Martin Jarvis (appeared in several classic serials, 1965-85)
When I met producer Verity Lambert 60 years ago, she offered me what seemed a juicy guest role in The Web Planet. “Hilio,” she explained, “is a prince of the Menoptera tribe, the Hamlet of his planet.” “Count me in,” I enthused. “Would you like to see the costume designs?” My ambitions took a dive as she passed the drawings across the table. A giant butterfly. Still, I needed the dosh. Sixty precious pounds an episode.
Jamie Donoughue (director of episodes featuring the Fifteenth Doctor, 2024)
When you arrive at the studios as director the first thing you want to do is visit the Tardis. There were rumours about its magnitude, so I decided that the first time I experienced it should be as the audience does. I entered not via the open stage, but through the police doors to get the full impact. It did not disappoint! Whenever possible I would sit in the Tardis; it became my second office. By the end I knew every button and exactly what it did. I only ever entered via the police doors!
Lalla Ward (played Romana II, companion to the Fourth Doctor; 1979-1981)
The greatest moment for me was the infinite improbability of meeting Douglas Adams, of the joy of having him as a friend for the rest of his tragically finite life. From that treasured friendship evolved, like the butterfly effect, everything and everybody that has mattered to me thereafter.
Catherine Tregenna (writer of The Woman Who Lived and for Torchwood, 2006-2015)
The fun of creating an immortal woman, a highway-woman no less, who couldn’t time travel and had to trudge through history for so long that she’d become numb to the world, so much so that the Doctor felt the need to stick around to unfreeze her heart. The way sci-fi is just a bigger human story and themes of compassion, mortality and loss can be tenderly explored.
Sheila Hancock (played Helen A in The Happiness Patrol, 1988)
I remember I thought the character was like Margaret Thatcher, so I did her voice. That made the Daily Mail incredibly angry, saying it was insulting. I had a wig that made me look like her, too. But it was an uncomfortable part to play because I had this little animal, which was an amazing puppet, but this man had to sit beneath me with his leg between my knees and the puppet on the end of it!
Sophie Hopkins (played April MacLean in Class, 2016)
The Doctor Who moment that has always stuck with me is the regeneration of the Tenth Doctor – David Tennant’s simple yet heartbreaking words, “I don’t want to go”. Chills!
Juno Dawson (writer of the Doctor Who: Redacted audio series, 2022 onwards)
When Tegan Jovanka leaves the Doctor, she tells him she can no longer witness the bodies piling up around them. “It’s stopped being fun, Doctor!”, she wails. I often apply that rule to my life, too. If it stops being fun, get out. Some 20 years later, Martha Jones chooses herself over a life of pining after the Doctor. She explains about her university friend’s unrequited love for their flatmate. Martha won’t repeat her pattern, and she gets out. It’s one of the most explicitly feminist moments in the show.”
Susie Liggat (producer, 2007-2008)
We were filming the last scene of Planet of the Ood in Trefil Quarry, it was boiling hot but we covered it in biodegradable paper snow. The Ood stand in a circle and sing their song of thanks to the Doctor and Donna. It’s such a vision of trust and openness, which for me represented the power of being vulnerable, the brilliance of “the Other”, the importance of not underestimating or taking advantage of people or creatures who work in different ways. Visually it was very simple and exposed, just the guys playing the creatures, Catherine Tate and David Tennant. A rare moment of stillness.
Rachel Talalay (director of episodes featuring the Twelfth Doctor and the first of the 60th anniversary specials, 2014-23)
I’d like to talk about Tom Baker flirting with me, but some things are best left to the imagination (as I said to Tom). So let’s talk about Cybermen. On the first episode I directed, we recreated a shot from a 1960s episode where the Cybermen came marching towards the camera with the dome of St Paul’s in the background. I wandered inside the empty cathedral and found a lone organist practising. It hardly seemed possible that all this was happening to a kid from Baltimore.
Azhur Saleem (director of episodes featuring the Thirteenth Doctor, 2021)
There was a big climactic scene I directed on Doctor Who: Flux, set in the Williamson Tunnels. It was a huge set, designed by the brilliant Dafydd Shurmer, with Sontarans blasting through a door while Yaz, Dan, Jericho and Williamson dive for cover. I remember looking across the set and watching all the people involved in this act of make-believe and it brought a massive smile to my face. We were creating something really special and exciting, that took a lot of hard work, yet it felt like we were just playing.
Vinay Patel (writer of episodes featuring the Thirteenth Doctor, 2018-2020)
When Chris Chibnall asked me, “If you could only write one episode for the show, what would it be?” I surprised myself by pitching a story set during the partition of India. I went to Abbey Road to see Segun Akinola oversee the recording of his score. I’ll never forget watching the singer, Shahid Abbas Khan, lay down his stunning, soaring vocals for the variant of the show’s closing theme. When he had finished, everyone in the room looked at each other and I muttered a very inelegant “fucking hell”. That’s when I knew it had all been worth it.
Alice Troughton (director of episodes of Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures and Doctor Who featuring the Tenth Doctor, 2006-2008)
“Do I have the right?” I was five and Tom Baker was deciding whether to blow up the Daleks or not. His nuanced, Shakespearean performance of the Doctor’s dilemma went straight into my imagination, with his wild, wide-eyed sense of glee and joy and doom. Lovely Lis Sladen, also in the scene, patiently listened to me banging on about it while we were working together on The Sarah Jane Adventures and got Tom’s autograph for me. I have it in front of me – it says, “Dear Alice, what a pity you weren’t here. I would have so liked to have said hello.”
