The Life & Scandalous Times Of JNT

Anyone here read it and if so what did you think of it?

Very interesting read. JNT comes off as a very likable, but flawed individual throughout. His worst moments are the way he treats Nicola Byrant and Sophie Aldred, but overall he comes off as someone who did his best for the show in difficult times.

Eric Saward, Ian Levine, Gary Downie and Jonathan Powell all come off terribly. (Downie however seems to have been well liked by Sophie Aldred which is odd.)

There are some inputs from RTD which might annoy people here LOL, but he's ironically the only one of the New Who producers I don't hate, so I wasn't too bothered.

I've read it. Thought it was very fair (a bit apologetic but not ridiculously so), and quite illuminating.

I concur with burrun that Saward comes off pretty badly in it, and Downie frankly should've been locked up.

burrunjor wrote:Very interesting read. JNT comes off as a very likable, but flawed individual throughout. His worst moments are the way he treats Nicola Byrant and Sophie Aldred, but overall he comes off as someone who did his best for the show in difficult times.

What happened with Nicola and Sophie?

Mercury wrote:

burrunjor wrote:Very interesting read. JNT comes off as a very likable, but flawed individual throughout. His worst moments are the way he treats Nicola Byrant and Sophie Aldred, but overall he comes off as someone who did his best for the show in difficult times.

What happened with Nicola and Sophie?

With Nicola it was very strange.

It happened in the 90's. There was a policeman JNT and Downie were friends with and who John fancied drawing into a tryst with them, but Downie pointed out the guy was getting on suspiciously well with Nicola. At one point they even left the table concurrently. John got jealous and suspicious, no doubt with Downie stirring the pot, and in a fit of jealous rage and disgust he ended up spitting in her face.

It was sad because I don't think they'd been anything but the most amicable friends until then. It was also sad because I think Downie ended up being the reason Nicola didn't go to John's funeral, even though she wanted to.

Sophie I don't think was covered in the book, but rather in one of her DWM interviews. She'd been unhappy with her publicity photos and when she told John her concerns, he in no uncertain terms gave her a dressing down and let her know her image belongs to the program which belongs to him. He also got affronted when she once asked him not to smoke around her during a scene. She said he was very frosty to her from that point on, until they started to get along during Greatest Show in the Galaxy

I haven't read it, but who is Gary Downie? I haven't heard of this guy, did he throw JNT under the bus?

SomeCallMeEnglishGiraffe wrote:I haven't read it, but who is Gary Downie? I haven't heard of this guy, did he throw JNT under the bus?

No, that was Gary Levy (who ran the militantly anti-JNT DWB fanzine)

Gary Downie was John's boyfriend (and also his production unit manager), who he was with from the 70's apparently, to his final days.

He was often remarked to be very nasty, bitchy and vitriolic, and someone who loved to shit-stir (generally when fans talk of JNT's more authoritarian, unreasonable, paranoid moments as producer, it's often assumed that it was down to Downie being the actual real bad influence on him, goading him on). He was also incredibly predatory. There's a *very* uncomfortable part in the book where it describes a pantomime they were doing and there was a very upset fourteen year old boy in the cast who apparently Downie had hit on.

I’ve not read it, but it sounds like an interesting read. I’d not heard of Downie before encountering this thread, and based on your descriptions, Tanmann, he sounds like an absolute twat.

I'd say a dangerous reprobate.

Actually he died not long after John. I think he learned in his last months that once John was gone, all John's friends could no longer be bothered with him.

I'm assuming the pantomime Tanmann mentioned was the one on Christmas 1984 that fucked up the production of Timelash?

Actually, no. It was a few years after the show ended infact (might even have been 1994). I don't think any of the main Who cast were involved.

Tanmann wrote:No, that was Gary Levy (who ran the militantly anti-JNT DWB fanzine)

Gary Downie was John's boyfriend (and also his production unit manager), who he was with from the 70's apparently, to his final days.

He was often remarked to be very nasty, bitchy and vitriolic, and someone who loved to shit-stir (generally when fans talk of JNT's more authoritarian, unreasonable, paranoid moments as producer, it's often assumed that it was down to Downie being the actual real bad influence on him, goading him on). He was also incredibly predatory. There's a *very* uncomfortable part in the book where it describes a pantomime they were doing and there was a very upset fourteen year old boy in the cast who apparently Downie had hit on.

OMG SHUT THE FUCK UP!! WHY ARE YUO PERPETUAETING HOMOPHOBIC STEREOTIPES??? WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU ????

Just going by what's in the book.

You not one for 'Listen & Believe' then, BeKind?

For the parody to be fully faithful, "Listen and believe" would have to only apply to women.

iank wrote:For the parody to be fully faithful, "Listen and believe" would have to only apply to women.

I forgot....