Sladen, Elisabeth - Elisabeth Sladen - The Autobiography

Despite the nice weather I still felt worn down in this one. There was one shot where Barry wanted us to walk away from the camera across a cornfield – they were just filming our backs, it was a long shot. From the distance we heard a shout and Tom said, ‘I think that was a “cut”.’

‘No, I didn’t hear anything,’ I said.

So we just kept walking! It was a scorching day and eventually we ended up in the village and squeezed in a cream tea before anyone found us!

When I started doing The Sarah Jane Adventures I had a letter from the woman at the Post Office. She said, ‘Oh, you and Tom came in to hide and said, “Oh, they won’t find us in here!” I’ve still got the photo you signed and I tell my grandchildren, “I met Sarah Jane”.’

It was really magical working with Barry again, but also Ian. I had no idea this would be his last hurrah. It was never set out so formally although that’s how it turned out.

Nick Courtney was too busy to take part but John Levene, one of the other regular UNIT boys, was available. I loved working with John. He was so sweet and he really made me laugh – not always intentionally. He’d drop things and he’d dry up in a scene, never a dull moment. Tom used to joke that if John’s character Sergeant Benton saluted he’d poke himself in the eye. If he had a bayonet rifle, he’d stab himself in the foot.

Come Androids , of course, and John not only had to play himself and an android version of Benton – he also had to shoot the Doctor. Barry was so relaxed about this scene it quite threw John.

‘There’s no dialogue, just say what comes naturally,’ Barry said.

This absolutely froze John into total traction. Ad-libbing ? That was for other people, not him. So he came over to me and said, ‘Lis, what am I going to do?’

‘Just say whatever you feel, I don’t want to put words into your mouth,’ I told him.

‘OK, OK,’ he said. ‘I’ve got it.’

So we began rehearsal then went for action. As per the script, Tom got shot. John looked at his gun and said, ‘Shit, I’ve shot the Doctor!’

* * *

By the time we finished Android at the end of August, summer was well and truly upon us. Unfortunately my chances of a holiday were as remote as ever. Pre-production was already underway on the next serial and before I knew it I was standing in the Acton Hilton, script in hand, working through the latest twist in Sarah’s journey. Yet again, though, I found myself thinking, How much more is there for this character to do?

Added to my irritation with the relentless schedule was my increasing feeling that Who and I were about to part company. For now, though, I was enjoying scripts for The Brain of Morbius .

Like Pyramids, Morbius ended up going out under a pseudonym. Having done all the legwork, Terry Dicks was sufficiently offended by Robert Holmes’ rewrites to ask for his name to be taken off the credits.

‘Give it some sort of bland pseudonym,’ Terry huffed.

Which is how Morbius came to be ‘written’ by ‘Robin Bland’.

Despite the feel of a big-budget Hammer Horror, Morbius was actually one of our belt-tightening exercises. The whole thing was shot in Television Centre – no locations, no puppet shoots. After the verdant feel of Android , the studio mountains of Karn seemed a little sterile, I admit, but I think Barry had used up all the budget!

At least I could get home at the end of each day – you need your own bed to recharge the batteries sometimes. On filming days it was different. After the pressure of a camera day, it was a relief to knock off at ten o’clock and head straight for the studio bar. You could really let your hair down in there safe in the knowledge only BBC people were around. Sometimes, on special occasions, we’d make for the Balzac Bistro on Shepherd’s Bush Green for a meal. It wasn’t particularly far to walk but we only seemed to venture thus far for birthdays and celebrations. The priority was always to find the nearest watering hole and pitch our tent there.

There’s more than a hint of Frankenstein in The Brain of Morbius . Mad scientist Solon is trying to rebuild Morbius, an evil Time Lord, but he’s short on parts. So far he’s just got a brain in a jar and a body somewhere between a man and a crab. Then Tom and I stroll along and all his Christmases come at once.

Chris Barry, the ‘Mad Monk’, was in charge of this one. He was very professional, extremely precise and – how can I put it? – mercurial, too. Whatever mood Chris was in when he arrived at rehearsal, that was the mood you got directed in. I remember he was very excited about working with Philip Madoc, who was playing Solon. I got the impression from Chris that he was working with a proper actor for a change. Charming !

I see Philip now and he’s a jovial man. I wish I’d known it at the time. On Morbius he was deadly serious, every detail had to be explored. Ad-libbing, fooling around or any of those flippant drama exercises seemed beneath him. And, I have to be honest: Chris seemed to love him for it. Hello, Chris, you’re directing Doctor Who, not Professor Solon , I thought.

I’d almost forgotten the shadow Philip cast on recording until we came to do the DVD commentary. Chris and Philip were asked if they spent a lot of time rehearsing Solon’s scene with the monster.

‘No time at all – the whole thing was done very quickly.’ They both agreed on that.

I nearly spat my coffee out. As far as I’m concerned they rehearsed that scene over and over; they were on it for hours. We’ll never get home at this rate , I remember thinking.

John Scott Martin was also in this one (buried under the monster costume), as was Stuart Fell, so it was nice to have them around. Condo, the gormless servant, was played by an old Liverpool lad called Colin Fay. His character was a direct lift from those old horror films with the sinister servant ‘Igor’. Any gap in the schedule and we’d be regaling each other with stories of the home country. That fun carried over into rehearsals. When we first arrive at Solon’s castle it’s raining. We knock on the door and this Lurch figure greets us. Now, just before the cameras were about to roll, Tom said, ‘Do you know, Lis – when he opens the door we could be doing a tap dance like Singin’ in the Rain .’ You can imagine his face, animated and big-eyed at the idea.

‘I think that might be a bit much, Tom,’ I told him.

How I wish we’d done it. Perhaps it would have made Chris notice us for a change.

One person in particular needed no help in noticing us: Mary Whitehouse. If she had gone ballistic at Genesis , she went positively nuclear when Morbius was broadcast. And the offending scene? Funnily enough, it was the sight of Morbius’s brain in a bell jar.

I shouldn’t be too critical of her. Actually I remember Philip Hinchcliffe agonising over whether we should show that shot. To this day he still isn’t sure if he should have put it in or not. Maybe it was a tad gruesome for a tea-time audience and yet, considering almost every episode has the destruction of the human or some other race at its heart, one piece of anatomy does seem rather tame to cause so much fuss.

* * *

After what was largely a cost-cutting exercise on Morbius , the series finale for Season Thirteen looked set to pull out all the stops. We would go out with a bang on Hand of Fear .

Or so we thought.

It was pretty late in the day when Philip and Robert decided the scripts were not in the right state for filming and an emergency replacement called The Seeds of Doom was hurriedly commissioned instead. It was a big gamble. In fact we were halfway through Morbius before the scripts began to trickle in. At least they were by Robert Banks Stewart – you knew it would be a good show with his name at the top of the page. Not only had his Terror of the Zygons been one of the better stories but he also had a pedigree, having worked on The Sweeney, Callan and various other successful series. He would later create Shoestring and Bergerac . Even more importantly, picking up the directorial gauntlet was one of my favourites, dear old Dougie Camfield. If anyone could make this rush job work, it was him.