Colin Baker jokes he 'was the only Doctor Who without a sonic screwdriver'
The sixth Doctor Who has an issue with his USB port. “My computer’s failed and the camera isn’t working,” says Colin Baker. “Technology, eh? This is when you need a sonic screwdriver but, of course, I was the only Doctor not to have one.”
The BBC series is celebrating its 60th anniversary (the first episode was broadcast on the day President Kennedy was assassinated) and he was a singular Doctor for any number of reasons - but more of his role as a Time Lord later.
The 80-year-old actor is still in high demand and about to star in festive rom-com movie Christmas At The Holly Day Inn opposite legendary former EastEnders landlady Anita Dobson. It is quite the age to be involved in a romantic entanglement, fictional or otherwise.
“I suppose it is,” he smiles, “But I was 79 when we filmed it so just about edged under the geriatric bar. We’re soldiering on somehow but it was quite easy, pretending to have a romantic association with Anita’s character, because the person playing her is such a joy.
Colin was the sixth doctor (BBC)“I’d never worked with Anita before but we really got on well and I think we’re both quietly proud of our scenes. She’s such a good actress and I am, even at my advanced age, still surprised when people you see being brilliant on telly turn out to be nice people as well.”
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Baker plays Ben Holly, the widowed owner of a struggling hotel and the father of Emma (Tamla Kari from The Inbetweeners Movie), a high-flying executive experiencing burnout and dealing with her own problematic love life.
“Although it might sound bizarre in the context of what I’ve done for most of my career, this is really my kind of film,” he explains. “A gentle one that brings a little tear to the eye. I’m a sucker for them, always have been.
He's starring in Christmas At The Holly Day Inn with Anita Dobson“In the past I have turned down movies because the script was just nasty. That’s the only reason I would turn something down.”
Any regrets about rejected roles? “I suppose I could have taken Obi-Wan Kenobi, but Alec Guinness took it instead,” he laughs. “And if you believe that, you’ll believe anything.”
When the original Jedi Master was cast, Baker was in his mid 30s and fresh from his first major TV success as a heartless banker in The Brothers, which featured his first wife Liza Goddard.
During his I'm A Celeb stint (PA)He had turned to acting, he believes now, after being bullied at school. “I suffered because my parents came from London and my dad’s firm sent him up to Rochdale after the war. My parents spoke with ‘posh’ accents and I went to a school where they absolutely didn’t, I was just a tosser who wore glasses. I acquired more bloody noses in those early years than I like to remember.
“That’s where the acting started, changing the accent, but the only thing was, I could never invite anyone home because my mum would clobber me round the ear if I talked like ‘tha’ and they’d clobber me round the ear if I talked like ‘thaat’. I’ve not suffered for it because it made me the man I am now.”
It is the man the country took to its heart in the twelfth series of I’m a Celebrity in 2012 as he danced with a Pussycat Doll, rapped with former world darts champion Eric Bristow and formed an unlikely bond with Tory politician Nadine Dorries.
Colin with his fellow Doctors (Getty Images)“My entire family, my wife and four daughters, said I had to go into the jungle and it timed perfectly with the end of my mortgage which I was able to pay off. Talk about serendipity. I also lost 50lb so that was brilliant.”
Baker was invited on to the show primarily due to the public recognition of his time as Doctor Who. He had been chosen to succeed Peter Davidson in 1984.
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After two years travelling the galaxy in his trademark multicoloured coat, the circumstances surrounding his departure from Doctor Who, he admits, left a “bit of a taste in the mouth”. He explains: “Michael Grade had been on record before he became Controller of BBC1 as having the attitude that Doctor Who and Come Dancing were both evidence of, in his words, ‘the BBC’s senility’ so it was not surprising he cancelled both immediately. “They asked me to come back about nine months later to film the regeneration but I declined as I was a bit miffed and it would have prevented me getting other jobs. It means I’m the only doctor who has not been truly regenerated,” he adds with a smile.
Accepting the iconic role came with some baggage for Colin (Birmingham Post and Mail)At the time, accepting one of the most iconic roles in television came with a certain amount of baggage.
“Now, you have to be in a successful series in order to get another one, which has worked to the benefit of the recent inhabitants of the role such as David Tennant [the tenth doctor]… the world lets you be a fine actor now whereas back then the higher-ups would go, ‘Oh he was in Doctor Who, wasn’t he?’ Now they don’t care.”
A group of people who absolutely do care, however, are Whovians – the show’s worldwide fanbase. He has since gone on to do more than 200 Doctor Who audios.
“‘Old Sixie’, has been redeemed and glorified,” he says. “The fans, bless them, invited me to be the president of the Doctor Who Fan Club because, apparently, they like what I do on audio. They’re wonderful, I’ve met so many at conventions worldwide.
“It can get a bit bizarre. I’ve been asked to autograph an old breast implant, not one that was in situ, and in Texas once I found a young woman dressed as Captain Yates [a character from the series] lying across the threshold of my hotel room. She had a rifle beside her.
She said, ‘I’m guarding you, Sir.’ I gently explained that I’d feel a lot safer if she wasn’t lying outside my bedroom door with a loaded gun.” Today, Doctor Who has never been more popular and credit for that resides with Russell T Davies, a long-time fan and now, in Baker’s words, “the most coveted and powerful producer on television”.
“He found a script he’d written in his bedsit in Cardiff in the mid 80s when I was the Doctor but he’d put in a drawer. He found it a few years ago, and we recorded an audio version. It had all those ingredients that make him such a clever writer.”
Davies’ reboot of the TV series in 2005 brought the show into the 21st century for an entirely new audience and he has come back to write three specials starring David Tennant that will air later this month and introduce Ncuti Gatwa as the fifteenth Doctor.
“I was at the screening of the first episode of a couple of days ago and it’s phenomenal,” says Baker. “It’s got all the values of Doctor Who, plus all of the technology of today. Russell has done it perfectly and, if it carries on like that, the show will last forever.”
As it seems will all the Doctors. Sometimes as romantically inclined octogenarian hoteliers.
- Christmas At The Holly Day Inn is on digital now (101 Films).
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