What do you do when you receive official looking documents calling you up for the Royal Navy - and then find that they are a practical joke played on you by your brother?
Well, if you're Jon Pertwee, the latest Dr Who, you go round to your brother's house while he is out and you fill his bath with jelly made from the contents of 25 packets!
Yes, Jon did exactly that though his brother Michael turned the joke to advantage by throwing a jelly party, issuing his friends with spoons and inviting them to eat it all!
The two Pertwees have always been great practical jokers. Jon claims to have gone through several schools as a boy due to his jokes. And he lost an early job as an actor in a repertory company for playing a trick on the leading man while on stage. He was supposed to shake him by the hand; Jon pressed an egg into his hand!
Jon's parents were both on the stage and he started entertaining at 10 when he was given a ukelele for his birthday. But he made his name as a voice on radio in comedy shows like The Navy Lark. (He was, in fact a naval officer in the war). He has been called a man of 50 voices.
Now he is the third actor to fly Dr Who's police box. He's made the doctor more of a dandy, with ruffled shirts and fancy jackets instead of the frock coats and baggy trousers of the past. But, like the others he still has to face the monsters and aliens in the past, present and future.
The third man
Did you realise that Jon Pertwee is the third actor to play Dr Who on television? The original doctor, back in 1963, was William Hartnell (right). Then came Patrick Troughton (left).
Each has given the doctor slightly different characteristics. But the popularity of Dr Who continues unchanged it seems.
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