TV diary
Legendary Dr Who-meister Tom Baker is not a man to be offered drawn out assignments. Just ask the makers of the epic film The Lord of the Rings, which is currently filming an interminable shoot in the deepest, darkest Antipodes.
"I was asked to go to New Zealand to be something or other in a film that they're making of The Lord of the Rings. It was probably to play Merlin or his equivalent — I'm asked to play Merlin-like people a lot these days," he says of the project, which will star Ian McKellen and Ian Holm.
"They said: 'You do know that it will be for 18 months, don't you?'
"I made up my mind straight away, and said: 'No thank you, I'm not hanging around in New Zealand for 18 months at my time of life.'"
But our Tom has taken the whole thing in his stride.
"They seemed a bit miffed, but who cares?" he goes on. "New Zealand is, I'm sure, a very nice place, but not for a year and a half. Actually, it has always seemed to me to be a bit like Maidstone with a drop of colour added."
Barking.
Caption: Staying put — Tom Baker
Disclaimer: These citations are created on-the-fly using primitive parsing techniques. You should double-check all citations. Send feedback to whovian@cuttingsarchive.org
