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British television producer (1947–2002)

John Turner (12 August 1947 – 1 May 2002), known professionally as John Nathan Turner, was an English television producer. He was the ninth producer of the long running BBC science fiction series Doctor Who and the final producer of the series' first run on television (from 1980 until it was cancelled in 1989). He finished the role having become the longest serving Doctor Who producer and cast Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy as the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Doctors, respectively.

Born John Turner in Birmingham, he adopted the double barrelled stage name John Nathan Turner to distinguish himself from British actor John Turner. He was educated at King Edward VI School, at Aston in Birmingham, where he showed an early interest in acting and theatre. His earliest television acting work was as an extra in TV productions for ITV, including Crossroads and The Flying Swan. Both shows were made in Birmingham (the former at ATV's Aston studios). On leaving school, he initially worked as an actor and assistant stage manager at Birmingham's Alexandra Theatre. Turner was later taken on by the BBC as a television floor assistant, working on every type of show (from light entertainment to news and current affairs), including–more importantly for his later career–drama. Shows produced by the BBC's drama department that he worked on included The Pallisers, How Green Was My Valley, Angels, and All Creatures Great and Small. An assignment to the BBC's light entertainment department also led to him spending two years working on The Morecambe and Wise Show, prior to the act's move to ITV in 1978.

Having joined the BBC as a floor assistant in the 1960s, he first worked on Doctor Who in 1969 as part of the floor crew in 1969. Nathan Turner worked as an assistant floor manager on two serials in the Jon Pertwee era of Doctor Who: The Ambassadors of Death (1970) and Colony in Space (1971). He later worked on Doctor Who in the Tom Baker era as production unit manager under producer Graham Williams from 1977 to 1979. When Williams decided to leave the show after three seasons and the BBC management's first choice to replace him, George Gallaccio, turned it down, he accepted the post of producer for season 18, which would also become the last to feature Baker as the Fourth Doctor. and instituted sweeping changes: replacing the arrangement of the theme music which had run throughout the 1970s with a more contemporary electronic arrangement by Peter Howell, and introducing revamped opening titles (featuring a new photograph of Baker, replacing the original taken in 1974) and a new closing credit sequence. Nathan Turner also dispensed with the services of long time composer Dudley Simpson, who had provided the incidental music for the majority of the Doctor Who serials of the 1970s and all of the Williams era stories. With Simpson departed, the Doctor Who incidental music under Nathan Turner's stewardship would be provided by electronic composers including Peter Howell, Paddy Kingsland, Malcolm Clarke, Roger Limb, Jonathan Gibbs, Keff McCulloch, and Mark Ayres. As Nathan Turner had no writing or script editing experience, the choice of the stories for production was largely left to Bidmead. This at once led to difficulties, with the second story to enter production, Meglos (1980), suffering from all the problems which Nathan Turner had identified in the show's scripts under Graham Williams (a lack of realism, an over indulgence in comedy). Nathan Turner's first major story influence was in bringing back the Master, but the details of this he left to Bidmead. At the end of Nathan Turner's first season in charge, both Bidmead and Letts left their posts on the series along with Tom Baker, and Lalla Ward, who had played companion Romana, also left partway through the season in Warriors' Gate (1980). Letts was not replaced, leaving Nathan Turner as sole producer. Nathan Turner cast Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor for season 19, having previously worked with him on All Creatures Great and Small. Bidmead was briefly replaced with Antony Root, then more permanently with Eric Saward, who would work as script editor (and occasional writer) of the series from 1982 until 1986. After Nathan Turner brought the Master back for three consecutive stories, The Keeper of Traken (1981), Logopolis (1981) and Castrovalva (1982, now played on a regular basis by Anthony Ainley), he believed that the show could benefit from the publicity inherent in bringing back popular characters and monsters from its past. Earthshock (1982) enjoyed considerable publicity from featuring the return of the Cybermen, after an absence of seven years. Season 20 then saw the return of Omega, the Mara, the Black and White Guardians (from the Key to Time season), and Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart. The Daleks and Davros also returned in Resurrection of the Daleks (1984), but the re use of classic villains often proved complex for script editor Eric Saward and the show's writers. Nathan Turner, however, was largely focused on generating publicity for the series, something which he also achieved by the device of casting high profile, well known actors (sometimes from the world of light entertainment) as guest stars. Nathan Turner rarely used directors or writers who had worked for previous producers. The few exceptions were director Pennant Roberts (who directed Warriors of the Deep and Timelash), and the writers David Fisher (who wrote The Leisure Hive), Terrance Dicks (who wrote State of Decay and The Five Doctors), and Robert Holmes (who wrote The Caves of Androzani, The Two Doctors, The Mysterious Planet and the first episode of The Ultimate Foe). By coincidence, Nathan Turner's tenure occurred during a period of large growth in the show's fan base in the United States, thanks to repeated showings there of the Tom Baker serials on affiliates of the American Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) network. Nathan Turner became a familiar face among the many Doctor Who celebrities who made appearances during PBS fundraising drives, held to finance the purchase of more Doctor Who serials for screening in the United States. In addition to his work on the television series, for some years during the Eighties Nathan Turner's interest in light entertainment led to him producing an annual Christmas Pantomime, at the Tunbridge Wells Theatre, starring the incumbent Doctor and other members of the cast. The first of these, in December 1982, starred Peter Davison and co starred Anthony Ainley (the Master) and the actress Sandra Dickinson (who at that time was Davison's wife, but later guest starred in Doctor Who with Jon Pertwee, on Ghosts of N Space). During his time producing Doctor Who, Nathan Turner wrote two books about the programme, Doctor Who: The TARDIS Inside Out (1985) and Doctor Who: The Companions (1986).

After the series ended in 1989, and until shortly before his death, Nathan Turner continued to be involved in Doctor Who related events, and remained a familiar face at conventions for many years afterwards. In the early 1990s, while working for BBC Video, Nathan Turner produced and wrote several Doctor Who videotape documentary releases: The Hartnell Years, The Troughton Years, The Pertwee Years, The Tom Baker Years, The Colin Baker Years, Daleks: The Early Years, Cybermen: The Early Years, and a special release of the unfinished story Shada with Tom Baker doing first person linking narration as the Fourth Doctor in place of the missing scenes. Also during the early 1990s, Nathan Turner produced the earliest Doctor Who commercial releases on audio cassette, for the BBC Radio Collection, creating narrated adaptations of television serials for which only the soundtrack remained. In these, he mixed the surviving soundtrack with a narration (written by himself) explaining the missing pictures, using as narrator actors who had played the Doctor. As Patrick Troughton had died in 1987, Nathan Turner contracted Jon Pertwee (for The Tomb of the Cybermen), Tom Baker (for The Evil of the Daleks), and Colin Baker (for The Macra Terror) to narrate Troughton era stories which, at the time of the link narration recordings, were all missing from the BBC's television archives except for episode 2 of The Evil of the Daleks. Nathan Turner left his roles at BBC Video and the BBC Radio Collection at the end of 1992. Nathan Turner co presented the BSB 31 Who programmes during their 1990 Doctor Who Weekend, and co wrote the 1993 charity special Dimensions in Time for the show's 30th Anniversary. Nathan Turner made his final contribution to Doctor Who in March 2002, six weeks before his death, when he gave his final interview on a location visit to what was used during the Resurrection of the Daleks recordings in 1983. This last interview from March 2002 first appeared on the November 2002 original DVD release of Resurrection of the Daleks.

A long term drinker and smoker, Nathan Turner was in poor health in the last years of his life. He contracted an infection and died in hospital on 1 May 2002, aged 54. Nathan Turner lived for many years in London, with a home also in Saltdean, Brighton. Openly gay, he was survived by his long term partner, Gary Downie, who was also a BBC employee (ultimately becoming a production manager with BBC Television). They met in 1972, and worked together on All Creatures Great and Small, where Nathan Turner was Production Unit Manager (Downie was the Assistant Floor Manager at BBC Pebble Mill on series 3), and on Doctor Who. Downie, who was born Roderick Pinkus in South Africa in 1940, died on 19 January 2006. He spoke of his life with Nathan Turner in an interview with Doctor Who Magazine. Richard Marson's book, JN T: The Life and Scandalous Times of John Nathan Turner (2013), alleges inappropriate sexual behaviour on the part of Nathan Turner and Downie by stating that the two men were preying on male teenage fans during the 1980s, including making unwanted advances to himself. The age of consent for gay men at the time was 21 in the UK, compared to 16 for heterosexual relationships.