On borrowed time?

http://cuttingsarchive.org/images/c/ca/1986-09-27_Belfast_Telegraph.jpg

Publication: Belfast Telegraph
Date: 1986-09-27
Author: Mary Kaye
Page: 7
Language: English

'No, we're here to stay,' says buoyant Dr. Who

TO THE unmistakable tune of Hello, Dolly, hardened BBC technicians erupted with a chorus of "Well, Hello, Colin" when their sixth and favourite Dr. Who returned to work on the new show, after an absence of more than a year.

And says Colin Baker: "I felt a lump in my throat and, although I know grown men shouldn't cry. I very nearly did.

"I'm just so glad the show is back again, and I hope it's here to stay." So do viewers, who jammed the BBC switchboards with protest calls and and sent indignant letters by the sackful when controller of programmes Michael Grade decided to axe the series which was first shown in 1963 claiming that it had become "tired" and had lost its appeal.

For Colin it was a double blow, for it happened only a few months after he lost his baby son, Jack, through a cot death.

"I used to drive past the churchyard in Buckinghamshire, whe he was buried, on my way home from the studios," he said, "and I'd always have a little chat to him when I went by.

"People say that time heals everything. but I don't think you can ever really recover from the loss of a child. It is as though you had lost part of yourself."

On a happier note. however, he and his attractive third wife, Marion, are now the proud parents of a bouncing 19- month-old baby daughter, who already recognises her Daddy as the indominatible Dr. Who

"She's not old enough yet to be a critic," grins Colin, "but she loves it all the same. She just points at the screen, smiles from ear to ear and says 'Dada!' and then goes into fits of giggles.

"She lines her dolls up to watch, too, so at least I know that, somewhere, I have a truly captive audience!"

In fact, although Michael Grade has firmly said that this latest series is very definately a "trial run," the future for Dr. Who looks. good.

"Our aim is to scare the audence a bit, but not to terrify them," says producer John Nathan-Turner, and we have heightened the humour quite a bit, so we reckon we're on to a winner."

Ironically, the Time Lord is on trial on the screen, too slapped into dock for into altering history. And of course he has a new companion (No. 26), in the shape of bubbly Bonnie Langford, who plays keep-fit freak Melanie.

"That's another story," Colin confessed. "I put on nearly two stone in weight during the time the show was off, and when I turned up to meet Bonnie and the powers-that-be saw huge me and little her, they decided to write it into the script.

"So you'll see her all the time, nagging me to exercise and lose weight. And I was so impressed with her efforts on screen that I did actually take it to heart and managed to lose quite a bit.

"The trouble is that Marion is a fantastic cook, and whatever she dishes up I'm only too happy to guzzle down, and lots of red wine to go with it.

"And the unfair thing is that she can eat exactly the same as I do steak and I kidney pud, roast beef with all the trimmings, bangers and loads of mash and gravy and yet she never seems to put on a pound.

"Sometimes," grinned, "I think life can be unfair. But then, I've always been a big chap."

And a bright one, too - at school he gained nine O- levels and five A's, including Latin, Greek and French, and in fact, trained as a solicitor for five years before opting out to become a drama student. "The two jobs might seem as different as chalk and cheese." he says, "but, in fact, you need rhetoric for both, and I reckon there's a fair bit of acting goes on in the courtroom!"

He also once reached the regional finals of The Times crossword competition, and admits he is still a fanatic.

"If I get stuck with a clue, I'll worry at it for hours, like a dog with a bone, until I've solved it, and then I'm content for the rest of the day"

Although he doesn't regret for a moment having chosen showbusiness as a career, he does wish he had gone to Oxford or Cambridge.

"I often fantasise about being an academic - I mean a true academic," he confessed, "but, on the other hand, between acting jobs I've sold shirts for a living, and worked both as a cleaner and a lorry driver. And I enjoyed that, too.

"Academics, I sometimes feel, tend to lose touch with reality, and that's something I would never want to do.

It was his role as ruthless Paul Merroney in The Brothers which gave him his first taste of TV stardom. And it was then that he met and married actress Liza Goddard, by whom he has a nine-year-old son, Thomas, who lives with Liza and husband Alvin Stardust, in Surrey.

Just before he got the part of Paul, he says, he was driving lorries for a firm in north London.

"As soon as I heard the series was about a road transport firm." he recalled, "I thought it had to be a good omen. And, as it turned out, it was."

That was at the beginning of the Seventies and, like Dr. who, he has appeared regularly on the box ever since.

And he was still able to play the Doctor, both in a radio version of the show last summer, and at six special Dr. Who conventions in the United States.

They're amazing affairs," he says, "for the show has a tremendous following over there, and it's a chance for the fans to meet the characters and the people who put it all together.

"Lots of fans dress up. too, either as their own version of the Doctor, or the Daleks, or even the Doctor's dog.

"It's like going into another world but, at the same time, it's enormous fun."

Caption: Bonnie Langford-assistant No. 26.

Caption: Colin Baker-confident of the new formula.

On borrowed time?

Navigation menu

Page actions

Page actions

Personal tools

Navigation

Search

External links

Tools