I LIKED DOCTOR WHO BECUASE IT WAS FUN, FUN, FUN! By Tom Baker I was terribly out of work when I got the Doctor Who job. I was temporarily on a building site when the BBC asked me. A few weeks later some of the men went out to buy the racing edition of the Standard and there was my picture on the front page. The BBC had told me not to tell anyone. Thos men just couldn't believe it, their cement mixer becoming Doctor Who. Adjusting to the role was not easy to begin with. I had to remember that I did not have an existence as Tom Baker. Apart from my close friends and colleagues, everybody called my the Doctor. Even children in push-chairs pointed at me in the street. I became very aware that they were not looking at Tom Baker, but at this image they had of the character. It was important to me, therefore, that I never disappoint people, especially children. I would never be seen being raucous in the streets or smoking cigars. One of my surprising things about playing that Doctor was the range of the audience. Although I first thought of it as a children's programme, not a childish programme I hasten to add, there was also a bug adult audience. I was astonished to be invited to places like St. John's and Somerville Colleges at Oxford and I spoke to absolutely packed halls. If I had accepted all the invitations I received I could have been going to universities three or four times a week! I went to one of the Doctor Who conventions in Los Angeles. These people were coming up with theories about the Doctor I could not understand. I asked them what they wanted and they all wanted the same thing. Would I take them with me in the TARDIS? It was very strange. Another occasion, I remember, I was returning with a colleague from Blackpool on a Saturday afternoon and I wanted to see the episode being shown that day. So we stopped at a televsion shop and asked if we could watch the programme. The assistant said she was just closing, but we could go to her house nearby and see it. When we got there we found her two children glued to the programme which had just started. I sat down quietly. Suddenly one of the children looked across at me. The he looked back at the set. The he looked back at me again. He couldn't believe his eyes! The Doctor isn't really an acting part. It's a matter of being inventive enough to project credibility to scenes which aren't credible. The programme is like a hovercraft - on a fine line all the time. You don't dare touch the ground. I think it must have been the part of the Doctor that kept me fresh and young. All that fantasy is good for the mind, you know. In the end it was not hard to leave the programme. I felt it in my finger-tips that the time had come to move over and give someone else a chance. There was nothing more I could do with it. I really like Doctor Who becuase it was all fun, fun, fun! There's so much nastiness in the world, so much violence and horrow, I want to keep away fro ir, bury myself in make-believe. I think the biggest bores in the hero business are James Bond, Kojak, Callan and footballers. They're non-people who do nothing but kick other people. One wouldn't want to have them round for tea. the Doctor doesn't shoot anybody, drink, beat up women, but somehow he has a heroic appeal to children. I am very please and proud to have been a little part of history. Tom Baker January 1983 X-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-X Another file downloaded from: NIRVANAnet(tm) & the Temple of the Screaming Electron Jeff Hunter 510-935-5845 Rat Head Ratsnatcher 510-524-3649 Burn This Flag Zardoz 408-363-9766 realitycheck Poindexter Fortran 415-567-7043 Lies Unlimited Mick Freen 415-583-4102 Specializing in conversations, obscure information, high explosives, arcane knowledge, political extremism, diversive sexuality, insane speculation, and wild rumours. ALL-TEXT BBS SYSTEMS. Full access for first-time callers. We don't want to know who you are, where you live, or what your phone number is. We are not Big Brother. "Raw Data for Raw Nerves" X-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-X