From Local Hero to global superstar

Sunday Express, Aug. 17, 2014

• Doctor Who, the legacy
• There's not a lot of space in the Tardis!
• From Local Hero to global superstar
• Doctor Who pioneers

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• Publication: Sunday Express
• Date: 2014-08-17
• Author: Clair Woodward
• Page: 48
• Language: English

Clair Woodward tracks Peter Capaldi's career, starting with the art school band that led him into acting and the jobless year before The Thick Of It led him to Doctor Who's Tardis

ACTUALLY, Doctor Who is not Peter Capaldi's first role as a time-traveller. In 1995's All-New Alexei Sayle Show, he and Sayle played a pair of time-travelling drunks who would end up in the midst of historical moments, such as the assassination of Rasputin, the signing of the American Declaration of Independence and the start of the First World War. (He played Sherlock Holmes to Sayle's Doctor Watson in the same series; a tenuous Doctor link).

This is an indication of the colourful career that has led 56-year-old Capaldi to his dream job of playing the 12th Doctor in the new series. His first TV role was as fast-talking punk Eamonn Donnelly in a 1984 episode of daytime legal drama Crown Court; other unusual roles include Beatle George Harrison in a TV drama, one of the Three Wise Men in a Nativity series and two cross-dressing roles; one as transexual Vera Reynolds in Prime Suspect, the other as a jealous husband who dresses in drag to follow his cheating wife in The Comic Strip Presents... Jealousy.

His fondness for a colourful role, and that of colourful language in his portrayal of spin doctor (another one!) Malcolm Tucker in The Thick Of It, may be explained by his creative background.

His Glasgow childhood was shaped by his love of television, especially Doctor Who, and he loved to draw and paint. It did not make his schooldays particularly pleasant.

"My adolescence was a kind of motorway pile-up," he later remembered. "When I was at school, you couldn't draw and be into football too. If you were into art, then you were seen as an absolute pansy." The bullying did not put him off artistic pursuits; he joined an amateur dramatic society and then gained a degree at the prestigious Glasgow School of Art. (When the school was recently badly damaged in a fire, he sent a filmed message from the Doctor Who set to the students, saying: "I wish that I could turn back time and fix it but unfortunately, I'm not Cher.")

At art school Capaldi also met Craig Ferguson and the two became part of a band called Dreamboys. Times were clearly wild and when Ferguson went on to become a comedian and host of a US chat show he had Peter on it to promote the movie In The Loop.

"I have actually taken acid with my next guest. That's kind of weird," Ferguson said by way of introduction. Of the Dreamboys days, Capaldi said: "We were rotten but we had a lot of fun."

The pop dream never came true but an acting career came by accident. Film director Bill Forsyth was a friend of Peter's landlady and, after meeting him, cast him as oil company rep Oldsen in the film Local Hero, which went on to achieve big international success.

He worked steadily after that, often in major TV dramas, and also met his wife Elaine Collins when both were appearing in a touring show in 1983.

Peter said the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for him in London was: "A girl once came to my beery flat in Kensal Green, opened the blinds and cooked me breakfast. I married her." The pair now have a grown-up daughter, Cecily.

Capaldi wrote and directed a short film called Franz Kafka's It's A Wonderful Life in 1993, a comedy based on the miserablist author's attempts to write his masterpiece Metamorphosis. Starring Richard E Grant, the film won an Oscar for Best Short Film and when I interviewed him on his return to London he was glowing with pride and, like me, was probably expecting great things in Hollywood.

We were both let down. A year after winning the Oscar, Capaldi found himself in a muddy field in Hertfordshire, directing a dog food commercial.

13 UT HE continued to work steadily, much as he had in his early career with many roles on TV, including as Sid's dad in teen drama Skins, and in Foyles War and My Family. However, before his success as Malcolm in The Thick Of It, Capaldi was out of work for a year.

"If a part came up it would be for the main corpse's friend's brother who was having problems with his marriage," he wryly commented. "Two scenes. You'd have to go up for that and then you wouldn't get it and then you'd just feel likes***."

It was Thick Of It creator Armando Iannucci who saved his career. Armando and Peter's parents used to live in the same street. Iannucci recalls when he told his mother they were working on the series: "She said: 'Ohhh, wee Peter', because she remembered him as a baby."

That is not a way you would expect to hear monstrous Malcolm described, is it? The role revitalised his career, won him awards and the status for Doctor Who supremo Stephen Moffatt to offer him one of the biggest roles in global television.

Not bad for a man whom one of his friends described to me as "a gentle, funny soul who really likes drawing".

Spelling correction: Steven Moffat

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• APA 6th ed.: Woodward, Clair (2014-08-17). From Local Hero to global superstar. Sunday Express p. 48.
• MLA 7th ed.: Woodward, Clair. "From Local Hero to global superstar." Sunday Express [add city] 2014-08-17, 48. Print.
• Chicago 15th ed.: Woodward, Clair. "From Local Hero to global superstar." Sunday Express, edition, sec., 2014-08-17
• Turabian: Woodward, Clair. "From Local Hero to global superstar." Sunday Express, 2014-08-17, section, 48 edition.
• Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=From Local Hero to global superstar | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/From_Local_Hero_to_global_superstar | work=Sunday Express | pages=48 | date=2014-08-17 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=21 June 2025 }}</ref>
• Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=From Local Hero to global superstar | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/From_Local_Hero_to_global_superstar | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=21 June 2025}}</ref>