Tom Baker\u2019s eyes are wide. Tom Baker\u2019s eyes are often wide. \u201cOh!\u201d he exclaims, gazing at my phone, reading glasses perched on his nose. \u201cIs this the next Doctor Who?\u201d<\/p>\n
He takes in his first sight of his successor. Ncuti Gatwa<\/a> in navy pinstripe. Ncuti Gatwa in an orange jumper and butterscotch tartan coat. Ncuti Gatwa in frills and britches. \u201cA handsome young man!\u201d he whistles. \u201cMarvellous cheekbones. These things are important as you get near to death.\u201d<\/p>\n Baker is approaching 90, though he has been giving oblivion a cheerful wave since the last years of the 20th century, when he acquired the tombstone that waits for him, gathering lichen, in the churchyard of Boughton Malherbe in Kent.<\/p>\n Between the ages of 19 and 21 he was a monk in a Catholic brotherhood \u2013 now, old age has given him the appearance of a medieval saint: long bones beneath a halo of white hair.<\/p>\n He keeps satsumas in his coat pockets and distributes them like indulgences. Much of his conversation seems to come from a cloud of playful unknowing, as if he were floating between this world and the next, and you were his only conduit to reality.<\/p>\n \u201cThe 60th anniversary?\u201d he muses, apparently unaware that Doctor Who has reached this landmark, despite agreeing to our interview and photoshoot to celebrate it.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd is it still a huge success?\u201d Yes. \u201cWill they show all the old stuff, too?\u201d Oh yes, on iPlayer, all the time. \u201cNobody failed as Doctor Who did they?\u201d There\u2019s now a mischievous glint in his eye. \u201cWell, we mustn\u2019t be ungenerous to anyone. But certainly I didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n He didn\u2019t. Tom Baker holds the record for the longest tenure in the Tardis (seven years, 1974\u201381) and the show\u2019s highest ratings (13.6 million if you discount episodes aired during ITV strikes).<\/p>\n Under him, Doctor Who received a triumphant American launch, gained its own magazine (still running) and established imagery that has stuck in the public imagination (when the Doctor appears on The Simpsons<\/a>, it\u2019s in Baker\u2019s hat and scarf).<\/p>\n His era also haunts the present relaunch: the diamond-shaped logo is back, while David Tennant\u2019s first special \u2013 The Star Beast<\/a> \u2013 is an adaptation of a 1980 comic strip written for Baker\u2019s Doctor.<\/p>\n Is there anything he thinks Ncuti Gatwa should know? \u201cKnowing anything is a bit dangerous when you play Doctor Who,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s better to know nothing. And to be good-natured. The trick is to respond generously to other actors, which halves your task because you don\u2019t have to be driving it all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n A 60th anniversary reunion with his fellow Doctors is not on the cards. \u201cI avoid them, you know. Not with any malice. A degree of contempt, perhaps. But mildly. Mildly contemptuous.\u201d<\/p>\n I mention that the old Tarzans \u2013 Ron Ely, Buster Crabbe, Johnny Weissmuller \u2013 would often lunch together to speak of those things that only Tarzans know. Baker snorts in horror at the idea of a Doctor Who equivalent.<\/p>\n \u201cUnthinkable! Fancy being round a table with old Doctor Whos! Though I\u2019d quite like to walk into a restaurant and find 12 of them around the table \u2013 I\u2019d enjoy doing that double take, as I desperately tried to remember who they were. I could keep that going for hours. Oh! I can feel the malice rising.\u201d<\/p>\n Baker has usually preferred to stand apart from the other Doctors. In 1983, he rejected the opportunity to return for the 20th anniversary special, The Five Doctors (they used footage from an unfinished TV story and brought his Madame Tussauds waxwork to the photocall).<\/p>\n For years he declined to appear at conventions with the other actors who have played the role. \u201cInevitably, comparisons are made,\u201d he says, \u201cand I find them odious.\u201d<\/p>\n This history is why many fans found his cameo in the 50th anniversary special The Day of the Doctor in 2013 such an overwhelming experience. I saw it in an audience of 3,000 fans. When Baker appeared, the man beside me fell prostrate to the floor in a kind of religious awe.<\/p>\n Baker doesn\u2019t remember Doctor Who\u2019s debut in 1963. Nor hearing the news of the Kennedy assassination the previous day.<\/p>\n That period wasn\u2019t the happiest in his life. He\u2019d left his drama school, Rose Bruford, without finishing the course. \u201cI think I made a girl pregnant,\u201d he muses, as though his biographical headlines were the details of a part he once played. \u201cThey disapproved of impregnating girls. In those days, you had to do the decent thing.\u201d<\/p>\n His first wife\u2019s family, a dynasty of Nottinghamshire rose cultivators, didn\u2019t welcome him. \u201cI became a minor member of the girl\u2019s family and had to put up with being treated offhandedly because I\u2019d spoiled their daughter.\u201d<\/p>\n They had two sons, from whom Baker says he\u2019s more or less estranged today. \u201cI very rarely see my children. They\u2019re middle-aged men now. I don\u2019t know what their ages are. I\u2019m coming up to 90 so the boys must be 60.\u201d<\/p>\n And despite Baker becoming, in his own words, \u201cquite skilful at selling roses\u201d, the marriage didn\u2019t last. \u201cI never see her now, you know.\u201d He looks at me beadily. \u201cYou don\u2019t seem at all surprised.\u201d<\/p> His time on Doctor Who now seems to him a golden period \u2013 the product of some alchemical reaction between his personality and the part. He could knock on doors on a Saturday teatime and be assured a place on the sofa of an amazed family. Parents of sick children would appeal for his help. One family summoned him to hospital to raise their son from a coma.<\/p>\n \u201cI tried to be very modest and hide the fact that it gave me a certain degree of real pleasure,\u201d he says. \u201cOf power. It\u2019s nothing I\u2019m proud of, but there we are. It\u2019s nice to feel powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n Other Saturdays he spent in the Colony Room Club, the boozy epicentre of Bohemian Soho, where the painter Francis Bacon would gaze, baffled, at Doctor Who playing on the TV above the bar.<\/p>\n \u201cHe didn\u2019t really understand why everyone was excited by it. He thought it was very odd.\u201d He was excited by Baker, though. \u201cFrancis was very flirtatious. He would get closer and closer and say, \u2018Mmm? Mmm?\u2019 as if he were absolutely electrified.\u201d<\/p>\n It couldn\u2019t last forever. Baker left Doctor Who in 1981, having found a second wife in co-star Lalla Ward, who played his companion Romana. That union broke up in 1982, but Doctor Who and Baker\u2019s personal life stay entwined \u2013 he married his current wife Sue Jerrard, a former assistant editor on the show, in 1986.<\/p>\n Baker\u2019s post-Who career has also had its ups and downs. A year after he left, he was Sherlock Holmes in a dramatisation of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Roles in Blackadder, Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased), Monarch of the Glen and Little Britain would follow.<\/p>\n But for many, for all time, Baker is the Doctor \u2013 and he knows it. So perhaps it\u2019s no surprise that in recent years his Five Doctors-era reluctance has thawed, allowing him to return for the 50th anniversary, release a Who novel and record new plays as the Doctor for audio production company Big Finish.<\/p>\n We look at some photographs of a party held for Doctor Who\u2019s 15th anniversary, which, for a reason he cannot fathom, he attended dressed as Oscar Wilde. \u201cWilde had a large influence on me,\u201d he reflects. \u201cHe was a very sad sort of fellow, but he was funny and he was adored. I was very keen on being adored. Still am, really.\u201d<\/p>\n And, Baker concedes, he has pursued his own form of Wildean self-construction. It\u2019s visible on screen, when he plays the Doctor. It shapes his interactions with fans, in whom he stirs memories of ancient childhood pleasures and securities. It\u2019s in our conversation, too, in which he mixes warm reminiscence with admissions that might chill those unfamiliar with his manner.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve found this performance, which I\u2019ve done non-stop ever since,\u201d he says. \u201cPeople like that harmless, occasionally disturbing quality, which is natural to me, because I\u2019m not really certain about anything. I\u2019ve discovered a way of giving an impression that I\u2019m trying to hide something. It\u2019s been very successful so far.\u201d<\/p>\n He gets up to have his photograph taken. He needs little persuading to wrap up in a replica of his Doctor Who scarf. Perhaps it comforts him as much as it comforts me. Something of the power of the Doctor, he suspects, remains with him.<\/p>\n \u201cThough after all this time,\u201d he says, \u201cit\u2019s quite hard to go on believing it.\u201d<\/p>\n As the camera clicks away, he mutters quietly under his breath; holds his fingers in a priest-like manner. It looks like a gesture of absolution. Disbelief seems very far away.<\/p>\n Check out more Doctor Who interviews in Radio Times magazine, on sale now.<\/em><\/p>\n Doctor Who\u2019s first 60th anniversary special The Star Beast airs at 6:30pm on Saturday 25th November on BBC One and BBC iPlayer. Classic episodes are available on BritBox \u2013 you can sign up for a\u00a07-day free trial here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n Check out more of our\u00a0Sci-Fi<\/a>\u00a0coverage or visit our\u00a0TV Guide<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Streaming Guide<\/a>\u00a0to find out what\u2019s on.<\/strong><\/p>\n Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only \u00a310 \u2013\u00a0<\/strong>subscribe now<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and celebrate the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who with a special issue of Radio Times. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to\u00a0<\/strong>The Radio Times Podcast<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div> <\/body><\/html>\n Tom Baker reflects on 60 years of trips in the TARDIS. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":40260,"template":"","categories":[1,5],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/11\/tom-baker-nobody-failed-as-doctor-who-i-certainly-didnt.jpg",1366,911,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/11\/tom-baker-nobody-failed-as-doctor-who-i-certainly-didnt-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/11\/tom-baker-nobody-failed-as-doctor-who-i-certainly-didnt-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/11\/tom-baker-nobody-failed-as-doctor-who-i-certainly-didnt-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/11\/tom-baker-nobody-failed-as-doctor-who-i-certainly-didnt-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/11\/tom-baker-nobody-failed-as-doctor-who-i-certainly-didnt.jpg",1366,911,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2023\/11\/tom-baker-nobody-failed-as-doctor-who-i-certainly-didnt.jpg",1366,911,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Tom Baker reflects on 60 years of trips in the TARDIS.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/40259"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Tom](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2023\/11\/Tom-Baker-x-Radio-Times01-11-2320-2ad8c58.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C930\" "\\"Tom")
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