Arabic

Al-Doctor Who

BBC Radio's Arabic Service had a production centre in Cairo, Egypt, but following the 1956 Suez war, the organisation relocated to Beirut, Lebanon, where it remained until the 1975 Lebanese civil war.

Due to the popularity of BBC radio programmes in Arabic countries it wasn't surprising that BBC wanted to exploit its television programmes to the same market.

Because of the shear number of variant Arabic dialects, a neo-classical form of Arabic was adopted for radio and television.

While the BBC had used the services of Egyptian actors living in London for dubbing of radio plays into Arabic for consumption in the Middle East, for television they used the services of Lebanese artists at Al-Ittihad Al-Fani Studios in Beirut, Lebanon. (Al-Ittihad Al-Fani best translates as The Union of Art or The Art Union.)

To the Arabic speaking countries, the series was known as Al-Doctor Who (ادكتورهو). Al is Arabic for The, the definite article; curiously the name Who is used and spoken as per the English pronunciation rather than being translated into the Arabic equivalent for the word "Who".

In Arabic script (read from right to left), the programme title is written: الدكتور هو

WILLIAM HARTNELL (الدكتور هو)

Only nine of the first eleven William Hartnell stories (37 episodes) were dubbed into Arabic:

الدكتور هو - Al-Doctor Who, TV Listing from Lebanon, 1977

A	An Unearthly Child	1
B	The Daleks	7
C	Inside the Spaceship	2
E	The Keys of Marinus	6
F	The Aztecs	4
G	The Sensorites	6
J	Planet of Giants	3
K	The Dalek Invasion of Earth	6
L	The Rescue	2

These nine serials in Arabic were sold to:

• Tunisia
• Morocco
• Saudi Arabia
• Jordan
• Libya
• Algeria

In these countries, only the first episode of An Unearthly Child was screened, making the total episodes seen 37. (The other three episodes of the first serial were in fact dubbed, as BBC Enterprises held copies of all four instalments in that language in late 1976 – see below.)

One possible explanation for the omission of part one is that a story set at the time of cavemen might have conflicted with the religious beliefs of those countries in which Islam is practised.

For reasons not readily clear, two stories were not dubbed into Arabic: Marco Polo and The Reign of Terror. These two were also not dubbed into Spanish or had music and effects only soundtracks made. It is possible that these historical serials were not made available to non-English speaking countries simply due to their subject matter being of little interest to Muslim nations.

There has been a long-held belief that The Crusade wasn't sold to Muslim countries because of its subject matter, and therefore some prints of the sixth episode of The Web Planet were re-edited so the NEXT EPISODE caption read THE SPACE MUSEUM rather than THE LION. However, none of the stories after The Rescue were dubbed into Arabic or sold to Muslim countries, so the change to the caption was done for other reasons (see The Web Planet page for a possible answer.)

BBC Archive Holdings

In late 1976, when the Lively Arts documentary Whose Doctor Who was being researched, the BBC still held at least the following Arabic prints:

A	An Unearthly Child	ALL
B	The Daleks	ALL
C	Inside the Spaceship	ALL
E	The Keys of Marinus	ALL
F	The Aztecs	ALL
G	The Sensorites	ALL
J	Planet of Giants	ALL
K	The Dalek Invasion of Earth	ALL
L	The Rescue	ALL

It has been suggested that these prints may have been returned from Algeria, not long after the broadcasts had been completed in February 1974. It has also been suggested that Algeria also returned to the BBC the copies they had of the English negatives of the first two William Hartnell seasons, which had been sent to Algeria to enable them to make foreign language dubs of the stories, and that is why those negatives survive to this day. However, we have to question that line of thought, if only for the simple fact that Radiodiffusion Television Algerienne would not have made their own Arabic dubs. Instead, they would simply have been sent a set of the pre-dubbed Arabic positives that were in circulation and had been for a number of years. (Our own thoughts as to the origin of those negatives is covered in the section on WILLIAM HARTNELL.)

By late 1978, only the following were still held:

C	Inside the Spaceship	ALL
E	The Keys of Marinus	1
J	Planet of Giants	ALL
K	The Dalek Invasion of Earth	1,2,4,6
L	The Rescue	ALL

It is known that a couple of additional episodes with Arabic soundtracks exist in private hands, such as The Aztecs part four, which was used as a alternative language option on the DVD release of that story.

Extracts on DVD / video

• An Unearthly Child part 4 - a November 1973 edition of Blue Peter (available as an extra on The Three Doctors DVD) includes clips from part 4, although all the Arabic dialogue has been carefully edited out! (Is this because at the time anniversary tribute was compiled the BBC only had access to the Arabic positive print of this serial?) (This Arabic print was subsequently disposed of between 1973 and 1976.)
• Inside the Spaceship part 1 - a brief clip appears on the Nationwide interview extract on The Stones of Blood DVD release
• Inside the Spaceship part 2 - a brief clip appears on The Hartnell Years video
• Planet of Giants part 1 – a brief clip appears in the 1983 US documentary "Once Upon of a Time Lord", made in conjunction with station KRMA in Denver, Colorado
• The Dalek Invasion of Earth part 6 - two clips are included in the "Missing in Action" mini-documentary from 1993 that aired before a BBC repeat of Planet of the Daleks 3 (although the first clip is erroneously attributed to The Edge of Destruction!)

DVD Translations

The following is a translation of the narration that accompanies the opening and closing titles of the two Arabic soundtracks that feature as the alternative audio options on the DVDs for Inside the Spaceship part two, and The Aztecs episode four. For these foreign versions, some of the detail in the dialogue has been changed; for instance in the original English, the Doctor tells Ian that his Ulster was given to him by Gilbert and Sullivan whereas in the Arabic, the Doctor tells Ian that his coat was like one that Ferdinand de Lesseps - who built the Panama and Suez canals - used to wear.

Neither narration gives the title of the "Next Episode". Given that the lead-in to Marco Polo is intact at the end of Inside the Spaceship, it would seem that no cuts were made to any of the episodes, even when, as in the case of this surviving Arabic edition, the story that followed did not screen.

Curiously, the narration spoken over the closing credits of The Aztecs part four appears to describe to viewers what they will be seeing in the next episode, and yet the plot description bears absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to The Sensorites! If anything, it's describing an adventure involving a convoy of cars and a deadly ambush... Alternatively, the narration might be describing an adventure that occurred during the fade-to-black.

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Inside the Spaceship (episode 2)

• OPENING TITLES:

NARRATOR: "Al-Doctor Who". This episode, Edge of Disaster, written by David Whitaker. Translated into Arabic and prepared by The Union of Art / Art Union.

• END OF EPISODE:

IAN: Does this coat suit me?

DOCTOR: Yes, it does suit you. Did you know that Ferdinand de Lesseps, the man who built the canals, wore a similar coat to this?

IAN: Really? No, I didn't know that. Shall we go out now?

DOCTOR: Yes, my pleasure.

SUSAN: Grandfather. Look. It's a footprint on the ground. It must be a monster!

NARRATOR: The ship has now landed on another planet. Wonder - what type of adventure they will face. The truth will be revealed in the next episode of the television series "Al-Doctor Who". The director of this episode is Frank Cox. Translated into Arabic and prepared by The Union of Art / Art Union.

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The Aztecs (episode 4)

• OPENING TITLES:

NARRATOR: "Al-Doctor Who". This episode: The Day of the Darkness. Written by John Lucarotti. Translated into Arabic by The Union of Art / Art Union.

• END OF EPISODE:

IAN: What's going on, Doctor?

DOCTOR: This is very mysterious, my boy.

IAN: What's mysterious?

DOCTOR: It's the engines. These instruments indicate that we've stopped, but these controls show we are still moving.

IAN: Maybe we've stopped on top of something.

DOCTOR: Sure.

BARBARA: Or maybe inside something.

[FADE TO BLACK – THE CREDITS ROLL:]

NARRATOR: The convoy moved away after the conspiracy and whoever was involved had been discovered. But Doctor Who has managed to discover at the right moment how to escape from the iron trap [*] in which they could have been caught. The engines of Doctor Who's ship started and they went through time and space – but stopped very soon after. On what new planet and what new adventure will Doctor Who and his companions experience this time? This is what you are going to see in the next episode of this thrilling series of Al-Doctor Who. Directed by John Crockett.

[*] The literal translation here is "iron trap", an Arabic term which loosely translates as "ambush". (With thanks to Fady and Rami for the translations.)

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JON PERTWEE (الدكتور هو)

Some (but certainly not all) of Jon Pertwee's stories screened in the following Arabic countries:

• United Arab Emirates (from 1975?)
• Lebanon (from April 1977)
• Saudi Arabia (from April 1977)
• Qatar (also 1977)

The Pertwee series apparently also screened in Kuwait, but this country is not named in any BBC records, nor have any broadcast airdates been found.

It is likely but not a certainty that both Lebanon and Saudi Arabia broadcast the episodes in black and white. The other countries broadcast only the handful of PAL colour stories that existed in their entirety.

In the 1974 edition of the World Radio Television Handbook (WRTH), BBC Managing Director Huw Wheldon in an April 1973 speech mentions that he had seen "Dr Who in my own office in Arabic, and a curious experience it was". Given the early 1973 date of his address, it is very likely that he was referring to viewing dubs of Pertwee stories rather than Hartnell.

It is known that some Arabic countries broadcast in both English and Arabic simultaneously – with the English soundtrack broadcast over the radio.

As far as can be determined, all Pertwee stories bar The Green Death and Invasion of the Dinosaurs were dubbed into Arabic.

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TOM BAKER (الدكتور هو)

Some (but certainly not all) of Tom Baker's stories were screened in the following countries:

• United Arab Emirates (from 1976?)
• Bahrain (1975 and 1981)
• Jordan (1981)

It is possible episodes also aired in Kuwait, but no broadcast details have been confirmed for that country.

All episodes that aired in these countries were in PAL colour.

The United Arab Emirates broadcast Tom Baker's first two seasons on the all Arabic-language station, Channel 10 (which means these were dubbed into Arabic), with the rest on the English-only Channel 33. The Channel 10 broadcasts might also have had radio-simulcasts in English.

In his 1997 autobiography, Who on Earth is Tom Baker?, Baker makes the observation that he is popular in Abu Dhabi.

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