Sladen, Elisabeth - Elisabeth Sladen - The Autobiography

The first was a happy one. Brian and I bought our first house. Strictly speaking, we bought our only house – because we’re still there today! After looking far and wide we found a place round the corner from our flat in Ealing. When we pulled up outside I said to Brian, ‘How on earth can we afford this?’ Then we went inside and found out: it needed a lot of work but we just fell in love with it. It had the high ceilings and bay windows that I adore, so we bought it. Anyone who visited over the next few months was likely to find me doing a Spider-Man impression, bent double up a ladder painting, or scrubbing the ceilings and walls. I’ve always loved physical work in acting, but when it came to decorating I felt pain in muscles I never knew I had.

There was only so much we could do ourselves. When it came to walls being knocked down and RSJs fitted, we got the experts in. It would have been hellish to try and live there during that, so John Blackmore, Tony Colegate’s assistant director at Manchester, offered us both a tour of Alan Ayckbourn’s Bedroom Farce . We snatched at it.

Well, that was a mistake! Living in digs again was just horrendous – I would have preferred to take my chances under the dustsheets at home. The venues weren’t much better. At the theatre in Middlesbrough we were told not to flush the loo backstage because it would reverberate around the auditorium. Opening night in Newcastle pretty much summed it all up. The guy playing Trevor was quite uptight, really bodily stiff, which I’d noticed when I had to swing him round in rehearsal. When we got to that part in the show, I grabbed his shoulder and heard this crack. I had dislocated his arm! He wore it in a sling for the rest of the tour. The only thing that kept us going was knowing our fees would go towards fixing up the house.

It was such a relief to finally get the place looking ship-shape but we couldn’t celebrate because there was someone who was no longer around to see it. My mum had been ill since Christmas. She had been on heart tablets since I was about twenty, so any illnesses were potentially serious. I’d been popping up to Liverpool as often as I could, in between Stepping Stones and other bits. I kept saying to her, ‘You look tired, what does your doctor say?’ But she was a strong-willed woman – she wasn’t going to slow down for anyone. She died of a heart-attack in March 1978. I was actually in Liverpool at the time but I’d gone out to visit cousins. When the call came I felt my world fall apart.

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At times like that you really need your partner’s support – that’s why Bedroom Farce was so perfect; it meant Brian and I could be together. Then I had a small part in a telly thing called Betzi , which only involved a few days up in Norwich for Anglia. The cast was amazing – people like Roland Curram, Sheila Gish’s husband – but the director had some funny ideas. When we got to the rehearsal room there were footprints all over the floor telling you where you should be and how you had to get there! I’m glad I didn’t have a very big part – it’s not at all easy to walk where someone else wants you to; it’s like playing Twister.

I had more luck on my next telly. Send in the Girls – the story of a group of ambitious women in a high-pressured sales promotion team – was made by Granada, who had always been good to me. I auditioned for Ollie Horsburgh and won the lead part of Beverley. Then he said, ‘Now, we need to find you a husband.’ Guess who they hired?

I didn’t even know Brian had been asked. Ollie had no idea of our relationship so it had nothing to do with that. In fact, he got himself into a terrible panic when he realised.

‘Lis, are you OK with this? We had no idea – I’m not sure I can handle this!’

But I couldn’t see what the problem was: I was delighted. It was also nice to have strangers think we made a good couple!

The close links didn’t end there. Sadie’s future godfather, Ray Lonnen, was in that one. Brian had known him longer than me, so we had lots of fun being back in Manchester together. And one of my idols, John Carson, was in it as well (I still find myself delivering lines in The Sarah Jane Adventures in a Carson style). He was amazingly influential on me – but on the day of the last dress rehearsal he did a wicked thing. There I was in full slap and frock when he said, ‘Lis, you know my wife wrote this – and she doesn’t think you’re right for it.’

I could have hit him. Ollie was pleased, the producers were pleased. If his wife had a problem, she’d had months to voice it.

If this is what you have to put up with doing adult drama, then I’ll take kids’ telly any day! I thought.

My next ‘grown-up’ thing, a sitcom called Take My Wife , wasn’t much fun either. Once again it was up in Manchester, where Brian happened to be working on something else. The director, a dour Scot called Gordon Flemyng, went up to him and said, ‘I am giving your wife a hard time.’

‘Thanks,’ said Brian. ‘I’ll be looking forward to going home tonight!’

I loved Dougie Brown in it, also Joan Benham and Victor Spinetti. Victor was very funny. He rang me up afterwards and said, ‘I am doing this story about D.W. Griffith the film director, and I know you adore Lillian Gish.’

‘Yes,’ I said, wondering where this was going.

‘Can you sing?’ he then asked.

‘God,’ I said, ‘no, I can’t!’

So he put the phone down. No goodbye – just hung up! I wonder what I missed out on …

* * *

If I’d been the sort of person to dwell on these things – and I certainly wasn’t – I think I would have felt quite content with how the 1970s were ending for me. Consistent work in some high-profile television programmes, a few adverts as well, and the possibility of a role in a film coming up – that wasn’t bad. And I’d done it all without stepping anywhere near a science-fiction programme. I’d managed to maintain a career and successfully put some distance between me and Who . Yes, I missed Tom, and Ian – although I occasionally bumped into him in Ealing – but I was actually quite proud of making a clean break. I’d never seen an episode before I joined the show and I hadn’t watched one since. It wasn’t exactly sour grapes because I’d never been a fan.

Which is why I surprised so many people with what I did next …

Chapter Thirteen

Affirmative, Mistress!

ON DAY one of filming School Reunion back in the summer of 2005, I found myself sitting down next to the Tenth Doctor during a break. Believe it or not, this was actually the first time David Tennant and I had had a moment to ourselves since I’d first arrived in Cardiff. On any production, there are so many people buzzing around all the time – crew, cast, friends – that private moments are genuinely rare. He was such easy company and straightaway confessed that he’d been a big fan of Sarah Jane. Wanting to keep it that way, I said, ‘Whatever you do then, don’t watch K-9 and Company .’

‘Too late,’ he laughed. ‘I’ve seen it!’

‘Gosh,’ I said, ‘you must really be a fan if you’ve seen that and you still want to work with me.’

Because it had been such a crushing disappointment: K-9 and Company should have been my first leading television role and on paper it had all the potential to become a Sarah Jane Adventures for the 1980s. That was the plan at the time but it didn’t work out like that. In retrospect I should never have got involved, and I very nearly didn’t, but John Nathan-Turner, of whom more below, could be extremely persuasive. The rotter!