Carry on, Doctor!
- Publication: Liverpool Echo
- Date: 1992-03-25
- Author: Neil Bonner
- Page: 23
- Language: English
The 'Time Lord' hopes for a happy landing — in hospital ...
It's a new Operations' room for Tom
TOM BAKER raises a broad, toothy grin at the irony of making a major TV comeback playing, of all things, a doctor. Dr who? Dr Geoffrey Hoyt, that's who!
Well, actually, it's Professor Hoyt and he's a consultant. But it's close enough for the actor to chuckle: "Why do casting directors always see me as a sort of doctor?"
Tom, now 57, is hoping that ITV's revamped hospital drama Medics, (starts next Tuesday) in which he plays the aforementioned Hoyt. will at last allow people to accept him as someone other than that legendary time traveller, Dr Who.
The Liverpool-born actor, who once trained to be a priest, played the Time Lord for seven years and became arguably the most popular Doctor of them all.
And even though it is now 12 years since he last flew through time, vanquishing weird and wonderful foes, he is still inextricably linked with the long-running sci-fi show.
He has always regarded its success as a double-edged sword. It brought him world, wide fame, which he adores. But it virtually killed his television career ... until now.
"It's prettty well taken 10 years for me to be accepted as a possible for parts," he says.
"Working in the theatre has never been a problem and I do a lot of that. But television people have been reluctant to use me because of the Dr Who image.
"I'm glad that they are beginning to realise that 1 can still do other things than' fight with Daleks!"
His TV work has been more or less limited to playing a reptile in the children's series The Chronicles of Narnia, and baring his backside in The Life and Loves of a She Devil.
Deep down, he accepts that whatever he does now, he is always going to be Dr Who to millions of people around the world.
At its height the programme was shown in 85 countries and even today it's still big business, particularly in the United States.
"When I go to their Dr Who conventions, which are quite extraordinary, they treat me like some kind of god. I walk among the people and as they reach out to touch me they seem to get some kind of magical charge out of it.
"I feel like a miracle worker. I am able to make people walk again. They could walk in the first place, of course, but they've forgotten that in the excitement of it all!
"I could live very nicely in America, just attending these things. They really look after you but, unfortunately, it has never led to anything else. No job has come along as a result, despite my popularity."
Six-foot-three Baker, with his shock of white hair and booming voice, is a larger-than-life character in more ways than one and enjoys fostering the image that he is whacky and even slightly eccentric.
Baker now lives in Kent with his third wife, TV producer Sue Gerrard (whom she says he absolutely adores) in as converted chapel next to a graveyard, which he regularly trims with his mower.
"Ah, yes," he says, "It's great fun tickling the tummies of the dead as I give the grass a short-back-and-sides. I regard the people buried within as my friends. I often have a little chuckle with them."
Tom has equally off-beat thoughts about the Health Service, prompted by playing Professor Hoyt.
'Give them money'
"I think it's very important that doctors give a good performance for their patients. I think I would have the gift of healing people because I could be very reassuring and make them feel better.
"Most people don't really need all the pills and treatments that doctors prescribe. Give them money, I say! How much beter than spending £130 on drugs it would be to hand them 50-quid in crisp tenners! That would get 'em going again." The actor, whose TV comeback was further underlined by landing a key part in the recent BBC drama The Law Lord feels comfortable in hospitals. During his Army days he worked as an orderly in the medical corps.
"I was pretty good at my job," he says. "Perhaps I was always destined to be a doctor ..."
Caption: Tom Baker and Sue Johnston in Medics
Disclaimer: These citations are created on-the-fly using primitive parsing techniques. You should double-check all citations. Send feedback to whovian@cuttingsarchive.org
- APA 6th ed.: Bonner, Neil (1992-03-25). Carry on, Doctor!. Liverpool Echo p. 23.
- MLA 7th ed.: Bonner, Neil. "Carry on, Doctor!." Liverpool Echo [add city] 1992-03-25, 23. Print.
- Chicago 15th ed.: Bonner, Neil. "Carry on, Doctor!." Liverpool Echo, edition, sec., 1992-03-25
- Turabian: Bonner, Neil. "Carry on, Doctor!." Liverpool Echo, 1992-03-25, section, 23 edition.
- Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=Carry on, Doctor! | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Carry_on,_Doctor! | work=Liverpool Echo | pages=23 | date=1992-03-25 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=18 April 2024 }}</ref>
- Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=Carry on, Doctor! | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Carry_on,_Doctor! | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=18 April 2024}}</ref>
