It as with sadness that TV Today read of the death of voice legend Peter Hawkins after a long illness. The public at large may not have known the name Peter Hawkins, but they will certainly have known the iconic voices he created during his 45 year career. School playgrounds have resonated with the shouts of Zippy, The Flowerpot Men and the Daleks, the voice for which Hawkins originally essayed in the monsters’ original Doctor Who appearance in 1963.
Something that Hawkins’s work on those early episodes of Doctor Who shows that the best voice artists, whatever the gig, should approach the work as a bona fide acting job.The early Daleks were menacing, raucous, scheming, frightened emotional creatures, not the staccato, monotonous bores they became in later years. Ironically, Hawkins would provide the original voice of Rainbow’s Zippy, only to be succeeded by Roy Skelton, who eventually became the most prolific Dalek voice artist in later episodes.).
But enough of that creaky old sci-fi series… What about Captain Pugwash? Here Hawkins was at the top of his game. Pugwash, Jake, Tom the Cabin Boy, Master erm… Mate. All distinctive characters, rich in texture. And through Pugwash, Hawkins for years was associated with one of the biggest urban myths in television history - that of the supposed sexual connotations in which certain characters names could be viewed. As the Guardian found to its cost in1991, this had no basis whatsoever in truth. After a piece alledging this most urban of myths to be true appeared in the newspaper on 13th September 1991, Pugwash creator John Ryan followed through a successful court action and, the Guardian later printed this statement:
“In the Young Guardian of September 13 [1991] we stated that the Captain Pugwash cartoon series featured characters called Seaman Staines and Master Bates, and for that reason the series had never been repeated by the BBC. We accept that it is untrue that there ever were any such characters. Furthermore, the series continues to be shown on television and on video. We apologize to Mr. Ryan, the creator, writer and artist of the Captain Pugwash films and books. We have agreed to pay him damages and his legal costs.”
So the next time a mate down the pub pulls this one out of the childrens television discussion round the table hat, you’ll know better. However dull that might be.
So to Peter Hawkins, a respectful TV Today salute to the memory of a TV great. We will never hear talent like yours again…
