Lionel Harding was senior curator at London's International Gallery. He was obsessed with Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, and after many years finally arranged for the painting to come to his gallery on temporary loan. His assistant, Phyllis Trupp, carried a torch for him, but her affections were unrequited, as Harding was more in love with the painted image. When Clyde Langer won an art competition his class was invited to the gallery for a special preview. When the picture was unveiled, Harding was shocked to find the Mona Lisa missing from the canvas, replaced by an image of Miss Trupp. One of the ingredients of the paint had been powder from a sentient meteorite. This had been activated by the proximity of another painting in the gallery made from the same material - a picture consigned to the vaults as it portrayed a creature known simply as the Abomination. Mona Lisa now wanted to find her "brother" and escape from the canvas for ever. Such was Harding's obsession that he agreed to help her. She could bring characters in paintings to life, as well as trap people within paintings - as she did with Sarah Jane Smith.
he finally came to see the error of his ways, and destroyed a puzzle box which she needed to free the Abomination. Once Mona Lisa was back in her canvas, Harding turned to Miss Trupp, but she had overheard him belittling her whilst she had been trapped in the painting, and so rejected him.
Played by: Jeff Rawle. Appearances: SJA 3.5: Mona Lisa's Revenge (2009).
- Best known for a long-running role in TV News satire Drop The Dead Donkey, Rawle had previously played the young ruler Plantagenet in 1984's Frontios.
- In 2013 he portrayed Doctor Who's executive producer Mervyn Pinfield in the 50th Anniversary drama An Adventure in Space and Time.
- He's also one of the many Doctor Who actors who have appeared in the Harry Potter movie franchise - playing Amos Diggory in The Goblet of Fire.
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