View source for Monster smash: A Tardis chase, a spiderwoman and Catherine Tate on the run

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| publication = The Guardian
| file = 2006-12-22 Guardian.jpg
| px = 350
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| date = 2006-12-22
| author = Jonathan Wright
| pages = G2, p. 5
| language = English
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The idea of Catherine Tate as the Doctor's one-off Christmas companion may smack of novelty casting - but nothing could be further from the truth, says Doctor Who's ebullient lead writer, Russell T Davies. 

"One thing that people have been saying is that it's like a Comic Relief sketch, but it's not," Davies insists. "It's a proper hour-long drama and Catherine Tate has a proper part. She's amazing in it, her and David Tennant together are a joy."

The Christmas special, The Runaway Bride, sees the Doctor trying to get Tate's feisty Donna back to her wedding, only to face such distractions as murderous Santas and a humungous spider, the Empress of the Racnoss.

Sarah Parish (Tennant's co-star in Blackpool) plays the Empress with imperious ferocity, no mean feat considering that each day she had to spend four hours in makeup before being lowered into an arachnid body.

"We haven't done a huge, prosthetic creature before, so we really went for it. Ooh, it's gorgeous," Davies says. "And on top of that you get a great actor."

But is there anyone he wouldn't cast? Ken Dodd - "he doesn't need it, frankly", Davies jokes - would convey the "wrong image", too redolent, perhaps, of the show's 1980s nadirs, when Dodd had a cameo.

A highlight of The Runaway Bride is an expensive chase scene in which the Tardis pursues a cab down a crowded motorway. Parts of the chase were filmed on location. Cardiff's authorities shut down the road for two days, so that a crane, crew and cameras could hare down the tarmac unhindered.

"It's so fluid it's breathtaking," says Davies. "I remember writing the scene, thinking, 'We'll be lucky if we manage it,' but, you know, they closed off the road for us. At one point David Tennant is strapped to the low-loader lorry that has the crane on it, so that he can be in the foreground of the shot visible as the motorway is whipping past."

With the third series of Doctor Who currently in production and the Who universe expanded to include the spin-offs Torchwood (expect a big, fan-pleasing cliffhanger when season one ends soon) and the child-friendly The Sarah Jane Adventures, Davies is deeply ensconced in a role the Americans call show-runner.

Davies says he loves every minute of it all. A few weeks back, he visited the company that does Who's visual effects, and found a room full of people busy creating monsters and alien cities. "I've never been so happy in my life," he says.

So what if he could spruce up another vintage series? If he really had to, he'd go for Daleks creator Terry Nation's Survivors, the 1970s tale of a mysterious pandemic that wipes out swathes of the population. "You could make it with bird flu ..."

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