Who's the biggest guest star Doctor Who has ever entertained?
Christmas 2007 saw pop superstar Kylie Minogue make her appearance as one-off companion Astrid Peth in Voyage of the Damned. One of her team was a huge Doctor Who fan and his influence had seen backing dancers dressed like Raston Warrior Robots. RTD seriously doubted he could get such a busy star to feature in an episode, but luckily the dates worked out.
Kylie was almost joined by a Hollywood legend - Dennis Hopper. It had been hoped that he might play Mr Copper and, though willing, he had limited availability and his dates didn't work out so well.
Instead we got Clive Swift, who was a big name on British TV thanks to his appearances as the long-suffering husband of Hyacinth Bucket ("it's pronounced Bouquet") in the hugely popular sitcom Keeping Up Appearances. To the general public, he was actually more famous than Hopper.
(A short time later, Swift would give an ill-tempered interview to DWM, obviously unhappy to see this performance highlighted over other work he deemed more worthy of attention. I wonder how Hopper would have reacted).
It is often mentioned that Julian Glover was Doctor Who's first big guest artist. He was certainly a big draw, being an accomplished stage actor who was now breaking into television, and his acceptance of a role probably eased the concern of other thespians who might have thought the series beneath them, only for children. But he wasn't the first big hitter to feature.
Before Glover, the series had hosted George Couloris, playing Arbitan for the opening instalment of The Keys of Marinus. A member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre company, he had featured prominently in Citizen Kane, arguably the greatest movie of all time.
However, back in the UK he was turning up in low budget horror movies like The Woman Eater.
Whilst the very first Doctor Who story had featured some strong character actors, it was with The Daleks that the series gained its first major guest artist. He's little known nowadays, but Alan Wheatley was a big name in 1963. He was the newspaper man hunted down and killed by Richard Attenborough's juvenile gangster Pinky in Brighton Rock, a film which gave William Hartnell one of his greatest ever big screen roles. However, to the public at large Wheatley was the wicked Sheriff of Nottingham to Richard Greene's outlaw in The Adventures of Robin Hood.
The programme gave guest roles to many fine actors over the years, most of whom claimed that they accepted the work mainly to please their children or grandchildren. It was claimed that Doctor Who was a bit like The Morecombe and Wise Show, in that people wanted to guest for the kudos, and a chance to have a bit of fun.
Once John Nathan-Turner became producer, however, we had a sudden influx of people who weren't necessarily known first and foremost as actors. The phrase "stunt casting" springs to mind. A lot of guests in the 1980's were from comedy or light entertainment backgrounds - Ken Dodd being a perfect example - though some like Alexei Sayle did have some acting experience. At other times, the guest simply seemed to be miscast - Beryl Reid as a hardened space-freighter captain, anyone?
The problem with JNT's casting was that it was obvious he was primarily looking for column inches in the tabloids, rather than doing what was best for what has always been a drama series.
The casting, seen alongside a certain tackiness in the overall production values, fed into a growing dissatisfaction with JNT as producer, and when he selected someone best known for song and dance as the full-time companion, it was the final straw.
(Bonnie Langford proved to be a very competent actor, and she has improved greatly over the intervening decades, so I for one am looking forward to seeing her again as Mel in Series 14.
There are definite parallels between Langford and Catherine Tate. Both were better known for other things yet both were cast as companions - leading to complaints from certain quarters of fandom. In both cases, those concerns proved completely unfounded).
Right from the start, expectations for the revived series seemed to be that it would attract big stars - including those better known in other fields.
I recall the newspaper reports of David Beckham playing his Tussauds' waxwork (really an Auton) in Series 1, or Helen Mirren / David Jason playing the Master.
Having an actor of Christopher Eccleston's calibre in the title role certainly helped attract some very good guest actors. We had Simon Callow portraying Charles Dickens in only the third episode - a role he had performed on stage and screen many times. We would later see theatrical knights like Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellen guest. The latter is a global star, thanks to the X-Men and Lord of the Rings / Hobbit blockbusters. Another actor of similar stature actually played a Doctor - the much missed John Hurt. Since playing Hercules Poirot for the final time (a role for which he is famous globally), David Suchet has been very particular in his work choices - but immediately accepted the Landlord role in Knock, Knock.
There has been the odd allegation of stunt casting since 2005 (comedians like Lee Mack. Lee Evans or Frank Skinner) but these have mainly been ignored. In most cases, the individual has proven to be perfectly fine for the role. Many of us would have liked to see Skinner's character take up that job offer from the Doctor.
Before we go, let's not forget about the unknown young actors, fresh from drama school, who had early appearances in Doctor Who and who then went on to bigger things, sometimes internationally - from Hywel Bennett in The Chase, or Martin Clunes in Snakedance, to James Norton in Cold War, Carey Mulligan in Blink, or Andrew Garfield in The Daleks in Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks.
And David Tennant, Matt Smith and Ncuti Gatwa have all been relative unknowns when cast as the Doctor. Let's see how far Gatwa goes.
Looking forward to the 60th Specials and Series 14, we know that Neil Patrick Harris is playing a significant role. David Tennant and Catherine Tate are back, along with what will be the final appearance of the late Bernard Cribbins. British performers Anita Dobson and Aneurin Barnard might not be well-known outside the UK, but Jonathan Groff has a wider fan base.
They're just the ones we've been told about - so who knows who else might be appearing, in scenes that were filmed entirely in studio?
No comments:
Post a Comment