I was asked to go back, but I couldn’t. I had
been out of work for a while when I was offered the opportunity to join the Chichester
Festival Theatre for a season – back
on stage again!
I had signed the agreement, and literally three or four days later I received a
call about the possibility of returning as Captain Turner. I was badly disappointed
that I couldn’t go back to Doctor Who.
So, you would have returned to the show
otherwise?
Of course! I was thinking, “I’m playing one of
the principal characters, this is a dream!”
Were you aware at the time that The
Invasion was seen as a pilot for a potential new format for Doctor Who?
No. We had no idea. We just knew that, for its
time, this was a really big production of Doctor Who. We knew it was important
because it had a big budget. We were all just glad to be working!
Did you enjoy making The Invasion?
Sometimes a group of actors are cast and get
together and it works – everybody gets on, and everybody enjoys working
together. It’s great when that happens because it doesn’t always. But when it
does it really helps. At the time it made quite an impact, and The Invasion
has since become iconic. And, of course, now I’ve been animated! There
aren’t many actors that have been animated! It’s been fun to see those missing episodes of us all in animated
form.
And I remember the big action sequence we shot
on location by St Paul’s in the City Of London.
The classic sequence when the Cybermen came up through the manholes and the invasion was on! It was a hectic Sunday shoot and a tight
schedule. Douglas was at his disciplinarian best and we had to be fully
concentrated and on our marks from dawn to dusk. I had my 3-year-old son bought
to watch the filming. To this day, when Ashley walks in the street he always
avoids manhole covers!
Are you surprised that Doctor Who is still
running after all these years?
Back in the sixties, I knew that Doctor Who
was popular, but it was just another teatime series in those days. But when you
look at the quality that started to develop, I can understand exactly how it
survived and has been revived successfully and is now part of television’s
cultural history. Especially because people like Kit
Pedler and Gerry Davis really
came along at just the right time. It was exciting.
Actually, back in the 90s, the private bank Coutts & Co. had a financing division for film and television. They were going to be part of the finance to produce a fantasy
film called Rainbow
in 1994. In the end they didn’t back us, for various reasons. But my son and I
got to know the guy who was running the film division very well, and he asked
us if we could come up with some ideas for reviving Doctor Who. Contacts of his
were looking at how to reimagine the programme, as the BBC were at that time
looking to freshen it up with outside partners. So, we were sort of
semi-commissioned to come up with ideas and storylines for the new Doctor Who.
We did some work on the project at a time when
there was no definite decision to bring it back. Especially after Steven Spielberg’s involvement fell through and a Doctor Who TV movie didn’t turn out too good. The BBC delayed longer any decisions on
a revival. Who knows what happened to our work!
Why have you never given an interview about
your time on Doctor Who?
I don’t think I had ever realised how iconic Doctor
Who had become - even when I started getting offers to sign autographs and
talk to the fans some years ago. And the other thing is that I was so involved
in writing and producing my own films and television over the years. You start
from scratch with a script, and it demands 100% dedication to get it developed,
produced, and released, whilst everything else from the past was something I
just hadn’t got time for, which I know now was a mistake – I should have made
time.
I still get fan letters which somehow find me
wherever I am in the world. I came to Montreal a few years ago because of a tv series
and was sharing an office with a local producer. One day his assistant approached
and said that there was a letter for me, which was a surprise since I’d only
been there a few weeks and not yet given out the mailing address. It was a fan
letter from Sweden asking for a signed photo and telling me she’d followed my
career since Doctor Who, and would I ever be coming to Sweden! I was
left thinking, how on earth did she find me here? How does that happen?
I’d put my acting past aside, because for the
last forty years it’s been film and television writing and producing. That’s
been my life, behind the camera.
You also featured in many television
programmes that continue to attract a great deal of interest – do you remember
of your appearance in Out Of The Unknown?
Yes, I do! Peter
Sasdy directed an episode called The Midas Plague. I didn’t have a big
part, but he really gave
me encouragement. He tried to cast me in other things, but again I was in the
theatre a lot. Peter was a very talented director, and Out Of The Unknown was an interesting series. At the time, I felt that they were
making some brave television, adapting classic science fiction short stories, as
well as getting contemporary authors on board to write some of the episodes.
I was in a few episodes of Crossroads
in 1973. Noele
Gordon was a difficult
woman to work with - some of the regulars dreaded going into rehearsal if she
was in a bad mood. I also discovered that the audience took the show very
seriously. Although I was only in three of episodes, I immediately had a
fanbase. I used to wonder how people could be so
dedicated to an afternoon
series like Crossroads and believe that the characters were real.
What made me realise how seriously some people took a programme like Crossroads was when the character of Sheila
Harvey, played by actress Sonia
Fox, was heavily pregnant with an illegitimate
child. Sonia and I were in a Birmingham department store, paying at the
counter, when a woman came rushing up to her and punched her in the stomach. She
was shouting “I hope you lose the f*****g child, you whore!” I remember helping
to pull this woman off her. Sonia was dazed and in pain. The woman really did
believe in the character. It was a shocking moment. After this I always made an
effort to reply to fan letters!
Peter Ling (who
was co-creator and main writer of the soap) asked me one day if I had ever
written anything. I showed him a script, and he called and offered me a chance
to join the writing team. At that time, I was a single dad, and I couldn’t do
much TV or theatre, so I joined the team for six months – until Noele Gordon
got me sacked!
I thought I would like to bring an element of
light and fun into the storylines, as well as all the drama. It went down well
with everybody, except Noele Gordon. Comedy was always a thing that I’ve loved
and enjoyed writing, but she didn’t like my style of comedy, and felt that some
of the characters that I had created with the team in the writers’ room were
not to her taste! We developed the character of Benny Hawkins,
which was quite brave at the time, but she didn’t like it at all. So that was
the end of me on the team, and Peter Ling reluctantly had to let me go.
Why did you quit acting?
I quit finally because I was a single dad, and
I couldn’t cope with theatre as well as television and film as a single father.
I’ve never regretted it, but I’ve always missed it. Ironically, I have missed
acting on stage more than television. Work that one out - after my young dreams
of being a film star!
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