Genesis of the Doctor
Tom Baker travels back in time to reflect on his first year playing the Doctor. “It’s a bit like religion really, in that all you have to do is believe it…”
Interview by EMILY COOK
Tom Baker is in East Sussex, admiring the oak-panelled splendour of a 15th-century inn. “This is a marvellous old place, isn’t it?” he says. “I often find myself standing next to old buildings like this one, or cathedrals, or gnarled old oak trees. Compared to them I look younger…”
Outside the sun is shining, but this doesn’t seem to lift Tom’s sombre mood. He recalls a line of WB Yeats – “The sorrows of your changing face” – and ponders, “Isn’t it awful, the fear of growing old? We live in a time where beauty is worshiped and old age is a terrible threat. And how horrid it is. Because, what’s going to become of me? I know the answer. I’ll tell you: I’m going to die.”
The ensuing, slightly awkward pause is curtailed by a deep, reverberating laugh. “And of course I’m consoled by the fact that I can look you right in the eye, at your lovely young face, and say, ‘And so are you!’ And there you are, laughing too.”
Tom is 84 years old, and while he might not be so quick on his feet anymore (“Oh I do miss running…”) his disarming wit is sharper than ever. “I laugh at my fears,” he says. “I try to pretend it doesn’t matter really. I go out early every morning, walking in the woods with my dog Poppy, and try to celebrate being well enough to do that at my great age.”
Tom was cast in his most famous role in 1974. Does it feel like 44 years since he started playing the Doctor? “Well, not if I’m relaxed. But if I’m walking along and it occurs to me, yes… I was just turning 40 when I began. And I’m still playing the Doctor, for Big Finish.” His eyes light up with obvious pride. Yep, Tom Baker is definitely still the Doctor. Always will be.
We’re meeting Tom to discuss the imminent release of a Blu-ray box set that gathers all the episodes from his first season of Doctor Who. Much like Tom himself, this stuff has stood the test of time. “Isn’t that incredible?” he says, before claiming to be puzzled by the title Doctor Who: The Collection – Season 12. “That sounds as if it was my twelfth season, doesn’t it? It wasn’t, it was my first. I’m sure that does have some historical interest though. And those stories are wonderful…”
Five serials were broadcast in Season 12: Robot, The Ark in Space, The Sontaran Experiment, Genesis of the Daleks and Revenge of the Cybermen. Tom’s co-stars were Elisabeth Sladen as plucky journalist Sarah Jane Smith and Ian Marter as the relatively hapless UNIT medic Harry Sullivan.
Tom’s first full episode – Part One of Robot – was broadcast by BBC1 at 5.35pm on Saturday 28 December 1974. Nearly 11 million viewers tuned in. Was Tom one of them? “Yes, I was. I watched it with a group of people at the pub. I remember a girl who was serving the drinks actually did a double-take. I’d bought a round and I saw this girl look at me, and then look at the screen. She was a very simple girl and she couldn’t understand why I was in two places at once.”
Out of all those early serials, Tom says, “Robot is the one I remember best because it was the first.” As well as bringing back fond memories of Elisabeth Sladen and Ian Marter, Robot also reminds him of the actor who played Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. “Nick Courtney was wonderful. The Brigadier was marvellously pompous and had a deep voice, do you remember? We became great pals.”
Tom also got on very well with designer Roger Murray-Leach, who made an outstanding contribution to the next serial. “The Ark in Space is absolutely my favourite in terms of the sets – it was amazing. I thought Roger Murray-Leach brought some of those sets into a fabulous film realm.” We tell Tom that there’s an interview with Roger in this very issue of DWM (on page 18).
“Ah, good. Do tell him I think about him a lot. He and I were very friendly. “In fact, Roger took me to hospital when I broke my collarbone,” he continues, recalling a mishap on Dartmoor during recording of The Sontaran Experiment. “A collarbone is easily broken, you know.” Was the injury the result of a strenuous action scene? “No, I just fell over spectacularly. It wasn’t a stunt – they just asked me to fall over. But, as you know, I overact. I can’t do anything naturalistically. So I fell over with a terrible thump and broke a collarbone.”
He stares off into the distance, as if reflecting on some profound truth. “I think my whole success in life has been the result of overacting… People say when you’re in the army, never volunteer for anything. So when I was in the army, the sergeant would come in and say, ‘Right, I want four men.’ I always put my hand up to volunteer. ‘I want four men – not you Baker,’ he’d say. It was a marvellous device. I got away with murder while all the others were fatigued.”
On one occasion in the 1970s, however, Tom had cause to regret that his reputation preceded him. “I went on holiday to a cottage in Italy with my girlfriend at that time. We took her daughter Harriet and another young girl called Sophie. Ian Marter was there too, because I had enough money to take him with us.
“The house we were in looked lovely, except it was absolutely riddled with fleas, which rather took the gloss out of it unfortunately. But it did have a marvellous swimming pool. I couldn’t swim – I still can’t swim – but even so I got in this pool. Suddenly I got into difficultly and really started to panic. I was about as far away from the end [of the pool] as I am from you now. I was beginning to get terribly panic-stricken and started losing consciousness. I heard Ian say, ‘It’s Tom, he’s overacting as usual.’ And in that slow time when you’re frightened like that, I remember thinking, ‘I’m going to die because he thinks I’m joking. This is a terrible joke, isn’t it?’
“As I went down, Harriet and Sophie – who were about nine, I think – were sitting on the edge and they got alarmed. Harriet slipped into the pool, holding onto the edge. Sophie got Harriet’s leg and then got me. And so these two little girls formed a kind of chain and pulled me out of the water. Then Ian saw I was really in trouble. I nearly died. Or maybe I was overacting, but I didn’t mean to… It was terrible.
“Sophie is now a very accomplished journalist and she wrote to me last year, or the year before. She said, ‘I was at a party – we were all drinking and people were telling stories.’ They said to Sophie, ‘What about you, Sophie?’ And she said, ‘I’ve got nothing. Well actually, I did once save Tom Baker’s life!’ I’m eternally grateful.”
Sophie is the daughter of the late David Maloney, the director of Season 12’s Genesis of the Daleks. “David and I became great friends,” says Tom. “He found me very funny, so naturally I was flattered. And I do remember Genesis of the Daleks was a huge hit, wasn’t it?”
That’s something of an understatement – Terry Nation’s masterpiece is one of the great milestones in Doctor Who’s history. Highlights include the tense moment in Part Six where the Doctor prepares to connect two wires that will trigger an explosion, destroying the Daleks forever. He pauses, however, questioning whether he has the right to commit genocide. Tom’s vivid recollection of the scene prompts him to re-enact the Doctor’s moral dilemma. He holds his hands in front of his face and pretends to stare at those wires. “That was the one where I was going to blow the Daleks up at the end. But the BBC don’t like you blowing up a formula that’s making money, so I was just about to destroy them and they said, ‘Hold it Tom!’ They had a conversation and then I had to instead say, ‘Have I that right?’
“Actually, I did that as a joke at a club in Covent Garden a couple of years ago. They were showing that clip above me on a big screen and I was underneath it, miming along. And when it got to that scene where I was about to blow the Daleks up I acted trying to close the wires together and everyone in the audience was giggling. You heard the line ‘Have I that right?’ and then I said, ‘No, no, no. Although I suppose I could blow up the BBC…’ And I pretended to do it. People chuckled like you’re chuckling now. But some rather po-faced journalist was there and published a piece saying ‘Tom Baker wants to blow up the BBC’. Fortunately, the BBC defended it and said it was a joke.”
Another deep laugh issues forth as Tom reassures us that he bears no such malice towards the BBC.
The final story broadcast in Season 12 was Revenge of the Cybermen, which was the only occasion the Fourth Doctor faced the famous silver giants. “I like the Daleks,” he says after some considered thought. “But of course the Daleks were inanimate weren’t they? When you’re with Cybermen, they can look at you or move about and react in many ways. Whereas the Daleks can only react by shouting. And that got very repetitive.”
As well as upscaled high-definition episodes, the box set contains some brand-new special features. These include Behind the Sofa, in which Tom views some of his best moments in the company of producer Philip Hinchcliff e and Elisabeth Sladen’s daughter, Sadie Miller. “Oh that was so effortless,” says Tom, “especially because I was with Philip.”
His thoughts then turn to his late co-star. “Elisabeth Sladen was my favourite [companion] because she was the very first. And also because we got on so well together. We had a similar sense of humour. And she used to like y silly suggestions. She knew I was ridiculous but she found it funny. The directors would say, ‘It’s a bit idiotic isn’t it?’ But I am idiotic. The whole thing is idiotic.
“You know, Doctor Who is nothing to do with science fiction. It’s nothing to do with anything. It’s a bit like religion really, in that all you have to do is believe it. And I can believe any old nonsense. That’s why I was a success in Doctor Who, because it’s so easy for me to believe all that. I’ve got a magic wand called a sonic screwdriver and we don’t just travel through time, we dematerialise. And no one really questions that. It’s absolutely incredible, isn’t it? You just believe it. And so the improbability of the thing appealed to me.”
Season 12 was just the beginning of Tom Baker’s unparalleled seven-year run as the Doctor. Summing up what his first series means to him, Tom cuts straight to the point: “It was quite simply the happiest time of my life.”
The new box set will prompt a nostalgic reaction from those old enough to have seen these episodes at the time. For younger fans, it offers an opportunity to watch Tom Baker at the height of his powers, in some of the series’ greatest stories. “I hope they will enjoy it,” he says. “I get so many affectionate letters from fans, so I have a particular sensitivity to them.”
It is a truth universally acknowledged that not everything Tom Baker says can be taken at face value, but on one subject at least he seems entirely sincere.
“I love the fans of Doctor Who, I really do,” he says. “They are fond of me and they know that I admire them for their taste, because not everybody thinks I’m marvellous. However, enough people think I’m marvellous. And that’s what keeps me going.”
