Image © Keith Musselwhite, 1990

At the end of Death Zone 2, Keith informed his listeners that the third issue would be a Christmas special, available in December. Several initial pieces for the special were recorded on Monday 18th September, using new microphones that Keith had purchased. However, within the space of a few weeks, he had decided that a Christmas special wasn’t quite special enough for him – and that Death Zone needed a radio-style makeover...

“I was doing ‘radio’ type shows as audiotaped messages for friends at the time,” explains Keith, “so that was a source of inspiration to do a tapezine in the same fashion. It’s a weird one, though, as there wasn’t any particular radio station that I was regularly tuned into. My real radio influences came a bit later. From what I recall, at the time I was listening to Radio 210 from Reading and Swindon’s GWR. Jeremy Beadle did a great show which I loved called Beadle’s Brainbusters on Sunday nights on GWR back in 1987. He had fun with the format, playing loads of sound effects and jingles, so there was probably some influence there, too. The gag I did about the dog in the studio trying to eat the schedule was definitely inspired by Beadle’s show.”

Consequently, Death Zone became Death Zone FM – a moniker that Keith quickly shortened to the snappier DZFM, which sounded like the name of a radio station. The proposed release date shifted as Keith prepared something revolutionary in the field of Doctor Who tapezines. When asked to speak into a tape recorder at Nick Goodman’s 21st birthday party in late October, Keith included with his birthday greeting a plug to “Buy DZFM when it launches in February!” Keith felt he needed time to perfect this new creation.
In fact, it was not until May 1990 that DZFM eventually appeared and was advertised in the telefantasy magazine TV Zone.

Those that purchased the issue were greeted with a cassette cover featuring a photograph from the Shangri-La convention plastered with comic speech bubbles, one of which plays on the connection to Rayphase Shift. Next, they would have seen the editor’s announcement on the cover’s inner flap: “Welcome to DZFM, broadcasting on 405 metres on your electric toaster. For best reception, strap a piece of bread to each ear and sit in the grill for one hour. After a while, if you think you can hear the sound of burning backsides you’ll be wrong, for, if you look under the grill, you will find Keith Musselwhite with his latest show.” Upon playing the tape, the listener was plunged straight into the action – and heard music, which permeated the whole issue. Along with its similarly-styled precursor, Black Box Club, it was the nearest the tapezine world came to radio Doctor Who. “I’m glad I never heard Black Box Club back in the day as I think they did it better and I would have never done DZFM!” admits Keith.

The credits displayed on the cassette cover boast a team effort. In addition to contributors Cara McIntosh, Nick Goodman, Elaine Bull, Maria James and Mary Milton, two other names also appear – suggesting that Mac Wessex (director) and Paul Anderson (producer) were also involved in DZFM. The truth was somewhat different, as Keith reveals: “They were made up names to add a professional flourish. I remember making up a stage name of Paul Wessex. One day, I mentioned this to Alexandra Looseley-Saul from The Who Shop as I knew she’d been an actress. She said that a surname at that end of the alphabet wouldn’t get any work, so I changed it to Paul Anderson – and Mac Wessex was a sort of follow on. There are a few others that I’ve used over the years, including Mel Kerr – one for the Doctor Who nerds! Little did I know that Nicholas Briggs and Gary Russell were doing the same kind of thing at that time, too!”

It is difficult to say for certain whether DZFM was Death Zone 3 by another name or a completely new product. Even its editor doesn’t offer a definitive answer on the subject: “FM radio was all the rage back then. BBC Radio 1 became 1FM around this time, so although DZFM was a continuation of Death Zone, it took on a whole life and format of its own.”

Even though the Death Zone / DZFM relationship will likely confuse Whoologists for a great many years, DZFM demonstrated that Keith was not afraid to experiment and would regularly defy listeners’ expectations. For instance, he chose to present and produce rather than contribute features, casting himself in the role of disc jockey. Today, Keith questions this decision: “I’m not sure I did it justice, probably because I didn’t do any articles on the issue.”

Contents this time included an interview with Deborah Watling, a piece by Cara Mcintosh which convincingly addressed fan confusion concerning Ghost Light’s characters and plot strands, and Nick returned to look at the Davison era companions and the Series B Blake’s 7 story arc involving the search for Star One. This departure from Doctor Who chimed with Keith’s own broadening outlook, which would lead him to rethink tapezines once again. DZFM would turn out to be a one-hit wonder...

Keith was ruminating over a new tapezine called Power, which would reflect his interest in shows beyond Doctor Who: “Power was named because the slogan was ‘You have the Power to write about anything (TV-related)’. It never really got much further than an idea. Two articles were recorded, the first of which was by Nick, about the first episode of EastEnders. This was recorded at mine in 1991. Trowby [Andrew Trowbridge] also did me an article about Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines and actually that ended up on the first issue of Spotlight. If an article about Doctor Who arrived then that would probably have made it in, too. I had grand designs to interview actors from shows, too. Casualty was certainly on my radar at the time. I even got some business cards printed using one of those machines you used to find at railways and motorway service stations, where you got 50 cards for £3. They read: ‘Do you have The Power?’ and gave the production address. Sadly, the machine didn’t have a question mark option, so I had to add that myself! It just looked naff. I’m not sure if Power would have continued down the DZFM ‘radio show’ route, but I know I wanted to have jingles to introduce the items. I’ve no idea how I would have achieved that, though – I was never happy with the quality (sound and production-wise) of the things I was producing. But these were all ideas and dreams with little chance of becoming reality.”

Neither Power or a follow-up issue of DZFM ever surfaced. Subsequently, Keith would contribute to other tapezines and even guest-produce a Rayphase Shift in 1994, but all this might never have happened, as Keith reveals: “Like I said, Power was an idea that never really got going, and I’m not sure there was ever a plan for a DZFM 2. The timing probably sealed its fate as, in early summer 1990, with no new series and a new girl at work with whom I was totally smitten, I somehow decided that I needed to start my life again. I packed away all my Doctor Who and other sci-fi videos, deciding that I was no longer going to be a fan of any of them! That lasted about two months – and I had no luck with the girl, either!”

Keith Musselwhite would go on to act as guest producer for a single issue of Rayphase Shift in 1994. This was a natural progression as Keith was prolific contributor to this tapezine from its second issue onwards, even participating in its unfinished revival issue in 1999. His articles and reviews always exhibited a lively combination of frank and acid comment mixed with zany, often surreal, niche humour. Keith also contributed to Elaine Bull’s Spotlight tapezine, and could be heard in the ’zine’s drama, Sutton Park – Prison in the Sun, which was a serialisation of a film that he had been involved in. After a gap of several years away from the local stage, Keith appeared in several films written and produced by Nick Goodman and fellow Who fans and tapezine contributors Andy Ching, Andrew Trowbridge and Lisa Parker. He later worked with Nick in the transferring of many of these films to DVD, authoring the discs and designing their on-screen menus and printed covers. His creative talents are never far away.

DZFM carries the listener along thanks to the continuous musical accompaniment and Keith’s re-invention of himself as a radio presenter. In common with his earlier Death Zone issues, DZFM proved engaging and enjoyable and many listeners were disappointed when Death Zone failed to return in either of its forms.

For a year, Keith’s tapezines and Rayphase Shift played together like brothers. Both different, both on the same mission. Keith’s desire to move on and raise the bar still higher is to be commended and one can easily imagine many more issues, each different to their predecessors. Would there have been more fans to interview or more dogs to devour the schedules? We will never know.

Nick Goodman