#254 - The Freewheelin' Ian Marter

The Metebelis Two - a Doctor Who podcast

We kick off our Ian Marter retrospective with a look at his time at Oxford University. Thanks to back issues of St. Edmund Hall Magazine, we uncover new information that places Marter at Oxford three years earlier than is widely and incorrectly reported in other published sources. From our research, we found that Marter was at St. Edmund Hall, aka Teddy Hall, from 1963-1966 and was heavily involved with drama in the college's John Oldham Society and the Oxford's drama cuppers.

Before Oxford, Marter went to school at the Beckenham and Penge Grammar School in Greater London and went to Oxford on a scholarship to study English language and literature. Among other highlights, Marter directed a well received production of John Osbourne's Luther in 1964 during the Trinity Term of his freshman year at the Oxford Playhouse. He also acted in productions of Fire in Heaven, The Sport of My Mad Mother, and Anton Checkov's The Cherry Orchard. In his final year at St. Edmund Hall, Marter co-starred in Samuel Beckett's play, Waiting for Gadot and was in Richard Burton's production of Doctor Faustus, by Christopher Marlowe which was also released as a film in 1967, giving Marter his first screen credit. Marter was awarded a Class III degree from St. Edmund Hall, which may help explain why he never corrected the record about his time at Oxford.

After leaving Oxford in 1966, he landed an assistant stage manager job at the Bristol Old Vic and by the following year, he was acting once again. We briefly talk about his small role in the Vincent Price horror film, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, and his reoccurring role in ITV's Crown Court where he played a police constable and then barrister, Quentin Ingrams, QC. Finally, we discuss being cast as Lt. John Andrews in "Carnival of Monsters" and how Doctor Who may have been different if he landed the role of Capt. Mike Yates a few years earlier. The opening and closing music is "Sinfonietta: IV. Allegrteto," composed by Leoš Janáček and performed by the Pro Arte Orchestra, which was the opening theme for ITV's Crown Court. We recorded this episode on 12-13 August 2024.