He sat in a cupboard and drank BBC coffee, while the BBC’s new internet animation Scream of the Shalka was recorded next door. Benjamin Cook asked Richard E Grant whether life’s a scream. You don’t have to be mad to answer him, but it helps…
This article originally appeared in DWM 336, published in October 2003.
“The Ninth Doctor, decided upon and cast by the BBC, in a story that sets its sights on the future,” says Paul Cornell “and provides a starting point for ongoing adventures without reformatting the show. Traditional but original, new monsters that behave like Doctor Who monsters should, and a new Doctor with a new way of doing things who’s still very much the Doctor we know and love.”
Sounds rather exciting, doesn’t it? Acclaimed novelist and scriptwriter Cornell is talking about Scream of the Shalka, BBCi’s new Doctor Who internet adventure. It’ll even be released on DVD, don’tcha know? Maybe even broadcast on television, just like how proper Doctor Who used to be. Actually, according to BeeBeeCeeEye, this is proper Doctor Who. He’s back. And it’s about time. Sort of…
9:30am The green room. The Soundhouse Recording Studios, West London. The last time I was here, in December 2001, I was reporting on the recording of Death Comes to Time – radio producer Dan Freedman’s attempt to resurrect Doctor Who, stick two fingers up at Radio 4, and take over the world. He failed, mostly, but produced an admirably audacious – and intentionally contentious – example of what Doctor Who would be like if it were less like Doctor Who and more like Buffy. A mere 18 months later, I’m back at the Soundhouse to report on another attempt to bring back Doctor Who. Deja vu? Actually, it feels different this time…
Unlike BBCi’s previous Who dramas, which also include Real Time and Shada, Scream of the Shalka is fully animated, rather than radio with pictures. It’s being brought to life by leading British studio Cosgrove Hall, renowned for such cartoon series as Danger Mouse and Count Duckula. Unlike Death Comes to Time, someone experienced in Doctor Who – namely Cornell – has written the script. And, most exciting of all, Scream of the Shalka introduces a new Doctor – the official Ninth incarnation, according to the BBC – played by international movie star, top-notch thespian, and all-round sex symbol Richard E. Grant. The bloke who was so superb in Withnail and I and wasn’t Paul McGann. The Quite Handsome Doctor in that 1999 Comic Relief skit, The Curse of Fatal Death. Oh. My. God.
9:45am “I don’t exactly see eye to eye with Doctor Who,” admits Jim Norton, who plays the Doctor’s military liaison, Major Thomas Kennett. “He seems to know the answer to everything, and has the temerity to give my soldiers orders, which of course I don’t like, because I’m very much of the old school – but we develop a kind of respect for one another as the series goes on.” As we chat in the green room, the other actors arrive one by one, and important-looking BBC people hurry in and out. This is Shalka’s second of five days in studio. “Today we’re doing most of the scenes with Doctor Who and Kennett. It’s great fun, especially being an animated cartoon, where they’re actually basing the characters on the actors. This is a really good gig.”
10:00am Richard E Grant arrives. Jim introduces us. “Doctor Who Magazine?” Richard exclaims, as though such a thing is impossible. “A magazine? About Doctor Who?” That’ll be the one. “The show I know nothing about? I have never seen it. I know nothing about it.”
In case you were under the impression that Richard E Grant is the new Doctor Who, rest assured, he isn’t. Not according to his agent. “He won’t even be wearing the scarf,” she insisted when we spoke on the phone. He just happens to be providing the voice, that’s all. Apparently, Richard doesn’t want to be associated too closely with the role.
“I think Benjamin here should fill you in on Doctor Who,” Jim calls out, as Richard wanders off towards the studio. Actually, he appears to be running. He’s the Doctor, Jim, but not as we know it.
10:10am A nice lady from the BBC tells me how sorry she is, but I won’t be allowed into the studio after all. Apparently, director Wilson Milam is worried that a journalist might make the actors feel uncomfortable. I mumble something under my breath about understanding perfectly, but I am secretly delighted at having been called a journalist. I’d never considered writing about Doctor Who to be bona fide journalism. That makes it sound like a proper job. My mum will be thrilled.
Forbidden from the studio, I sit in the green room and talk more with Jim. “When my kids were little,” he says, “they used to watch Doctor Who through the crack in the door. It’s really scary. My daughter’s thrilled about me doing this.”
Jim is no stranger to science fiction. He played Einstein in two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation (“I still get letters from Trekkies all over the world”) and several characters in Babylon 5. “I think the same law applies to playing extraterrestrials as playing ordinary characters, which is less is more. It doesn’t work otherwise. You can’t send it up. You have to be truthful.”
10:15am The nice lady from the BBC is back. She says I’m not allowed to sit in the green room after all. Or talk to Jim. Actors can’t relax around journalists, she says. And I’m a journalist. “Surely,” protests Jim, “the people who want to talk to Ben will talk to Ben, and those who don’t, won’t?” You’d have thought, wouldn’t you? But the nice lady is adamant. She suggests I sit outside in the car park. I say something about needing some fresh air anyway, but I’m starting to wonder how I’m supposed to report on the recording of Scream of the Shalka from the car park. “It’s not as though you’re The News of the World,” says Jim, shaking his head. “I am sorry, Ben.”
I head out to the car park, where I sit and drink juice with James Goss, BBCi Cult’s Senior Content Producer, who keeps apologising. At least it’s not raining.
10:30am It starts raining.
10:35am There’s something frustrating about sitting in a stationery cupboard, relieving the tension by doodling on post-it notes, while Richard E Grant is recording Doctor Who next door. But journalists aren’t allowed in the studio. Or in the green room. And there isn’t anywhere else for journalists to sit, except for outside in the car park. But it’s raining outside. And so I am sat in a stationery cupboard. Yes. A stationery cupboard. It’s smaller on the inside, but it’s the only place for me to sit. Really.
I feel like Harry Potter in his cupboard under the stairs. If I crane my neck, I can see into the green room. To make me feel better, James renames my cupboard the ‘BBC Hospitality Suite’.
11:10am The nice BBC lady enters, followed by James, who looks harassed. It’s a bit of a squeeze, and things are about to get worse. The nice lady tells me that there’s absolutely no chance of me interviewing Richard E Grant. None at all. “But we’re the official Doctor Who Magazine,” I tell the nice lady, who’s just doing her job. “We’re BBC-licensed.” I wish I had a badge to prove it. “How are we supposed to promote the new Doctor Who,” I ask her, “without speaking to the new Doctor Who?” The BBC invited DWM here, don’t forget The BBC lady mumbles something about being behind schedule, but I suspect she feels like lamping me one.
12:05pm I can’t stay in the stationery cupboard forever. James pops in with a steaming mug of BBC coffee, and tells me that I’m not missing much, although I’d prefer to not be missing anything. The cast has spent the last ten minutes recording footsteps. I ask James why an actor of Richard E Grant’s calibre is spending precious studio time recording footsteps. James doesn’t know, but he looks as though he needs a hug. After he’s left, I notice some mysterious green stains on the carpet outside the cupboard – lots of them, like footprints. I wonder what James has trodden in?
1:00pm I am interrupted from investigating how many erasers can be crammed into an empty mug of BBC coffee by the sound of the cast and crew breaking for lunch. What’s more, it has stopped raining. James invites me back out to the car park. On my way out, I pass Richard E Grant sat on the green room floor, eating stuff. The room is almost hidden beneath plates of sandwiches and nibbles. I’m told not to touch them. If I’d known, I’d have brought my own.
In the car park, James has erected a small umbrella over a plastic garden table. He says he’ll find me some lunch if it’s the last thing he does. It might be.
1:10pm Craig Kelly – recognisable as Vince from Channel Four drama Queer as Folk – pops outside to offer me some Kettle crisps, even though I’m a journalist. Brave man. I take a handful and feel rebellious. Meanwhile, James Goss has made a phone call and ordered me lunch. Apparently, a chicken sandwich is on its way in a taxi. When it arrives, I think I might interview it.
“I play a doctor,” Craig tells me, joining me at the garden table. “He’s, like, a small-town doctor. When we first see the character, he’s tense, he’s depressed, he’s totally in love with Alison the barmaid, played by Sophie Okonedo, but he knows deep down that she’s going to leave him. His confidence is quite low. He wants everything to be back to normal. Unfortunately, things will never be normal again…”
1:20pm Wilson Milam wanders outside and apologises. He doesn’t specify what for . Before landing this directing job, Wilson hadn’t actually heard of Doctor Who. “We wanted a director who had a great deal of experience of working with actors of the calibre of Richard E Grant and Sophie Okonedo,” James explains later. “The cast loved working with Wilson. He’s a very calm director, who really cares about performance. He was determined to get extra lines into the production. He tried to incorporate all the green-room banter into the final show. He was oddly keen on getting the Doctor to yell ‘…and lick it all over’ at inappropriate moments. He didn’t succeed.”
1:35pm Something unexpected happens. The nice lady from the BBC tells me that I will be allowed to interview Richard after all. No clue is given to this sudden change of heart. Maybe the BBC lady felt sorry for my having spent the morning in a cupboard? Maybe someone checked with Fleet Street and realised that I’m not a proper journalist after all? Either way, I wonder whether my miserable morning in almost solitary confinement could have been avoided.
I’m not allowed to approach Richard myself, but he’ll be sent out to speak with me in the car park when he’s finished his lunch. I’m asked to phrase my questions to Richard carefully – I must try to avoid implying that he is Doctor Who. Apparently, he isn’t. He’s just an actor. He knows nothing about Doctor Who. So ner.
1:40pm My sandwich arrives in a taxi. I bet the chicken never travelled in such style when it was alive. Presently, Richard E Grant comes bounding out into the car park, oozing stardom from every crevice. I decide to save the sandwich for later. As the sun peeks out from behind a storm cloud, drying the parked cars and warming the tarmac, I settle down at the garden table with Richard E Grant for his first ever interview about the Ninth Doctor…
“I know nothing about it,” he says, when I ask him whether he is at all familiar with science fiction. “I’ve only read one book – Arthur C Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Apart from that, I don’t know anything. And I’ve never seen Doctor Who. I’ve never seen Doctor Who.” Yep, he said it twice, with just a hint of a grin the second time around. “And I’ve never read any of the Doctor Who books. I feel like a complete – I don’t know – fraud, really.”
What does he make of this Doctor Who character, then?
“Ooh, I don’t know. What I do know is that a huge number of people have very strong ideas about what he looks like, who should play him, who’s the best person that has played him and all those sons of things.”
Does that scare Richard?
“I think it’s much more daunting if you’re doing the film or TV version – people see your face – whereas this is a cartoon. I don’t know if it has the same import.”
What is it, then, about this profession that appeals to Richard?
“It’s a very good way of earning your living. You don’t have any of the sense of responsibility that you have if you do a five-day regular job. There’s a sense that you spend your life playing. And you never have to work with the same people, so you don’t have to pace yourself – trying not to flirt with one person, trying to get on with the boss… When you’re doing it, when you’re acting – oh, it’s fantastic! You think, well, what more can you ask for?”
Many actors say it’s just a job.
“Oh no, it’s never just a job. It’s a fantastic, privileged way of living your life. The downside is that you never, in my experience, have a sense that you’re in control of what is happening to you. It seems so opportunistic and haphazard how people end up in parts. It’s a bit like John Lennon’s quote: ‘Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.’ I think that’s very much like an actor’s career. That I’ve ended up having parts in films at all is a real bonus to me, because I thought, at best, I’d work in the theatre, but not any chance in TV or film. Being unemployed is just horrible, because your self-esteem gets shot to pieces. If you’re an actor and somebody says, ‘What have I seen you in?’’ and you go through a list of 50 credits, and the person asking you hasn’t heard of any of them, they disbelieve that you are what you claim to be. It sort of rubs out your identity in that moment. If you say you’re a lawyer, nobody says, ‘What have been your most famous cases?’ That seems to be a common denominator for most actors. You’re as good as your last job. The old standby for anyone in the arts is ‘They’re not as good as their early work’.”
Richard is still best known for cult classic British movie Withnail and I. Does he ever tire of that association?
“It’s only when I’m in a situation like this, when you’re asking me, that the question comes up. On a day-to-day basis, I never think about it. It’s just so long ago now. If it shows on TV or satellite, then you get a slew of people wanting autographed pictures, but otherwise it’s not something that I ever really think about.”
Does he prefer playing bastards or good guys?
“The bastards usually have more interest. Very often, audiences support the villains much more. Doctor Who is different, though. It’s set in the future or outer-space or whatever; it doesn’t fall into the same categories as, say, a Bruce Willis movie.”
What does Richard make of his Withnail co-star Paul McGann?
“He has a great Liverpudlian wit. He doesn’t take himself or anything seriously – he doesn’t disappear up his own fundament, talking about acting or the greater meaning of life. He’s very good company, very self-deprecating, and he has an amazing effect on women. He must be the sexiest man alive. People just go down in skittles when they’re around him.”
How does Richard deal with his own sex-symbol status? He was, after all, the Quite Handsome Doctor in The Curse of Fatal Death…
“I think this is just a great thrill to hear.” He flashes a grin. “I have no real sense of being a sex symbol whatsoever. I’ve been married for a long time. When you’re married and have children, your faults and shortcomings are so constantly spotlighted and focused upon that you don’t really think about that stuff.”
I ask him whether he’s seen Alistair McGowan’s BBC One impressionist show.
“No, I haven’t,” he jumps in, “but I’ve heard that he portrays me as a great big poof.”
How does Richard feel about that?
“What can I say? I apologise to… well, the gay fraternity in general if they think that I am misrepresenting them.” He laughs. “Alistair McGowan has a lot to answer for.”
Richard says that his greatest unfulfilled ambition is to direct a film. “Actually, I’ve written one. I’m in the process of casting it at the moment. It’s taking much longer than I thought it would. It’s a great dream of mine.”
How does working on a movie compare to a more modest production like Scream of the Shalka?
“You’re still working with actors, so the process isn’t that different; it’s just the amount of money involved. If you work on an American movie, the size of the budget is so humongous compared to anything in Europe, so the neuroses of the producing people are ratcheted up much higher.”
Talking of money – will Richard be doing any more Argos ads?
“I’m doing them for another year. It’s been the most successful ad campaign that they’ve launched in ages. Their sales have rocketed.” His co-star in the commercials is Julia Sawalha, who appeared with him in The Curse of Fatal Death. “She’s a very funny person to be around. We have a laugh, basically.”
From the way the BBC people and Richard’s agent had been talking, I was worried that Mr E Grant would be condescending, standoffish, and downright aloof. But he is none of these things. He happens to be lovely, passionate about his work, and not averse – I don’t think – to giving Doctor Who his best shot. Okay, so he’s not keen to be pigeonholed as the Doctor himself… but I don’t know, can you really blame him? And here’s the thing: would Richard consider doing more Doctor Who in the future? “If they asked me, yeah. I’d like to do that,” he replies. “It’d be fun, you know, to step back into the Doctor’s well-worn shoes. Yeah, why not?”
So there you go. Richard is the new Doctor Who after all. What a relief. For what it’s worth, I think he’ll do just fine.
1:55pm Mr and Mrs Paul Cornell arrive, but there’s no time to say hello, because Sophie Okonedo has just pulled up a chair at my garden table. “Richard is a perfect Doctor,” she tells me. “Didn’t you think, before you met him, that he’d be perfect casting? As soon as I heard, I thought, of course he should play Doctor Who! There’s no one better. He’s hilariously funny as well. I play his new sidekick, Alison Cheney. I think she’s quite blown away by the Doctor. She’s quite a feisty, tough woman, who wants to speak out about things. And she has a boyfriend. She wants to chuck him, but she feels like she can’t.”
Sophie Okonedo’s name’s not that familiar? Ah, but you know the face. She’s appeared in films such as Ace Ventura: When Nature Callsand This Year’s Love, and TV dramas including Clocking Off and Cross My Heart. How does she feel about being the new Who girl?
“I am, aren’t I? I’m looking forward to seeing it when it’s animated.”
Did she watch Doctor Who when it was on the telly?
“I watched it when the one with the curly hair was in it.”
Tom Baker?
“I think so. I’d crouch behind the sofa.”
How does Scream of the Shalka measure up?
“The important thing is that it’s a good script. You have to play the truth of each scene. If you overplay it, you just look really stupid. There’s no such thing as a good or bad character. It’s much more fun to play the truth. That’s easier when you’re given a strong script, like this one.”
“Alison Cheney is an everywoman,” explains Paul Cornell later. “Someone for you and me to identify with while the Doctor is being mysterious and difficult. She’s lived a normal life in Sheffield and the town of Lannet, which is where we meet her.”
Does she scream and twist her ankle a lot? And if not, why not?
“Because she’s a normal person – a barmaid in a small town. Twisted ankles hardly happen at all in televised Doctor Who, and screaming as some sort of weird fetish thing went out with Bonnie Langford.” Fair enough.
James clarifies: “She screams, but not in an ankle-twisty way. Actually, she has the most important scream in Doctor Who. But that’s for another time…”
2:10pm Lunch is over. Paul Cornell is ushered away into the studio. He looks excited (the huge grin stayed on his face all day). I stay in the car park and chat to SFX magazine’s Steve and Nick, who have just arrived. They’re thinking of using the headline ‘Withnail and BBCi’ in SFX. I groan loudly and shake my head, but make a mental note to steal this for a headline in DWM…
3:00pm Here’s a familiar face. David Tennant spots me in the car park and says an enthusiastic hello. We met a few weeks ago at the recording of Big Finish’s Sympathy for the Devil. He’s recording a Radio 4 adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, but when he found out that Doctor Who was being made in the studio next door, David sweet-talked Wilson Milam into giving him a cameo role. “I play Caretaker Two,” David says proudly. “It’s very hard not to get excited. I would kill to do more of these.” David is a fully-fledged, card-carrying Doctor Who fan. “My granny even knitted me a long Tom Baker scarf. And a cricket jumper. I used to jump around the back garden making up my own stories. As I got older, I’d make up my own seasons.”
In the back garden?
“Yeah – casting myself in all the parts. Oh God, how embarrassing.”
3:30pm It starts raining again. I’m forced back inside. Three burly men with clipboards are standing in my stationery cupboard (maybe they know something I don’t), so I take a seat in the green room and hope that no-one will notice. No-one does.
3:45pm I watch Arthur on the telly in the green room with Craig Kelly. It’s an exciting episode about coping with fear and fun with a porcelain doll. Craig wonders whether he’ll be animated like Arthur in Scream of the Shalka. “I’ve always wanted to be a cartoon character,” he says. “It’s on the to-do list. It doesn’t get much better.” Of course, Scream of the Shalka isn’t Craig’s first brush with Doctor Who. Not so long ago, in a certain TV show, he played a certain character who was a bit of a fan… “I thought that’s why they’d cast me in Shalka,” he admits, “because a lot of people will make that connection. I was aware of Doctor Who before playing Vince in Queer as Folk, but I was never fully into it. I got more into it because [Queer as Folk creator] Russell T Davies – an absolutely brilliant man – gave me loads of books to read, and loads and loads of videos. It’s ironic and cool that I’ve been able to do this.”
Was Craig surprised by the phenomenal success of Queer as Folk?
“I always knew it was going to be a hit. That’s why I did it. It’s not often you get a chance to do something that groundbreaking. This too, in a way, is groundbreaking. Has there ever been a Doctor Who cartoon? ” I shake my head. “Well, there you go,” he laughs. “I only do groundbreaking stuff.”
4:00pm The cast has been given a break, so I’m allowed to take a peek inside the studio. Wilson lets me take some photos – while there aren’t any actors about, obviously. Maybe because I’ve spent much of the day in a stationery cupboard, Wilson tells me that if I come back two days later, he’ll grant me an interview and let me take some photos of the actors in studio. In the event, I have a wasted journey. When I return two days later, Wilson is too busy to give me an interview (he apologises, again), and I’m allowed all of 20 seconds to take shots of the cast, sans the leading man. Hey ho.
4:25pm It’s stopped raining. Richard E Grant is sat on his own at the garden table in the car park, taking a break from the hustle and bustle of saving planet Earth from the Shalka. I’m about to pop outside and ask him whether he wouldn’t mind posing for a photo or two when I remember that, under BBC guidelines, I’m not allowed to speak to actors. I ask James whether I’m allowed to speak to Richard, but James doesn’t know, so he wanders off to find someone else who probably won’t know either.
4:35pm “Go on, while they’re not looking,” calls out Craig Kelly, averting his attention from Countdown on the telly. “Ask Richard for a photo. I dare you. Tell him it’s for the cover.” Presently, Martin Trickery, commissioning editor of Drama and Entertainment for BBCi, emerges from the studio and explains, helpfully, that nobody knows whether or not I’m allowed to talk to Richard. Besides, while we’ve been tangled in red tape, Richard has closed his eyes and may or may not be asleep. I mutter something under my breath. Three consonants, one vowel.
4:36pm Martin and James watch fearfully from the green room as I approach Richard and ask him if he wants to appear on the cover of DWM. Of course, Richard is lovely and happily agrees – a “Sure, no problem” and a “Where do you want me?” We amble over to the far end of the car park – this end looks a bit less like car park, and doesn’t have a plastic garden table in it – and Richard strikes some poses exclusively for DWM. “Can you give me a scary kind of alien face?” I ask him, and immediately feel silly, but Richard is a gentleman and a professional – he strikes some moody-Colin-Baker-style poses, and then a couple of action-hero-Jon-Pertwee-style shots. I want to give him a hug, but decide against it. The BBC suits might have something to say about that. I settle for a handshake instead.
4:50pm Back in the green room, I’m watching Countdown with Doctor Who. He’s good at it. I suggest that Richard Whitely would make a good Time Lord. Richard looks sickened. I’d better change the subject. I ask Richard where he would go if he had a TARDIS. “Into the future,” he says, without hesitation, “because I think things are better now than they’ve ever been.”
And they’ll be even better in the future?
“As people see more sense, yeah. Since the Second World War, the threat of nuclear warfare seems much more distant. When I grew up, the Cold War was so omnipresent, the great myth that there was a red button in Washington and one in Moscow, and both could blow up the world – I just don’t believe that anymore. And I love all the new technology that’s around, like cyberspace and the internet. It’s absolutely miraculous.”
5:50pm I am alone in the green room. The actors are recording their final scenes for today. A man who has been working on the Terry Pratchett play next door wanders into the green room. He spots me watching Richard & Judy. Today’s guests are a born-again hippie and Sue Johnston. “Are you with that lot?” he asks, nodding towards the studio. “‘Cause I did Doctor Who once,” he says, before I have a chance to reply, “and d’you know what? It was bollocks.”
Not recognising his face, I ask the man what period of the show he worked on, trying not to let slip my fanboy credentials. It turns out that this is the man responsible for those terrible talking books released a few years back – abridged versions of Target novelisations, read by Jon Pertwee or Peter Davison. I consider kicking Target Tape Man on behalf of Doctor Who fans everywhere, but then think better of it.
“I had to cut them right down,” he says, referring to the novels, which he abridged himself. “The people who wrote the television series made it up as they went along. The poor bastards writing the books had nothing to go on.” He shakes his head in despair. “But there are 5,000 completists, right? Mad fans who’ll buy any old crap. It’s the Doctor Who fans. They’re as mad as f–”
Target Tape Man is broken off by the studio door creaking open and actors emerging, laughing, talking, and bidding each other safe journeys home. Today’s recording is done. And what a day it’s been – from the stationery cupboard, to the car park, to the green room. “Anyway, good luck with your project,” says Target Tape Man, heading out into the car park, no doubt relieved that he hasn’t encountered any ‘mad’ Doctor Who fans here today. Bless him.
I mean, who would have noticed another madman around here?
Benjamin Cook
AFTER EIGHT
He came back to life before your eyes. But now he’s regenerated – and no one thought to tell him! Benjamin Cook caught up with Paul McGann to mourn the passing of the Eighth Doctor (yeah, right!) and pass judgement on his usurper…
Actually, I’m namedropping, but I was talking to Richard E. Grant the other day – “He did a Doctor Who, didn’t he?” jumps in Paul McGann. “They’re calling him the Ninth Doctor! He’s official. He’s in the loop.” He stifles a laugh. I wasn’t expecting that. “Was Richard in shock?” He made it clear, I tell him, that he isn’t Doctor Who. “No?” He’s just voicing the part. “Oh, does he think so?” Yes, he thinks so. “Well, I think,” grins Paul McGann cheekily, “that he’s got quite a shock coming…”
Having caught up with the Eighth Doctor actor in his hometown of Bristol, it’s nice to find him in a particularly good – dare I say mischievous – mood. “It’s funny,” he says, “I didn’t know, in fact. I didn’t know at all, because I’ve not spoken to Richard for months. I must have missed it if somebody told me.” How did he find out, then? “I was walking around London, and my agent called me – this is just a few weeks ago – and she said, ‘Radio So-and-So wants to talk to you…like now!’ I said, ‘I’m in Oxford Street! What about?’ She said, ‘About Richard.’ ‘Richard who?’ I said. I hadn’t the faintest idea what she was talking about. And then she told me – Richard is becoming the Ninth Doctor! I said, ‘No, no, no – someone’s having you on. You’re crazy!’ Anyway, so I rang home, cos I knew that my young son would be sitting at his computer. ‘Get on the web,’ I said. ‘Find out…’ And he did, and he said, ‘Oh, wow, Dad, there’s Richard!’ And there he was – the bitch! It was on the BBC website. It said, ‘Hail the Ninth Doctor’ or something. I thought, ‘My God!” It was a complete surprise.”
How does Paul feel about having regenerated, it appears, into his Withnail and I co-star? “I just think it’s…perhaps it’s strange that he never mentioned it. I’ve still not had a conversation with him about it. I’m absolutely certain that he never mentioned it. The last I saw him was in March or April, because I was in the theatre and he came to see me. I knew that he’d dressed up as Doctor Who for…was it Children in Need?” Comic Relief, in fact. “Yeah, they’d done some skit. It’s funny what you say. If he imagines, as I think that he might, that he can just get on with things and not be Doctor Who…Hah-hah! Watch this space, kid!”
Richard told me that Paul must be the sexiest man alive. I tell Paul this. It elicits a lengthy pause, and a wry smile. “He’s a strange bloke,” Paul mutters, eventually. People go down in skittles when they’re around Paul, or so Richard said. “He’s a strange bloke,” says the actor, shaking his head – but looking pleased. “He’s a flatterer. Hah-hah!”
Thanks to Big Finish, Paul McGann’s reign as the Eighth Doctor is far from over. Does Paul see the show as always being part of his life. “Always?” He looks worried. “Bloody hell! The rest of my life, you mean?” What I’m asking is does he see an end to his association with Doctor Who? “What, a divorce? If there was a divorce,” he beams, “it would have to be by mutual consent. Well, wouldn’t it? That’s all I’m going to say on the matter. I don’t wish to pre-empt this kind of spat. I wouldn’t be an actor if I could see six months ahead. The minute you start thinking, ‘Two years from now I’ll be doing that,’ it’s over.”
Does Paul like that way of living? “I’m used to it.” But isn’t it tough? “Of course, it’s tough.” Especially when you have a family to support? “Absolutely, yeah. You don’t know what’s going to happen next – six weeks away, six days away – but you do get used to it, amazingly. People I know in, let’s say, ‘straight’ employment find it insane. ‘How can you live like that? How can you plan for anything?’ Well, you can’t. But the consolation is – the real consolation is – that you’re doing the thing you wanted to do in the first place. Even when times are lean, that’s a big consolation.”
When I spoke to Richard, I asked him whether he ever tires of the Withnail association. I pose the same question to Paul. “Not at all,” he says. “It’s dear to me. I have pleasant memories associated with it. Happy memories. It’s the job I’m proudest of – well, either that or The Monocled Mutineer, cos that was how I got the Withnail gig. In those days, to get a movie – which is what we all wanted to do, we all wanted to be movie stars – you had to be good in a big telly. That was the way you did it. They were both early jobs.” He considers this. “Actually, because they were the first things that I did, really, I think they were the best things that I did, in many ways.
“Often,” he continues, “you’re better when you’re working purely from instinct, rather than from, say, acquired tricks gained from experience. You understand?” Is that what Paul does nowadays, then – relies on acquired tricks? Doesn’t that mean that he’s sometimes just going through the motions? “It’s unavoidable. It’s like any other line of work. It has its compensations, because it means, perhaps, that your standard never drops below a certain level. You’re actually employable. But I miss those days. I miss those days of knowing very little, funnily enough. I miss those days of just winging it completely. That was when I did the best work, I think, that I’ve ever done – I think, for that reason.”
How easy does Paul find striking up working relationships with other actors? “The trick is to get rid of what would ordinarily be inhibitions and embarrassments – I mean social ones – and get straight in and friendly with people,” he answers. “This, of course, is where that almost cartoonish stereotype of the ‘luvvie darling’ comes from, but it’s something that you have to do. Time is short to…well, get it on with people. You can’t spend your time, as you would in a normal course of events, slowly getting to know somebody, developing trust, getting in with people. You just have to get on with it – and that’s why, at the end of the day, everybody finds it so easy to say ta-ra and disappear off into the sunset.”
To forge good relationships that quickly, I put it to Paul, must take quite a confident person. Do all actors have to be confident and outgoing? “No, it’s an act,” he says without hesitation. “It’s an act in itself. This explains, I guess, why shy personalities can be big performers. In a sense, to be a performer – a singer, a dancer, an actor – being cripplingly shy is actually no impediment. You can still go on a stage and dance or play King Lear. You just might not be able to open your mouth to speak in the bar afterwards. The whole thing, if you like, is an act for those that ordinarily find it difficult. Of course, actors are like anybody else – some actors are perfectly friendly and still absolutely able to be themselves.”
Where would Paul put himself on that scale? How confident or shy a person is he? “I’m not really a luvvie, I don’t think. I’m one of those quieter ones, the private ones… I wouldn’t say I was shy. I’m not really a shy person. But I wouldn’t hang around with actors.” If you didn’t have to work with them? “Yeah, if I didn’t have to work with them. That’s true. That’s why I live in Bristol,” he laughs, “because there aren’t any actors here! They all live in London.”
That sort of private man, private actor, doesn’t necessarily sit comfortably, I suggest, with the role of Doctor Who, which receives much interest from the press and the public. “It really has no bearing, though. One has to distinguish,” Paul insists, “between the private person and the performer, and distinguish further between the performer and the character. They’re all separate entities. It has no bearing whatsoever.” He looks content. “So there. That’s what I think.”
