With Ncuti Gatwa’s departure from the TARDIS, we caught up with a couple of his predecessors to reflect on their time on Doctor Who, and to speculate on their thoughts for the future (they are Time Lords, after all). So, at Nottingham’s EM-Con, STARBURST took the opportunity to chat with Peter Davison and Paul McGann about their time as the Doctor…
STARBURST: What was your favourite episode or audio drama of Doctor Who to film/record?
Peter Davison: Caves of Androzani. It was the last story I did. It is a close run between that and Earthshock, which was a Cyberman story. That was very exciting, but in the end, it was the last story that I did. The Caves of Androzani was written by Robert Holmes, who was a really well-known Doctor Who story writer, we had a great cast, and it was very well directed. So, it was my favourite. Apart from the last thirty seconds when I turned into Colin Baker, which kind of spoiled it for me really, but up until then I think it was my favourite.
Paul McGann: If I tell you that I have only ever been in one episode, that’s the answer. I was recently in Jodie Whittaker’s last episode. Although I have been in Doctor Who for nearly thirty years it’s the only episode I have ever been in. Because my Doctor lives almost entirely on audio adventures, so that’s the answer. It’s a no-brainer! My favourite audio adventure… I am sentimentally attached to a couple, but probably An Earthly Child, for the simple reason that my son [Jake McGann] was in it with me, playing effectively the Doctor’s Grandson or Great Grandson.
What’s your favourite episode overall?
PD: I really like one of those stories, but I can never remember the name of it. It was the story where they had the kind of gas mask children? The Empty Child! I thought that was a terrific story. But I don’t know if I want to mention anyone else’s stories apart from mine really!
PM: Through the years, the one that I was most impressed with was the one called Blink, with the Weeping Angels. It was so old-fashioned and brilliant. They are so almost childlike and childishly simple, but all the better for it. You can think of the most elaborate monsters that you like, but having something that is simply that, primarily scary, if you blink it comes towards you. So, I was really impressed with that, and I wish I had been in it.
Who is your favourite Doctor?
PM: When I was a child, it’s the first one that you see. And the first one that I saw was the very first one, Bill Hartnell. I watched them as a child, and I was amazed. In later years, I thought Jodie Whittaker was fantastic but I’m probably edging more towards Peter Capaldi.
Do you still watch the show nowadays?
PD: I don’t watch the show now, no. I haven’t watched it for some time. Not because I didn’t like it, it’s just that I used to watch it with my kids and when they stopped watching it and left home and went off to university, there is no real reason to watch it.
What about when your relatives are in it?
PD: I do watch the odd episode. I watched one of the most recent ones where David [Tennant, his son-in-law] was doing it.
As the Doctor, how would you explain Billie Piper coming back?
PD: I don’t know what Billie Piper is doing. I have just read about it, and I don’t know what it’s about. It’s a completely mad idea. I don’t think she is the Doctor. I think it’s kind of just a hand grenade thrown into the final episode to try and go “whoa, what’s this?” And then it’s almost like “get out of that”. I love Billie Piper; I think she was the best companion there’s been. But that is partly because she was written in a different way from the other companions, it was almost like she was the centre of the story. You were seeing the Doctor through her eyes. I thought she was a fantastic companion, but she’s got a great career, and she’s got options galore. I don’t know why she would voluntarily choose to go back to Cardiff for a year.
When you were on the show, did you ever think it would be as big as it is now?
PD: Well, it was quite big then but if you asked me would it still be being made? Then no, no way, and also not that I would be remembered. That’s the most surprising thing. I just assumed that I would leave, someone else would take over and they would be the Doctor, and it would carry on for as long as it carried on for. But no one would be interested in it past but it is quite the opposite.
PM: It was already big anyway, but I’m surprised that thirty years later you and me are still sat here talking about it. But I’m no longer surprised that it has lasted this long. I mean probably you and I could talk again in twenty years’ time, and it’d still be here. I think just because nowadays it’s been run and looked after by fans. Russell T Davies and the likes of Steven Moffat and the people who do the audios, even the people that do the conventions are all fans that have kept it going.
When I first was in it, my agent at the time said “this is like no other job you will ever do,” and I said “how do you know?” And she said, “because I was in it.” And she had been in it in some other life, and she said “it ain’t no other acting job.” [His agent was Janet Fielding, who played Davison’s companion Tegan]. Well, I didn’t quite believe her, but now I do!
If you could go anywhere in time and space in the TARDIS, where would you go?
PD: I would like to see what history was really like. So, I would go back in time, I would like to go to Britain in the 1700s. It was a great time, books were coming in, printing was just coming in, all sorts of things were going on in the world. You can read every history book you like, but you never know what it was really like. There are other times I would like to go back to. I’m reading Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson at the moment, and it just seems a fascinating time to really have been around.
PM: I’m tempted to say Breck Road in Liverpool in the middle of April 1977 so I could catch the fella that stole my new bike. Catch him in the act! Get it off him!
What was it like being in a show with this much of a legacy? Did it feel any different from other jobs?
PM: When you step into a role that other people have done really well, it’s a bit nervy because there is a bit of pressure. What if they don’t like me? What if I’m not as good as the last one? That kind of thing. But then the more that I thought about it, I thought well it’s no different than doing Shakespeare or anything else where other actors have played the character. So, you might as well not worry and do your own thing.
I was lucky when I started, because the Doctor that I took over from was Sylvester McCoy, who happened to be a friend of mine and he was there and able to calm me down, hold my hand and tell me that I was okay.
If you could describe your time in the show and audio adventures in three words, what would they be?
PM: Three words? Wow. “Never-ending joy.”
DOCTOR WHO is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.
