Читать книгу The Doctors Who's Who - The Story Behind Every Face of the Iconic Time Lord: Celebrating its 50th Year - Craig Cabell - Страница 8

‘Behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living. Since the dawn of time, roughly a hundred billion human beings have walked the planet Earth.’

2001, A Space Odyssey

Arthur C Clarke

THE BIGGEST SHOW on television is BBC TV’s Doctor Who. The title role is that of an alien with two hearts who travels around the universe in a battered police telephone box saving the universe with a string of eclectic companions.

Playing the lead in Doctor Who is a life-changing experience for any actor, because, once you have taken the controls of the Tardis, you are immortalised in TV history.

No other role in television is as iconic, demanding or as anticipated by its legion of fans as Doctor Who. It is an enigma and one that will endure and adapt, as it has done since its humble beginnings on 23 November 1963, the day after the assassination of President John F Kennedy.

The lead actor may change, but the lead character never does, and that is the successful formula of Doctor Who. Of course, one could argue that the Tardis (in the guise of a police telephone box) and the signature tune are the other two indelible ingredients of the show’s success and were fundamental to its successful comeback in the new millennium.

The actors who have played the central role have, for the most part, had distinguished and diverse careers, but they will always be known as Doctor Who, one of an elite group of people who were privileged enough to be invited to take on this most demanding role.

Doctor Who is the longest-running SF television series in the world, and it seems that with every passing decade its popularity grows. Never before has there been a single book that focuses its whole attention on the actors who have played the Doctor and their otherwise largely unappreciated careers.

Throughout this book, I will discuss many of the milestone movies in the Doctors’ careers, some forgotten gems, others both famous and iconic: films such as Brighton Rock, Hell Divers, This Sporting Life, Jason and the Argonauts, The Curse of Frankenstein, The Omen, Carry On Screaming, Nicholas and Alexandra and Withnail and I, and TV series as famous as Worzel Gummidge, All Creatures Great and Small, The Brothers, The Second Coming and Our Friends in the North. Then there are the great theatrical productions from the RSC’s Hamlet and Love’s Labour’s Lost, through to The Pied Piper and even the stage play of Doctor Who itself. And let us not forget all the great actors and actresses who the Doctors have played alongside during their careers, names such as Laurence Olivier, Cedric Hardwicke, Maggie Smith, Robert Newton, Jeremy Brett, Patrick Stewart, Sean Connery, David Niven, Stanley Baker, Will Hay, Richard Harris, Richard E Grant, John Gielgud, Derek Jacobi, Billie Whitelaw, Christopher Lee, Lee Remick, Margaret Rutherford, Joan Hickson, Gregory Peck, Rex Harrison, Peter Sellers, Peter Ustinov – the list goes on and on.

There is much to celebrate in the careers of the actors who have played Doctor Who, and this book gives us the opportunity to discover – or rediscover – that work.

So is playing the Doctor a blessing? The ultimate actor’s dream? No, it hasn’t quite worked out that way for all of them. Paul McGann was given only one feature-length bite at the cherry, while Christopher Eccleston gave up after one solitary season. In contrast, there is Tom Baker, one of the most popular Doctors, who tackled the role for seven years – he even married one of his companions for a short period – and then came back to the role through the audio series. And what of David Tennant and his final words as the Doctor, ‘I don’t want to go’?

Doctor Who has been both saint and sinner to the people who have played him, and this book analyses the magnitude of the part and how it has worked its magic, or its curse, on all the Doctors.

This book is exactly what it claims to be: the real-life story of many men who have played one famous character. And that character is brilliant. One of the greatest in television history, most definitely one of the most successful and iconic to a legion of fans.

I would like to stress early on that – unlike many other books – this one is not about the history of Doctor Who. Although the opening chapter concerns the birth of the show, it only does so to explain where the main character came from and his unique personality. You won’t find chapters concerning the iconic monsters, such as the Cybermen, Daleks and Weeping Angels, or blow-by-blow story analysis and episode breakdowns. Each chapter is a mini biography about each actor who has played the Doctor, where the part fitted into his career, what effect the character – and the show – had on him and, most importantly, what else he did as an actor. Part Two of the book focuses on individual career credits for each actor in order of appearance. It also includes an essay about the programme itself, analysing the show’s great moments, in an effort to explain why the show has been so successful and why the leading actors will always be part of the Doctor Who legacy with the rest of their careers dragging behind them.

This book doesn’t try to be a definitive biography – many of the Doctors, such as Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker have done that already – this book is a clear look at where Doctor Who sits within the great scheme of each actor’s career, something I personally don’t think they can do themselves and, indeed, so far haven’t.

I’ve found this book an incredible one to write and research. Over the years I have spoken to and been in correspondence with six out of eight of the original Doctors and some of their companions, and all these people have met me with overwhelming warmth and enthusiasm. The first interview I ever did – at school no less – was with the then producer of Doctor Who, John Nathan-Turner (and indeed a photograph from that session is included in the photo section of this book), so the insights for this book literally span 30 years of my life and it has been a most interesting ride.

Doctor Who has attracted so much love and respect both inside (the cast and crew) and outside (the fans and the media) that it has become an extended family to many people. But the one thing I find strange is that nobody has overtly identified – although noticed – the thread that runs through the show, through all the Doctors; indeed, many of the Doctors naturally make the comparison themselves, and one actually played the character on stage just before becoming the Doctor… see if you can work out who it is.

Doctor Who is a fairy tale itself, and like many, it holds its own energy and level of reality.

Not convinced? Then consider this: when my son once asked me – as children inevitably do when contemplating the existence of the Tooth Fairy and Father Christmas – if the Doctor really existed, I told him, ‘If somebody categorically told me that there wasn’t a Time Lord spinning around the universe in a battered old police box constantly saving the day, my life would be so much sadder.’ And I meant it too!

‘Don’t adventures ever have an end? I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on the story.’

The Fellowship of the Ring

J R R Tolkien

Craig Cabell

Woking, September 2009