Sladen, Elisabeth - Elisabeth Sladen - The Autobiography

Absolute bliss.

Once I’d been on Nationwide and the Daily Mail had plastered me across their cover – and Clive James wrote in the Observer that I was one of the ‘five best things’ on television! – offers of work really did start to flood in. Some of them had nice pay cheques attached as well; they put the BBC to shame. Nothing really leapt out at me, though. Most were looking for ‘another Sarah Jane Smith’. Some of them were established sci-fi projects, others were launches. The one thing they had in common, though, was that they didn’t float my boat. I’ve done Sarah Jane, I’ve put her to bed , I thought.

You hear people say they need to put some distance between themselves and their past. Most don’t mean it literally. But I did – I put two thousand miles between us.

Brian and I had been hankering for a holiday to Tangiers for what seemed like forever. Not only was it exotic and otherworldly to Europeans (especially back in 1976 when different cultures were still defined by geographical boundaries) – and not only would we enjoy weather Brits can only dream of, there was another factor, even more important: it was accessible by road. Post-Toronto, that was important.

I know bus journeys are anathema to some people but Brian and I love them. You get a completely different view of the world. It’s also cheap and you’re pitched in close proximity to your partner for hours at a time. When you lead the lifestyles we do, that chance to be with one another is priceless.

* * *

No one would leave something as powerful as Who today without an exit plan. You’d have offers lined up. Before David Tennant said goodbye to me on Bannerman Road for the final time, his forthcoming schedule was packed. But did I have a plan? Of course not, no strategy! No twelve-step programme to world domination, which is pathetic, I admit. Career suicide, really. My agent has to take a share of that blame as well – sorry, Todd! He should have been steering me a bit more. I wouldn’t have appreciated it at the time, but you might have thought he’d be shaking me to accept some of those offers. After all, if you can’t rely on an agent to exploit a situation, what’s the world coming to?

But there you go. We can’t go back, and if I had been a little bit more switched-on perhaps I wouldn’t still be enjoying Sarah Jane so much now. So, as the song goes, no regrets – life’s too short.

By the time we returned from Africa I was raring to go. Right , I thought, what offers have we got?

And that’s how I ended up on a train to Liverpool.

Looking back it was almost certainly the wrong call. If I’d wanted to do theatre there were probably better roles from a ‘career’ perspective than Mooney and His Caravans . I only agreed because it was at the Playhouse and Brian was going to be in it as well. That was enough for me. I didn’t think ‘progression’, I just thought, That would be nice .

In other words, it wasn’t David Tennant’s Hamlet . This certainly wasn’t a ‘vehicle’ for me. If anything, I was hiding from my past.

But it was great to get back to my roots. Mum and Dad put us up, of course, and they were prouder than ever when there was a bit of interest from the Liverpool Echo , who ran a nice piece along the lines of ‘Local Girl Makes Good’. You know the sort of thing. I think they were even more impressed when they heard about the queue of autograph hunters waiting outside the theatre for me each night.

And there were other bits of work in my other old stomping ground, Manchester. Brian and I recorded A Bitter Almond for BBC Radio’s Afternoon Theatre segment over there. We also did Post Mortem for Thirty-Minute Theatre. They were both great parts but for me, the thrill was working once again with my husband.

Speaking of Brian, I have been asked how he felt being the less famous and, probably, less well-paid half of our relationship. I don’t know if it ever bothered him that to the wider public I was doing better than he was for those three years – I never gave it a thought. I was probably bringing home more money than him during my Who years, but then he’d been the breadwinner all the time I was out of work and he was in the West End. And it’s always been like that – you just pray one of you is working. Ideally both, ideally together, but one will do so long as someone is paying the bills. Remember, we had barely fifty pence between us when he bought my engagement ring in Manchester. It was always, ‘Thank God one of us has got a job’.

It’s true that Brian wasn’t as recognisable in the street as I was – he’s never been so readily associated with a single character or show. On the other hand, he never got the snide ‘it’s only kids’ telly’ comments that occasionally came my way. Yes, you knew you were popular; yes, you were in the Radio Times a lot, but even then, just looking at how they wrote about the show you weren’t allowed to forget it was ‘only a children’s programme’. Even the BBC never let us forget.

More radio followed. Laura and the Angel and The Hilton Boy were both for BBC Radio. After Mooney at Liverpool we did Saturday, Sunday, Monday and The Lion in Winter . I have to say, I loved being back in rehearsals, working towards that opening night, learning the new play by day, performing the old one by night, and changing every three weeks. And knowing that no bugger was going to ask me to go on the book was an incredible release.

Before any of that, though, in October 1976 I had some unfinished business. The fourteenth season of Doctor Who – starring yours truly – exploded onto screens on 4 September and of course my swansong was just around the corner. Annoyingly I had to break off rehearsals in Liverpool and hightail it back to London for a round of promotional stunts. Contractual obligations, as they say. I managed to fit in quite a few interviews while I was down there. I’m glad my leaving wasn’t a secret or it would have been horrible. Chris Eccleston must have been biting his tongue every time he was interviewed for his first series because his exit was kept secret for so long. David Tennant had the best idea, announcing it live at the Television Awards. He and Russell T Davies were so proud of pulling that one off without the press discovering it first.

My favourite event, I don’t know why, was an appearance on Multi-Coloured Swap Shop on 2 October, the morning of Hand of Fear ’s debut. I don’t think Noel Edmonds showed himself to be the most informed Who fan but I had a ball. Catching up with Tom backstage and then sharing that sofa with him on-air was a genuine pleasure. Answering viewers’ questions was always an honour, not a chore. And when you’re not on a show anymore, you can view it from the outside. And, do you know what? I was bloody proud of what we’d achieved. Jon, Barry, Terry, Robert and Tom – I owed so much to so many. I was glad to have left but at the same time I was genuinely choked whenever I thought of Who ’s contribution to television history. You knew it was special; even I could see that!

I managed to catch my Mandragora performances as they went out. By the time The Hand of Fear hit the screens, however, I was on stage in Mooney . Younger readers won’t be able to comprehend this, but if you didn’t catch a programme on broadcast, that was it. There were no video players, no Sky+ and certainly no YouTube or BBC iPlayer. So, while the nation was mourning my departure – so I’m told – I was none the wiser. For all I knew, Lennie Mayne could have edited me out of all my favourite scenes.