"I don’t want to attempt to define what my style was; I just responded to the scripts, and filtered them through me. Doctor Who was not an acting part any more then James Bond is an acting part. By acting, I mean an actor’s definition of an acting job, which is when a character actually develops… This isn’t so with heroes. There’s an utter predictability about playing heroic parts. With heroes you know what side they’ll come down on. Doctor Who isn’t going to become obsessed with sex, or money, or gratuitous violence; he’s predictably good, like an innocent child. Within that predictability, within all the certainty, the fun of doing it was how do you surprise the audience, and hold them, and make them want to watch again and again?" Interviewed by John Freeman, DWM 180.

"I was desperately out of work, and was terribly depressed by this, when suddenly along came the possibility of playing Doctor Who. I was working on a building site in Ebury Street when I got the job, next door but one to where Mozart wrote his first symphony. The builders were actually very good to me, and I have a happy memory of that, but of course I didn’t want to be on a building site, because I hadn’t much skill; I wanted to be an actor. When I got the part, I had this feeling of just huge relief, and one of great pride. I didn’t tell my workmates that I got the job, and then it was the first edition of the Evening Standard. I knew that they all took the paper – and, bang, all was revealed. There they were, looking over the tops of the paper at me! It was a great moment of pleasure. They were proud of me – and I was proud of them." Interviewed by John Freeman, DWM, 179.

"Fortunately, I signed the contract before they asked me what I was going to do with it, which was interesting, because every actor dreads being found out. I got this job, and I signed this contract – and, oh, the relief when I signed it – and then came the ghastly lunch when the producer took me out and said, ‘Have you got any idea of what you’re going to do with this?’ I had no idea at all. I’m not really certain about anything. I’m an actor earning a living, but the standards of the Doctor, and his recurring compassion and concern – which, of course, some people might deride as The Wind in the Willows morality of good, triumphing over evil, and good manners most of the time – yes, they are standards and values that I admire very much." Interviewed in 1977 for BBC Two’s Whose Doctor Who, published in DWM 335.

"It’s a very curious thing about The Wind and the Willows: I happened to have that in my pocket at one of the interviews for Doctor Who. I was thinking about the book, and I think the Head of Drama and the producer who hired me were rather impressed by that. I think they were reassured by my enthusiasm for Ratty, and Mole, and Toad, which wasn’t quite borne out of my behaviour at rehearsals, where they had to tolerate a certain amount of neurosis and anxiety!" DWM 335 (interviewed in 1977).

"I was so daunted. I thought, 'Jon has been doing this for five years. To everyone, he is the Doctor.' He was well known even before he did the series, whereas I wasn’t known to anybody. I think it was a brave decision for them to make, but, at the time, I really didn’t know how I was going to approach it, or whether I could follow Jon's act. Now, of course, having played the part, I can afford to say that any actor playing the Doctor cannot fail, because it has passed the stage – it can continue in spite, and because, of the actor playing the lead." Interviewed by Richard Marson, DWM, 92.

"I remember them allowing me a few jokes in Robot – plenty of double takes with Nick Courtney as I tried to find a new costume from the TARDIS, which Chris Barry and Barry Letts allowed to be kept in." DWM 179.

“When I was cast, [costume designer] Jim Acheson and I got on terribly well, and we went to various costumiers – it’s great if you had a few drinks – and everyone likes putting on funny hats, and arsing about, and peering through the racks of clothes, and gradually a Bohemian image evolved. The Jim decided that we should also have a scarf made, which was the funniest thing of all, really. He bought all this wool – he had a marvellous eye for the colour scheme – and gave it all to a woman with a wonderful name, Begonia Pope. I wonder where is now. I hope she’s happy. And she was so impressed to be working with the BBC that she knitted up all the wool – and, because the wool was on the taxpayer, a whole Larry-load was delivered! When we went to her little house, we could only talk through the letter box, because we couldn’t get in: the scarf filled the hall! When I tried it on, the thing went around me four or five times. Falling about with laughter, Jim- with a marvellous quick eye – said, ‘Let’s keep that,’ and I understand that, this year, it’s now a fashion item. It said so in the Daily Mirror, so it must be true." Words: Andrew Pixley, DWM 290.

"My favourite assistant in many ways has to be Elizabeth Sladen, because she was so good to me – she was already there, you see, and I was just joining. It was crucial that she and I made the chemistry right for me to be secure. Elizabeth, she’s a wonderful girl, but also she’s a beautiful actress with great sensitivity… well, she stepped aside, which was what she was supposed to do. She was marvellous." DWM 179.

"I took great care not to be hurt after that. I suddenly realised that it made no difference who was doing this thing; the really telling thing in a narrative is the close-up. It was marvellous that I realised that so early, and afterwards, I never broke a bone!" DWM 179.

"Some of our villains were quite chilling. I used to try to believe in them so as to communicate their threat to the audience, and often I found that I didn’t have to try very hard – they were so good." DWM 92.

"Michael Wisher did work so seriously, and was unbendingly passionate to the character. He used to make us howl with laughter. He’s a very accomplished actor, and he had is gripped from the first rehearsal. He was so unselfconscious. When he used to put the bag over his head, it used to crucify me. I used to yelp. He never relaxed, which is very important for an actor. You must never patronise your own character… Always play the character from his point of view, and never be hard on him; if you do, it instantly betrays a lack of commitment. You’ve got to believe absolutely. You must play it the way that you believe it should be played.” “Yes, well, as you know, naturalism isn’t my strong point! I’m not good at coming through doors convincingly. But never mind – even if you can’t come through a door convincingly, perhaps you can come through a door interestingly or, dare one say, amusingly." DWM 179.

"The fantasy area is a development of what we’re brought up with, of pantomime and fairytales. In fairytales, you don’t have ambiguous ending – dragons are killed, evil witches are crushed to death, often very violently. Genesis of the Daleks, however, breaks those rules: instead of really winning, the Doctor only sets the Daleks back by 1,000 years at most. “Actually, that was a curious one, because there he questions the whole notion of someone committing an act that would change all history, as opposed just influencing it. It’s the same sort of thing that might go through someone’s mind if they were working on the nuclear bomb. Should we press that button? There’s that old phrase – ‘Have I the right?” That was the only serial that did that sort of thing; otherwise they were all resolved with explosions." DWN 179.

"I’ve forgotten how you kill Cybermen. I think it’s something to do with blowing gold bust into their chests. That used to make me laugh a lot. But it didn’t matter, really, because I always won. I used to say to children, ‘Isn’t it funny? Have you noticed? In the fourth episode, I always win!’ And they would say, ‘Yes, it’s marvellous, Doctor…'" DWM 290.

“I found it very strenuous – it was a very uncomfortable, and took a long time to do – but the director, Paddy Russell, insisted. Although my face was invisible, she felt that I should be in it, because she said that my way of moving would be recognisable. I was very flattered by that, but of course it was just a director exercising her influence over an actor. I don’t know whether I was recognisable or not, but I had to do it.” DWM 179.

*** Home Truths

During 1976, Doctor Who was coasting on a wave of popularity. Tom Baker had embedded himself on the national consciousness, and behind the scenes the teaming of Hinchcliffe and Holmes were turning out superlative stories week after week. Indeed, the only shadow on the horizon was the imminent departure of the well-loved companion Sarah-Jane Smith…

“The stories that Philip and Robert worked on were all film pastiches, and of course we spotted them. In fact, sometimes, I was extremely rude about it if they didn’t come clean where they were nicking the idea from! Like all good comedians, you thrash around anywhere for material, and steal, and adapt, trying to perform the alchemy, transmuting one thing into another. If people recognise the influence, it adds a certain pleasure – it’s another little level…” DWM 179.

“I think the formula lent itself to Gothic areas, simply because we have that long film background of Gothic horror, tension, and fantasy – the tragicomic, if you like. Do you remember the old days when you’d go watch the old Hammer films, especially the late-night ones when one had been drinking? You’d get glares of laughter from one particular section of the audiences, and the rest would sat po-faced. Doctor Who was like that…. We used to see lots of movies at the time, and often, like actors and directors do, we adapted scenes from movies, recalling a scene from a film and doing our version of it. There were a lot of nudges and wink…” “Well, in Brain of Morbius, there’s the scene where we arrive at the door of this castle, and it’s pouring with rain. We’d seen a scene in a film, and both Liz and I thought it would be terribly funny if, when they did the reverse we shot [looking out through the door], and it was pouring with rain like it was the end of the world, I said, ‘I’m so sorry, but could you spare a cup of water?’ or something ridiculous like that. It allowed the ‘Igor’ character [Condo] a very extraordinary take, as if to say, ‘Are these fellows taking the mick out of us?’” DWM 179.

“There’s Philip Madoc’s great line when he drops the brain, and say something like, ‘Sorry about that Morbius.’ I was never sure whether that was in the script, but I knew they left it in. It was killingly funny.” DWM 179.

“Of course, for years, I’ve been mocked by certain people for how seriously I took the part – but I was an alien. I had fans to be responsible to. You know this: you yourself have readers to be responsible to, fans of your own, and you must consciously try to be excited by your work or your subject, or else you’ll lose them. And you can’t live without fans… Fans are crucial… Unless you’re some kind of Carthusian monk, then you must have one fan, and that’s your partner. Then you have a little family, and you’ve got four fans. Some nice neighbours and you’ve got eleven fans. But if you’re a big star footballer or big actor, then you might have thousands of fans. If you were Doctor Who in 1976, then you’d have a million fans! Amazing! It was irresistible. They were glorious days – days of my glory.” DWM 258.

“I don’t really feel we really went to far with the violence in the show. I think if it had been over the top, someone would have said so.” DWM 92.

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