Lasting for no more than a single issue which was advertised in Celestial Toyroom in February 1985, Inferno tapezine was the product of two enthusiastic, barely-teenage fans, Jamie Woolley and Jonathan Laidlow. The CT advert promised book reviews, fanzine reviews, looks at computer games and The Tripods TV series, and a ‘two-man audio play’ called The Tykan Experiment. In addition, humour was apparently on the menu, with the rider that it might be considered “hideously unfunny”.

“I made Inferno with my friend Jonathan Laidlow when I would have been 12 and Jonathan was 11. We were both big fans and I’d recently joined DWAS so I was revelling in the whole fan scene and fanzines,” Jamie Woolley recalls. “I’m not sure a lot of thought went into it, but I guess we chose tape because it was easier – we had access to tape recorders and organising something printed seemed like another level. We had basic home computers, but nothing that could print effectively for reproduction, and we were in rural Cumbria so access to print shops or photocopiers (plus a lack of funds) meant that it wasn’t really an option. I’ve long been interested in audio and radio as a medium, so maybe that was an initial spark that led to Inferno. I also loved Zero Room. It seemed so slick and polished with great segments, so that was an inspiration as well.”

There was, however, a small oversight, no doubt the result of Jamie having just joined the DWAS at the time he and Jonathan came to produce their tapezine, and it was something that arguably should have been pointed out to Jamie when he submitted his advertisement to Celestial Toyroom: there was already a printed Inferno fanzine in existence, edited by Colin-John Rodgers. Six issues had been produced between 1982 and 1984. Colin-John rethought his Inferno in 1985, relaunching it as the Inferno Fiction Zine, with its last issue being published in 1989 under the moniker Inferno 89. Had Inferno tapezine continued beyond its first issue, this may have become a bone of contention.

“I can’t really remember what we recorded, other than clips from episodes that I’d recorded by holding a recorder up to the TV speaker, and inappropriately large sections from other tapezines in a ‘Here’s what we’ve been listening to’ section. I don’t think we had any concept of plagiarism.”

But there was a teeny-weeny problem – even beyond the innocent appropriation of material belonging to other tapezine producers, which also stretched to borrowing a skit title from Zero Room, namely Woctor Dho – as by the time Inferno reached the listener it was barely audible and scarcely intelligible. “The audio quality was indeed abysmal,” Jamie admits. “I don’t recall us having proper microphones and we definitely didn’t have a tape-to-tape deck so we edited by recording down onto a second tape, either with two tape recorders cabled together or even holding microphones up to speakers. Then I made the finished copies by playing the finished tape on my parents’ stereo, again holding another tape recorder up to the speaker. So, the copies we mailed out were probably third or fourth generation. I think we only got two orders, maybe three. One went to someone else who produced a tapezine who included a review in his next edition. He said something like, ‘Well, I would have reviewed it but the audio quality was so terrible I couldn’t hear anything.’ Clearly our enthusiasm far exceeded our technical and editorial capabilities.”

Jonathan Laidlow also recalls the recordings: “It was just an old-school tape recorder and, I think, an old ghetto blaster. My dad was involved in computers, so when somebody's business went under, a BBC Micro mysteriously appeared one day and I’m pretty sure I had a 5-pin DIN cable for connecting a tape recorder to it. We probably used that to connect two tape recorders when making copies. I went on to dabble in role-playing games fanzines for a while in my teen years, but that tape put us off audio!”

There were initially plans to continue with Inferno, and the second issue was to have focused on Doctor Who in 1984, reviewing the televised stories and associated events and developments, but it was not to be.
“Later, I did start contributing to printed fanzines and launched my own – Dwarf Star – which ran for a few issues, but I didn’t contribute anything further to tapezines,” says Jamie. “The shame of producing something so inaudible burned brightly for a long while, and I’m sure the content wasn’t up to much either. But we had fun!”

Jamie Woolley contributed a convention report on a one-day event held in Byker, North Tyneside in 1984. It was staged by WANT (Who Appreciation North Tyneside) and its special guest was an actor who had appeared in The Claws of Axos, albeit inside the Axos monster costume in Winser’s laboratory. In one of the pleasingly better recorded articles on Inferno, Jamie described the day: “This was my first Doctor Who event, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. After a frenzied search for the Byker Community Centre, which as it happens was in the centre of a large number of flat blocks, I strolled through the entrance and handed in my ticket. As I walked through the door, I noticed a stall of fanzines, so I went straight over to have a look. Also on sale were badges, event brochures, t-shirts and posters. On the other side were models from Doctor Who and a new science fiction film called The Lost City. The Doctor Who models, which were excellent, were a large scale model of the Emperor Dalek, two TARDISes – one small and one large – a Quark and the TARDIS in its basic form. I chose my seat and waited for the show to begin. Most of the day’s sessions were videos, kicking off with the Pertwee Years. This consisted of clips from every Pertwee adventure bar Invasion of the Dinosaurs. Most of them were in colour, but some were in black-and-white, like Silurians, Inferno and The Mind of Evil, etc. These enthralled me as I’ve only seen two-and-a-half Pertwee stories. Four complete episodes were screened that day: the first episode of The Tenth Planet, then we were promised an ‘old and well-known episode’ and guess what we got? The Gunfighters 1 – ugh! It’s the worst episode I’ve ever seen in my life! The other two shown were The Claws of Axos 3 and The War Games 10. A marvellous day which proves that the DWAS shouldn’t be centred in the south.”

In The Tapezine Zone section of Zero Room Audiozine Issue 7 (April 1985), David Balston remarked, “I would have, at this point have commented on Inferno, but as it was almost completely inaudible, I don’t think I’m in a position to.”

It would be very easy to dismiss Inferno tapezine on the basis of its recording quality, even though it does begin to improve markedly during its second side. No one, least of all the editors, would complain if this website did that, but several decades on, what would be the point? After all, Who’s Listening is a celebration of Doctor Who tapezines and even though Inferno is not an easy listen due to its technical problems, what is crystal clear is that Jamie and Jonathan were having a ball recording it. Their enthusiasm, friendship and excitement and their love for Doctor Who comes over plainly, even though you can’t understand each and every word they are saying. Listening today, you just know that they had such fun making it and, while it would be lovely to be able to hear it all clearly without all the technical own goals, that’s the important thing about Inferno. It was a labour of love produced by two friends who were aiming high but would have benefitted from a bit of helpful technical advice. It is definitely a shame that Jamie and Jonathan didn’t persevere with Inferno, sort the recording issues out and give it another go.

Alan Hayes