Mat Irvine (born 7 July 1948) is a Technical Consultant and Visual Effects Designer who worked on television, primarily for the BBC, from the 1970s to the 1990s.
As a Technical Consultant, Irvine worked on shows such as The Sky at Night, Tomorrow's World and, most recently, Robot Wars, on which he was hired as a technical consultant in 1998.
He is perhaps best known for his work on Doctor Who, for which he was a Visual Effects Designer, from the 1970s to the 1980s. He is credited with building the first K-9 prop for the serial The Invisible Enemy (1977). He was not told that it would be required beyond that story, thus the prop he designed was only capable of traversing the studio floor and proved useless when brought on location for subsequent stories. Irvine eventually built a second K-9 that could cover rougher ground. He occasionally operated the K-9 prop during filming.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he made regular appearances in the BBC children's TV shows Swap Shop and Saturday Superstore, initially to discuss special effects on BBC drama series, and later as a more general expert on science and space issues.
His connection with K-9 has continued. In 1981, Irvine served as Visual Effects Designer for the Doctor Who spin-off K-9 and Company. In 1993, he operated K-9 for the Doctor Who charity special Dimensions in Time. In 1999, he once again operated the robotic dog when a model K-9 (in reality one of the original props) was given to the character Vince as a birthday present in Queer as Folk. He operated K-9 in an episode of Totally Doctor Who in 2006.
Mat Irvine with a fan in 2015
He spoke about his work on Blake's 7 and The Tripods in 2006 on BBC Four'sThe Cult of... series, in the episodes The Cult of...Blake's 7 and The Cult of...The Tripods.
Nowadays, he makes appearances at sci-fi and Doctor Who conventions, often alongside K-9.
The Daleks are a fictional extraterrestrial race of mutants principally portrayed in the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who. The Daleks were conceived by science-fiction writer Terry Nation and first appeared in the 1963 Doctor Who serial The Daleks, in shells designed by Raymond Cusick.
The TARDIS is a time machine and spacecraft that appears in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who and its various spin-offs.
Blake's 7 is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. Four 13-episode series were broadcast on BBC1 between 1978 and 1981. It was created by Terry Nation, who also wrote the first series, produced by David Maloney and Vere Lorrimer, and the script editor throughout its run was Chris Boucher, who also wrote nine of its episodes. The main character, at least initially, was Roj Blake, played by Gareth Thomas. The programme was inspired by various fictional media, including Robin Hood, Star Trek, Passage to Marseille, The Dirty Dozen, Brave New World and classic Western stories, as well as real-world political conflicts.
Terence Joseph Nation was a Welsh screenwriter and novelist. Especially known for his work in British television science fiction, he created the Daleks and Davros for Doctor Who, as well as the series Survivors and Blake's 7.
Chris Boucher is a British television screenwriter, script editor and novelist. He is known for his frequent contributions to two genres, science fiction and crime fiction, and worked on the series Doctor Who, Blake's 7, Shoestring, Bergerac, The Bill and Star Cops.
K9, occasionally written K-9, is the name of several fictional robotic canines in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who, first appearing in 1977. K9 has also been a central character in three of the series television spin-offs: the one-off K-9 and Company (1981), The Sarah Jane Adventures (2007–2011) and K-9 (2009–2010). Although not originally intended to be a recurring character in the series, K9 was kept in the show following his first appearance because he was expected to be popular with younger audiences. There have been at least four separate K9 units in the series, with the first two being companions of the Fourth Doctor. Voice actor John Leeson has provided the character's voice in most of his appearances, except during season 17 of Doctor Who, in which David Brierley temporarily did so. The character was created by Bob Baker and Dave Martin, to whom rights to the character still belong; consequently, Baker's spin-off series K9, which is not BBC-produced, cannot directly reference events or characters from Doctor Who, though it attempts to be a part of that continuity.
Since their first appearance in 1963 there have been a number of variant models of the Daleks, a fictional alien race in the BBC science fiction television programme Doctor Who.
Robot is the first serial of the 12th season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC1 from 28 December 1974 to 18 January 1975. It was the first full serial to feature Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor, as well as Ian Marter as new companion Harry Sullivan.
Michael Okuda is an American graphic designer best known for his work on Star Trek.
David Collings was an English actor. In an extensive career he appeared in many roles on stage, television, film and radio, as well as various audio books, voiceovers, concert readings and other work. He garnered a following through his numerous appearances in cult sci-fi series such as Doctor Who, Sapphire & Steel and Blake's 7, as well as voicing the titular character in the series Monkey and Legolas in the classic BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.
The Invisible Enemy is the second serial of the 15th season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC1 from 1 to 22 October 1977. The serial introduced the robot dog K9, voiced by John Leeson.
The Creature from the Pit is the third serial of the 17th season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC1 from 27 October to 17 November 1979. It was the first serial to feature David Brierley as the voice of K9.
Television crew positions are derived from those of film crew, but with several differences.
Phil Tippett is an American movie director and Oscar and Emmy Award-winning visual effects supervisor and producer, who specializes in creature design, stop-motion and computerized character animation. Over his career, he has assisted ILM and DreamWorks, and in 1984 formed his own company, Tippett Studio. His work has appeared in movies such as the original Star Wars trilogy, Jurassic Park, and RoboCop. He is currently involved with his ongoing Mad God stop-motion series, which were funded through Kickstarter.
Mike Tucker is a Welsh special effects expert who worked for many years at the BBC Television Visual Effects Department, and now works as an Effects Supervisor for his own company, The Model Unit. He is also the author of a variety of spin-offs relating to the television series Doctor Who and novelisations based on episodes of the television series Merlin. He sometimes co-writes with Robert Perry.
John Scott Martin was an English actor born in Toxteth, Liverpool, Lancashire. He made many film, stage and television appearances, but one of his most famous, though unseen, roles was as a Dalek operator in the long-running BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who.
Dick Mills is a British sound engineer, specialising in electronic sound effects which he produced at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
Clayton James Hickman is a British scriptwriter, magazine editor, journalist and designer.
British television science fiction refers to popular programmes in the genre that have been produced by both the BBC and Britain's largest commercial channel, ITV. The BBC's Doctor Who is listed in the Guinness World Records as the longest-running science fiction television show in the world and as the "most successful" science fiction series of all time.
West Kent College is a further education and higher education college in Kent, England founded in 2014. Its campus in Tonbridge offers numerous courses and qualifications at many levels, from GCSEs and A-levels to vocational routes such as BTEC or NVQ/VRQ Diplomas to work-based Apprenticeships and Degree programmes, validated by the University of Kent, University of Greenwich and Canterbury Christ Church University.
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