Sladen, Elisabeth - Elisabeth Sladen - The Autobiography

It was such a minxy part and there was not a minute of Gulliver that I did not enjoy. I know Barry felt the same. I have a letter from him in which he says that production was one of the highlights of his career. Mine too, Barry.

If only I could have said the same about my next project .

* * *

Unbeknownst to me, John Nathan-Turner had not taken my earlier ‘no’ for an answer. Just because I’d refused to return to the main programme to oversee the transition between Tom and the Fifth Doctor, Peter Davison, he reasoned, that didn’t mean I never wanted to appear as Sarah Jane Smith in anything else. Then at the start of 1981 he discovered the perfect vehicle. Following the announcement that K-9, the Fourth Doctor’s robot dog, would be phased out of Doctor Who , there had been uproar among the fans and in the press so, he decided to give K-9 another show – with me as the human star.

‘We’ll call it Sarah and K-9 !’ John enthused. ‘You’ll have your own show – it will be brilliant!’

I had to agree that it sounded a fabulous idea: Sarah Jane striding out into the world on her own, pursuing her journalistic instincts to solve crimes – with her trusty robot dog at her side. Even when they changed the title to Girl’s Best Friend I was still on board. The plan was to shoot a pilot then hopefully be picked up for a full series the following year. ‘That should be a formality,’ John winked. ‘We’re all behind it here.’

I couldn’t wait – I was so intrigued to discover how Sarah would operate away from the Doctor. that was the challenge. I wanted to see how she would interact with other people and how she would save the universe on her own. I didn’t have a clue what K-9 was – I’d never seen him. But, I figured, if Tom Baker had worked with him then it must be all right. Of course, that was before I heard the stories of Tom booting the thing across the studio in frustration every time it ruined a scene.

I signed up in May then disappeared to work on Gulliver . Barry was fascinated that his creation was to get a new lease of life – I really wanted it to work for him as much as anyone. After half a decade away from it, I was suddenly more embroiled in the Whoniverse than I’d ever been. Life was good.

And then the script arrived.

I read it in between shooting as Flimnap. Sadly, it was only her corsets that took my breath away. The script was terrible. I called a meeting with John and Eric Saward, the Who script editor, with a list of complaints as long as my arm. First: it was now called K-9 and Company .

Company ? Is that what I am now, John? What happened to it being my show?

More importantly, the characterisation of Sarah was totally wrong.

‘Eric,’ I said, ‘she wouldn’t do or say half these things. This hasn’t been written for Sarah at all!’

Eric agreed. The writer, Terence Dudley, had his own way of doing things and was not exactly keen to bend. ‘But,’ John insisted, ‘we’ll fix it – won’t we, Eric?’

They promised and, assured by their enthusiasm, I returned to Lilliput a happy bunny.

What an idiot I was. When the final script arrived shortly before rehearsals began, nothing had been changed. I think Dudley had refused Eric’s changes wholesale and gone straight over his head to JNT. The politics didn’t bother me – my only concern was injecting some character into my leaden lines.

Costume fittings ran for a fortnight into November. I think most of that time must have been spent on me. I can’t believe how many changes I went through! Three or four different coats, jogging clothes, a journalist’s Mac, a big Sherlock Holmes’ autumnal three-piece suit, body warmers and lots of gloves. There was even a green silk dress bought specifically for the last scene that I seem to recall took up most of our budget. I remember seeing the Sherlock Holmes’ number on a model in a magazine and thinking, That would be good because you can just remove layers rather than keep changing . Of course, the model was about a foot taller than me. When I stepped out of the car in my opening scene, the hem was sweeping the road.

In November we all met up for the first time at the Acton Hilton for a read-through. Delivering some of those lines still grated but I had a few solutions to try during rehearsal. They would have to wait, however. As soon as we wrapped in London it was onto the bus and down to the Cotswolds. As I sat watching the countryside blur past I realised for the first time that I was on my own. There was no Jon or Tom to soak up everyone’s attention – I wasn’t sure I liked it.

My mood didn’t pick up on the first day of shooting. I’d been asked to bring some of my own clothes.

‘Why? There’s nothing in the script.’

‘We’re starting with opening credits,’ the director John Black said.

Oh, it’s nice to be told .

Unusually, JNT had come with us to Gloucestershire for the location work. As far as rallying the troops went, he was a great person to have around; always energetic and busy, busy, busy ! I’m not sure it worked so well for the director. Sometimes you need a stronger man in charge but John Black was a bit intimidated by his boss’s presence. So when JNT said, ‘I want the opening credits to be like Hart to Hart ’ – all zooming cars and glamorous locations – Black should have told him to clear off. But he didn’t. That’s why I found myself sitting outside a country pub one minute waving a glass of wine, then posing on a rock with a newspaper, then leaning moodily in my Mac against my Mini Metro. It was already ridiculous before they asked me to jog along the country road.

OK , I thought, it’s day one, keep smiling, it will get better from here .

They set the camera up, gave me a mark and then off I set along the road.

‘That’s nice, Lis,’ the director said. ‘But it was a bit fast for the camera.’

So I did it again and John Black said, ‘Nice, but maybe a bit more slowly next time.’

‘Do you have any idea how hard it is to jog slowly and not look like you’re suffering from muscular dystrophy?’ I said, ‘Can’t you move the bloody cameras back instead?’ Would it have killed them to use a longshot instead of a close-up?

My favourite part of the intro was whizzing up and down the country lane in my car. I tend not to drive outside of filming requirement so it’s always an adventure when I get behind the wheel. Forwards I can do – anything else takes a bit more time – and John wanted me to zoom along this road. I thought, I can do that – just clear the road, for God’s sake! Actually I believed it would be a dynamic start to the programme so I was disappointed to see they didn’t use it in the end.

John Black didn’t have the best of luck. As we’d discovered on The Seeds of Doom , filming outdoors in November gives you the shortest possible amount of daylight to cram everything in. A few days before we set off, a second week was pulled from the schedule so that led to frantic re-jigging, which only piled on the pressure. Any hopes I had of reworking my lines while we were out there seemed to be vanishing in the rush.

The weather didn’t exactly help, either. We always seemed to be waiting for a shower to pass. For the night shoots it wasn’t the rain but the unbearable temperatures that were the killer. One of the things I think John and everyone got spot-on was the eerie satanic festival filmed outside a church in North Woodchester. The worshippers wore amazing goat-head masks and the whole scene really captured a bit of tension and energy, which I think was largely missing in the rest of the programme. Of course, by the time we’d been there setting up and then rehearsing and then going for takes from different angles it was two or three in the morning and absolutely freezing. Poor Ian Sears who played the sacrificial Brendan was only wearing the flimsiest of robes. In between takes his dresser would rush over with blankets, hot socks and scarves.