With his velvet-lined capes, frilly shirts and increasingly-exuberant shock of white hair, Jon Pertwee is right up there with the very best of the ‘classic series’ Doctors in Doctor Who. Certainly his five-year run in the role is more consistent and more assured than many of those who followed him and even if many fans found his initial ‘Earth exile’ format stifling there’s no arguing that his James Bond-lite action hero portrayal, combined with improved production values and a greater storytelling confidence, rescued Doctor Who from the dumper that had beckoned it at the end of its monochrome 1960s era.
The latest in BBV Productions’ ‘Uncut’ DVD releases presents – as with last month’s John Nathan-Turner disc – raw and unedited footage of Pertwee in his twilight years (presumably not long before his tragic passing in May 1996) discussing his career and, more specifically, his time on Doctor Who with BBV’s Bill Baggs. It’s wonderful to have this material now widely available, particularly when it features Who legends who have long since left us, as it offers us a permanent and poignant reminder of their legacy in their own words and offers us the opportunity to enjoy their memories, their insights and their company and even the odd ‘not for public consumption’ moment when the ‘performance’ is turned off.
Pertwee was, of course, a terrific raconteur, a product of the music hall/musical theatre generation and, even here in his later years, he lights up the screen and dominates proceeedings, his mind is as sharp as his wit and he steers the discussion and digs deep into long-forgotten memories and is quite frank about his general disinterest in science fiction and the fact that much of the detail and specifics of his time on Doctor Who is lost in the mists of time. Resplendent in his trademark frilly shirt, his hair blazing white and his face craggy with decades of professional experience, Pertwee doesn’t disappoint. He trots out anecdotes that will be as familiar as old friends to long-time fans – the eye-patch incident, the Yeti on the loo in Tooting Bec, the Mother Hen, his love of half-mask monsters. They’re safe ground for Pertwee, stories wheeled out at hundreds of conventions and we never tire of hearing them, especially as there’s usually some embellishment that makes each telling slightly different from the one before.
Pertwee has no dirt to dish; his era was a warm and wonderful time for him, surrounded by his friends and leading the company in a show enjoying a new wave of popularity in the age of colour TV. Occasionally, Baggs will ask a slightly more detailed question but Pertwee has no interest in or memory of the minutiae although his frustration at the continuing typecasting he suffered post-Doctor Who is quite evident and the admission that he probably should have left the role earlier than he did is quite surprising considering that he has never hidden the fact that he would have done a sixth season if the money was right. More interesting again is his reaction to mention of Tom Baker, notorious amongst former Doctors in keeping a clear distance between himself and his fellow Time Lord actors and there’s a wealth of unspoken antipathy in Pertee’s initial response to reference to his illustrious successor.
They don’t make ‘em like Jon Pertwee any more. Jon Pertwee Uncut is a wonderful time capsule in and of itself and a warm and cherishable souvenir of the life and times of one of Doctor Who’s most majestic and iconic stars.
Jon Pertwee Uncut is available from bbvproductions.co.uk
