson, Peter Copley, Rachel Kempson, Peter Vaughan, Clive Swift, Geoffrey Palmer, Peter Barkworth, Jean Marsh, Ray Brooks, George Sewell, Anthony Valentine, Bernard Lee, Lee Montague, Geoffrey Bayldon, Mike Pratt, Edward Fox, André Morell, Brian Blessed, Nigel Stock, Philip Madoc and Warren Clarke.

The Expert

1968
Centre Play
7.0

Anthology series of half hour plays produced in BBC's Television Centre's studios.

Centre Play

1973
Spearhead
7.5

Spearhead is a British television drama produced by Southern Television for the ITV network. With a total of three series and 19 episodes from 1978 to 1981, the series follows the daily lives of a group of soldiers in 'B' Company, 1st Battalion Royal Wessex Rangers, a fictional British Army infantry regiment, during The Troubles.

Spearhead

1978
Carry On Sergeant
6.4

Sergeant Grimshawe wants to retire in the flush of success by winning the Star Squad prize with his very last platoon of newly called-up National Servicemen. But a motley bunch they turn out to be, and it's up to Grimshawe to put the no-hopers through their paces.

Carry On Sergeant

1958
Doctor Who: Spearhead from Space
8.7

The New Doctor arrives on Earth in the middle of a freak meteor shower. Faceless killer shop window dummies are coming to life and killing anything that comes into their path while Facsimiles are replacing top Military, Political and Civil leaders. The Nestene has come to invade the Earth. The convalescent Doctor teams up with Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and Dr. Elizabeth Shaw of UNIT to thwart the Nestine's plans even as the invasion begins.

Doctor Who: Spearhead from Space

1970
Doctor Who: Galaxy 4
5.5

The Doctor, Vicki and Steven arrive on an arid planet where they meet the beautiful Drahvins and the hideous Rills. Each has crash-landed after a confrontation in space. The Rills are friendly, compassionate explorers. The Drahvins are dull-witted, cloned soldiers, terrorised by the intelligent, warlike matriarch Maaga.

Doctor Who: Galaxy 4

1965
In the Labyrinth
9.0

After 30 years apart, a man is reunited with his mother, who resides on a psychiatric ward.

In the Labyrinth

1976
Doctor Who: The Ice Warriors
7.3

The TARDIS arrives on Earth in a new ice age. The travellers make their way into a base where scientists, commanded by Leader Clent, are using an ioniser device to combat the advance of a glacier.

Doctor Who: The Ice Warriors

1967
No image
8.0

Based upon the novel A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

A Little Princess

1973
Doctor Who: The Evil of the Daleks
8.3

The Daleks draft the Second Doctor into distilling the Human Factor. Once implanted, it will make the Dalek race invincible. Jamie's faith in the Doctor is stretched to the limit as the Doctor appears to be collaborating with the Daleks. The Doctor has a few tricks up his sleeve, but then again so might the Daleks.

Doctor Who: The Evil of the Daleks

1967
Doctor Who: The Tenth Planet
7.9

The Doctor's TARDIS lands at the Snowcap space tracking station in Antarctica in December 1986. A routine space mission starts going wrong. When the base personnel's suspicions are roused, the Doctor informs them that the space capsule is being affected by the gravitational pull of another planet — a tenth planet in the Solar system.

Doctor Who: The Tenth Planet

1966
Doctor Who: Mission to the Unknown
7.5

On the planet Kembel, Space Security Service agent Marc Cory is investigating a recent sighting of a Dalek spaceship. His suspicion that the creatures may have established a base proves well-founded. He learns of a plot by the Daleks to invade and destroy the Solar System.

Doctor Who: Mission to the Unknown

1965
Vargen
8.0

The Wolf family reflects the crisis the country is in after suffering war and occupation. A resistance movement takes power after a foreign occupation of Sweden. They aim to regain the capital, Stockholm.

Vargen

1984