Barry Letts was producer of Doctor Who from 1969 to 1974, executive producer in 1980, and later producer of the BBC's Classic Serials strand. Barry's career started as an actor, and he switched to directing in the 1960s. Who and Me recounts the journey he took from struggling actor to successful producer, and the ups and downs of working on Doctor Who during the Jon Pertwee years...

Barry Letts (born 1925), although best known to Who fans as a producer, has had a much wider career. In the new audio book, Who & Me, Barry reads an abridged version of the first volume of his memoirs.  Barry started his career as an actor, even playing against Patrick Troughton in a play about Guy Fawkes.

Who & Me has a running time of three hours and fifteen minutes and details his experiences as actor, director and producer between 1969 and 1974. Letts also discusses his work before this time including his first directors job for Doctor Who with Patrick Troughton’s story The Enemy of the World, which was first broadcast in December '67.

Letts reads with clarity and a great deal of self effacement, a personal account from a personable man. I’m sure Letts would not be offended if I say that he was never the world’s most successful actor, so it was a life changing decision for him to embark on the BBC’s directors course in 1967, which led to his long association with Doctor Who. In 1970 he became the show's producer succeeding Derrick Sherwin and saw the show's transition to colour.

This could so easily have turned into a lovies reminiscences, but Letts looks back on his life with both humour and a sense of reality. Where Letts does name drop he does it with a knowing smile, after all he’s right, if you’ve worked with some amazing people there’s nothing wrong with a bit of name dropping now and then.

In truth, I enjoyed this more than I thought I would and, as Letts himself states, this is information from a primary source, so should be lapped up by any serious Who fan.

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Charles Packer