Interview with 6th Doctor Colin Baker

Interview with 6th Doctor Colin Baker

Colin Baker is in town for the Lords of Time convention in Auckland and was kind enough to spend some of his time having a chat with me about the show.

Colin, you've had a long association with the show and it's clearly something which you hold very dear. Do you think it's fair to say it's the fans who've kept you going?
Yes, it's true actually. The fans have kept the show going, certainly in the times that it was off our screens in the 90s until its return in 2005. Big Finish as well as we were doing it on audio and the fans really bought into that as well and I think that was part of what convinced the BBC that it was a programme which was worth bringing back. Any programme that's off the air for over 14 years and is still popular, must have something potent going on.

What was it that tempted you back - you were after all, treated pretty appallingly at the time by the BBC and now you're in the bosom of the show; you're president of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society, you're active with the Big Finish audios, you're here at conventions. I've never seen you turn down any time with fans - but you didn't have to do all that though, did you?
No, but if I didn't do it I'd be punishing people who had nothing to do my being treated, as you so generously say badly, that was two or three people at the BBC at the time who didn't like the programme or who perhaps didn't like me. It would be unkind of me to attach the fans to that because they've always been very supportive. And I love the programme. It's not the programme's fault.

You're doing a lot of conventions for the show's 50th year - are you still enjoying it?
Yeah, it's a way of paying back people, I suppose. We are uniquely privileged as actors - the job we do is appreciated long beyond our completion of it. If a guy makes you a chair, you say thanks and pay him. 10 years later, you're not inviting him around to dinner and thanking him for his wonderful chair, are you? We as actors in a programme like Doctor Who, we're being thanked for our chair over and over again. It would be churlish for us not to respond to those thanks.

You have a great camaraderie with Sylvester and the other Doctors?
All actors are like that. Our common language is taking the mickey out of each other - like any workplace; you get any group of guys who work together for any amount of time, they will find their own way of communicating to each other. Which is usually, taking the mickey, which is what we do. Obviously we never worked together obviously but we meet at these events and we've all been uniquely privileged to have played this part and it gives us a common bond. And humour is always present, isn't it?

You say you've never worked together, but we will hear you all together later this year in the Big Finish release Light At The End. How was that?
Whether Nick (Briggs) precluded me from saying anything or not, I've forgotten! I recorded my contribution separately - we weren't all together when we did it so we did it in bits and pieces because getting all of us in at the same time...the joy of audio is that you can edit it. Doing those stories is great fun. I look just the same audio; a bit slimmer in fact and my hair is still blonde and curly. And the monsters are still scary and the girls are still beautiful.

What is the appeal of continuing to do Big Finish?
Precisely that - the monsters are still scary and the girls are still gorgeous, you don't have to learn the script. And the scripts are very, very good. If you're writing for audio, it's much easier to write huge and far fetched stories as no-one has to imagine them visually.

You knew the longevity of this show when you got involved in it as well?
Yeah, and I'm very proud. Things happening for it - today, here we are in New Zealand and we're going to the Mint where they're going to show us coins with our likenesses on. In England, our likenesses are on postage stamps! The only living people who've had that are the Queen, the Beatles and Gold Medal Athletes from the last Olympics. How could one not be proud to be associated with this show?

The inevitable question on everyone's lips at the moment is your involvement in the 50th....
We're in New Zealand now as we speak and they're filming now. So you can draw your own conclusions...

Could filming have been done before you came here?
Could have done, but didn't......

Colin Baker is a guest at the Lords of Time convention in Auckland on Saturday April 13th. For more details, visit the Lords of Time site quickly....!