Sladen, Elisabeth - Elisabeth Sladen - The Autobiography

However bad it gets you can always rely on actors to find the black humour. There was one brilliant moment while the ring of pagans were dancing around in sub-zero temperatures calling ‘Hecate! Hecate! Hecate!’ when we realised it had suddenly changed to ‘Equity! Equity! Equity!’ – the name of the actors’ union!

My only contribution to the black-magic scenes was a spot of Kung Fu, meted out to a couple of the villains. When you see something like that in a script you think, Well, I suppose I’ll be all right with training . I got about five seconds’ tuition before John called ‘Action!’ Let’s just say I don’t think I’ll be getting my Black Belt in Venusian aikido any time soon.

That wasn’t the only time the script promised something we couldn’t deliver. There’s an attempt on Sarah’s life when a tractor pulls out in front of her car. I didn’t even bother marking it in my script, I just assumed a stuntman would be doing it.

I remember sitting on the coach with a cup of tea when someone came on to fetch me.

‘It’s time to do your car crash, Lis.’

I said, ‘Pardon? I’m not in this scene – it’s a stuntman.’

‘Oh,’ he told me. ‘John apologises but …’

It was another decision that had come down to money. Why pay a professional when you can ask your actors to risk their lives?

‘We just want you to swerve the tractor, mount the embankment, then bring the car down the other side,’ John explained.

‘You have got to be kidding – I struggle to go in a straight line!’ As far as I could see, one wrong turn of the steering wheel and that car would just flip over.

If I hadn’t nearly drowned at Wookey Hole, I probably would have attempted it but it wouldn’t have made the shot any better. They just wanted to economise, whether I was up to the job or not. You have to draw the line somewhere. In the end they found a stuntwoman to do the dangerous bit.

I do wonder how JNT’s presence affected things. I think the director was especially cowed because the producer controls the purse strings. Nathan-Turner became a true friend over the years but we did have one spectacular falling out on set. One of the crew had been told off for something. I found John and said, ‘I think you’ve made a mistake. I was there, that’s not what happened.’

He went ballistic, storming around, throwing his arms in the air, shouting, ‘Why aren’t you standing up for me? It’s your job to stand up for me!’

Well, no it’s not, actually. I’m probably closer to the crew than I am the producer , I thought, but maybe it wasn’t a good move tactically.

The atmosphere the next morning was frostier than usual – and it had nothing to do with the weather. Nathan-Turner needed to check something with me, but instead of coming over, I heard him say to his partner, Gary: ‘Would you ask Elisabeth …?’

My God, it was so bloody childish. He was pretending I wasn’t even there. Pathetic and unprofessional – and not what I needed on what was already a problematic shoot for me.

I think I got the cold shoulder for a couple of days. Then Gary sidled up to me one evening and said, ‘Look, John is really upset about what’s happening. Would you go and apologise to him?’

‘No, I won’t. I have nothing to apologise for,’ I said. But I wasn’t going to stand for this petty behaviour either, so I did go over and said, bullish as you like, ‘Hello, John.’

‘Oh, Lis!’ he gushed, ‘thank goodness you’ve come over. Let’s just be professional, shall we?’

I said, ‘Well, I thought I was being.’

That just kicked things off again! We made up later and, as I said, we were very close until he died. What a drain when you’re already against the clock, though.

Hindsight’s a terrible tease because so much of K-9 and Company seems wrong to me. In fact, it’s probably just a few tweaks away from being rather good. As Eric Saward told me, ‘I think if it had gone to series then all those problems would have been ironed out and we would have had a hit on our hands.’

Some of the snags just came down to bad communication. You have to bear in mind I’d never seen K-9 before, so one day in Gloucestershire I was introduced to this boxy-looking mutt and two men. Mat Irvine is K-9’s operator and John Leeson supplies the voice – the team behind the dog.

Mat ran over what K-9 could do and we walked our first scene, getting our bearings. Then the director called ‘Action!’ and I delivered my line.

Nothing .

Have I forgotten a cue? Why isn’t K-9 speaking? I wondered.

So we went again and the same thing happened. Nothing.

I looked at John Black, then John Leeson. They stared back at me expectantly.

‘Well, is the dog going to answer?’ I asked.

‘Oh,’ Leeson said, ‘he can, if you like.’

I felt such a fool. Why on earth hadn’t anyone told me that John adds his parts afterwards? How was I meant to know I had to leave a gap? Little things like that can really put a stick in your spokes. How to make the star of the show feel like the new girl in one easy session …

Forget Nathan-Turner, forget Black, forget Leeson – most of our woes originated from a single robotic sources, though.

K-9 .

When I’d signed up for the show it had been such a rush, especially as I was head down in Gulliver world at the time. Possibly working with Barry gave me an unnaturally positive outlook towards everything BBC. I really should have paid greater attention. When I agreed to have a dog as a co-star – or be the co-star to a dog, as some people said! – I had no idea how unmalleable he would be. Honestly, worse than a Dalek! At least you can talk to the person inside a Dalek and get them to try to co-operate. At one point during our ritual scene, K-9 had to be attached to a fishing wire and literally dragged through the mud to save the day.

Expecting this box on wheels to negotiate a winter terrain was one thing but I thought any difficulty would iron itself out when we reached the studio. In fact it just created new problems. If you watch the show you can hear my boots clanging around on the floor. That’s because carpets were vetoed – the bloody dog needed smooth, hard ground before he would budge! That meant doorways were an issue because, of course, they have a runner across them. Watching this so-called futuristic creation struggle to move from the hallway to the lounge was a joke, especially when it was trundling along so slowly.

At one point I had to flee from a room. I did a take, then John Black said, ‘Lis, you need to hold the door open for K-9.’

‘I’m going to save the universe but first I want to stop and open a door for a dog?’ I asked.

It made no sense at all – it’s amazing how that thing saves anyone.

The other problem you have with the dog is that obviously he’s only about a foot tall. So if he’s talking and you want more than your ankles in shot, you have to find an excuse to bend down. When you’re trying to discover a way to save a sacrifice’s life, this can be a slight inconvenience.

Our time in the Cotswolds ended with a photoshoot with me flanked by K-9 – and the giant Alsatian that played Commander Pollock’s dog. Forget my old neighbour’s Rex, I’d been scared of a Dulux dog! At least this time around there was no Barbara Woodhouse to scold me …

Nathan-Turner’s master plan had been to shoot K-9 and Company during Doctor Who ’s summer break. That didn’t work with my Gulliver schedule so it was put back. So a lot of the problems could apparently be traced back to me … Great .

With the Who team tied up we were despatched to Birmingham’s Pebble Mill to record there. If I’d felt sidelined on location, I was positively isolated now. Normally my closest allies on a shoot are the costume and makeup girls. Not this time. First chance they got, they disappeared to their rooms to have a Southern Comfort. I think they’d had problems in the past with London teams thinking they were superior. Whatever the reason, it just added to my mounting worry.