Sladen, Elisabeth - Elisabeth Sladen - The Autobiography

The meal was one to remember. How could it not be in such illustrious company? But throughout I felt a bit of a fraud and I’m sure I let the side down. Whenever the conversation swung round to technology I just had to sit there in silence – I didn’t know how to text and I certainly didn’t have an email address, so I did feel a bit at sea. For the first time I began to have doubts about how Sarah Jane would fit in. She’s from a different generation – I’m from a different generation. It’s never going to work.

But everyone was so kind, and Stephen is a sweet, gentle man. Still I couldn’t help but think, It’s all going too fast. I’m not ready.

* * *

I’d said ‘no’ to returning for John Nathan-Turner in 1980 because my time with Tom Baker had been so special I didn’t want to reheat that soufflé. As I returned to Cardiff in August 2005 for a three-week shoot, it was to join a different set-up. Different Doctor, different era, different personnel … But the second I stepped into the studio I realised that the same passion was still there. The crew in the 1970s had lived and breathed Who – you can see what we achieved on such small budgets. I was delighted to take note that apart from the money, nothing else had changed. You will never see devotion like it – these people would sell a kidney if it improved the show!

My first day started so perfectly. I loved it, I really did. Everyone was glorious with me, and so thoughtful. They were desperate for me to have fun, and to shine and be in the spotlight. Russell gave me his mobile number and said, ‘If there’s anything you don’t like, just call.’ What an honour.

And I couldn’t believe it when I was shown my trailer. On Who I’d only ever had an umbrella to hide under before! Waiting for me inside was a huge bunch of flowers from the producer Julie Gardner, Russell and Phil. It was a touching gesture, if I’m honest, but I wished my arrival could have been a little more low-key. I had so much to live up to . (Actually, that was the difference between now and then. Modern Doctor Who is massive news and a highlight of the BBC schedule, one of the Corporation’s biggest hits. There was nothing low-key about it.)

The crew in Cardiff were – and still are – spectacular. There’s not a weak link in the chain. Julie, Phil and Russell are so tight. But so much has to do with who your Doctor is, and David Tennant led from the front the whole time. Behind him was an incredible ensemble desperate to make the show work and he was just so pleased to be there in that moment, every moment. Genuinely. And that comes across. David is David as you see him in interviews – no one will say a bad word against him, nor should they. He’s the consummate professional but also the loveliest, sweetest man. I remember his parents came down to see him while I was there. They were so thrilled for him and he got a kick out of them seeing him fulfilling his childhood dream.

Being back on the show was heady enough, but shooting my first lines with David proved a real goosebumps moment. Fittingly, we were in a school gym because there I was acting like a schoolgirl. I don’t think I’d appreciated how much the show had stayed with me until that moment. It was a beautiful little scene in every way, my absolute favourite.

I get asked a lot, ‘What was it like seeing David instead of Tom or Jon?’ And I think, I’ve worked on The Five Doctors , I’ve been in Dimensions and I’m one of the lucky few who has actually witnessed a regeneration. This time I just thought, Ah, that’s what the Doctor looks like now . I was completely cool with it – and that’s how I played it.

The Doctor may have changed but another co-star proved as temperamental as ever. You can imagine how thrilled I was when I saw in the script that I’d be reunited with K-9! As usual, I was in the minority, though. It was one thing MPs being smitten but this time when the dog appeared, all those hardened professionals suddenly melted, reverting to children, oohing and ahing over K-9 like it was a new baby. Once it started moving people couldn’t get enough of it. I remember Billie saying she wanted to buy one. Well, that was before it banged into her for the tenth time in rehearsal! It can actually give you quite a nasty whack. Funnily enough, Billie never mentioned it again after that.

All these years later and it was still just an inanimate box on wheels. I foresaw plenty of uncomfortable scenes delivering dialogue crouched by its side, or take after take waiting for it to surmount a particularly tricky bump in the studio floor. Actually, full marks to Russell, he’d already thought of this. As well as Mat’s K-9 they found another one that a local guy had made. This model couldn’t move like the original – which isn’t saying much – but you could remove its side panel and see the innards. So now we had the dog on a table being fixed and all the humans in shot at the same time, without being hunched over. Genius! Why hadn’t anyone thought of this on K-9 and Company ?

Ironically, it turned out that K-9’s mobility was the least of our problems.

At the end of the first day we had to film a scene where David and I run out of the school gym. Some things never change, I thought. Doctor Who has – and always had – more haring around than Challenge Anneka . Anyway, we just had to bolt straight forward and turn really quickly out of the door. Pretty simple stuff, really.

Unless you’re on a polished parquet floor, wearing heeled boots.

We shot off on cue. In his trademark pumps, David stuck to the floor like glue. But I didn’t! As I went for the turn, I felt my standing leg slip away followed by the sound of something going ‘snap’.

‘Christ!’ I said, clutching my thigh. It felt as if I’d been shot.

‘Lis, are you all right?’ David asked, instinctively reverting to his natural Scottish accent.

‘I’m fine, it’s OK.’

But it wasn’t. I struggled on but I couldn’t put any weight on that side and I knew in my heart I needed to go to hospital. As soon as my scenes ended I fell into my car and was driven to A&E. When the doctors said I had destabilised my pelvis and torn my quad I just wanted to cry. Back in my hotel that night my thoughts turned as black as my leg. They’re going to hate me if I ruin this. What choice was I leaving them? They’d written a whole show for me, gone to the trouble of making a very specific link between modern Who and the classic series. And now, like a silly old woman, I was about to wreck everything. You don’t let people do all this for you then bleed on them!

I admit, I’ve had better nights.

Eventually I decided the only thing to do was to play it down – I owed it to the team. As soon as people started worrying about me, they wouldn’t be focused on their own jobs (it’s human nature) and then the show would suffer. David already had enough on his plate without me adding to it and the last thing anyone needed was headlines saying ‘geriatric assistant ruins comeback’. So, if anyone asked I’d be just ‘sore’.

Phil was great – ‘if there’s anything you need’ – and the director, James Hawes, shuffled things as much as possible, although I’m sure he was secretly cursing me under his breath. If you look at the programme again, you can see Rose’s boyfriend, Mickey, occasionally helping me around. And if you look really closely, you can see one of my thighs is twice the size of the other! I don’t know how I got those jeans on and off.

So much of my performance has always been about body language but when it takes all your strength just to keep upright, you’re bound to skimp on the details. I know I could have done an awful lot more in that episode. As it was, I struggled to do the basics. Worst of all was the shame of knowing I was less mobile than K-9!