Tom Baker was Doctor Who’s fourth Time Lord (Picture: PA)

Tom Baker was everyone’s favourite Doctor, playing the Timelord from 1974 to 1981. Now one of Britain’s best-loved eccentrics, he’s appeared in Randall And Hopkirk (Deceased), Blackadder and Ghost Detectives. We spoke to him as the Doctor Who 40th anniversary approaches, with news of the commissioning of a new series for 2005.

Have you kept any memorabilia from the show?

I did have quite a lot but it was all begged off me. You know, smart begging. It is very highly organised now, isn’t it? If I had held on to some of it, it would have been terribly valuable. I just gave it away.

You must have the scarf?

No, the BBC have the main one. There were several. I don’t know how you get the providence because sometimes someone says that they have a copy somewhere. There’s a BBC museum in Wiltshire and I think there is a scarf there. I think there is another one purporting to be mine in Clwyd, North Wales.



Did you know there’s a website dedicated to the Doctor’s scarf?

Good God. What do they talk about?


It’s very obsessive.

All fans are obsessive – whether they support the Royal Horticultural Society or Liverpool FC. Television often seems downmarket but we don’t actually criticise all these half-witted bloody academics who say: ‘I’ve done my thesis on the maiden aunt in Balzac’s Cousin Bette.’ We think people obsessed with the scarf are mad while someone who knows all the works of Balzac is an academic. I don’t watch telly but I’ve always wanted to be in Coronation Street.

Who would you play?

I’ve written my own part. I would be in The Rovers a lot; well-dressed and mysterious. I have a consulting room and I am some sort of therapist. Every so often, you see someone go in looking worried, the curtains are drawn; you go to another strand of the story, come back and the curtain is opening and the woman coming out is beaming. And maybe little things inside to show there’s no hanky-panky.

No hanky-panky?

Well of course there is. Wherever there are people, there’s hanky-panky.

Hanky-panky with Emily Bishop?

Well, I tell you this: I am sexually – even as Tom Baker – irresistible to ladies over 80. They often say: ‘It’s Tom Baker, isn’t it? The old Dr Who?’ And I say: ‘Yes.’ And they say: ‘I thought it was. As soon as I saw you, my bosoms began to tingle.’ In Waitrose, there are lots of old ladies trying to pull me. They smash their trolleys into mine, saying: ‘I live quite close by, dear.’

Did you manage to make any of the Doctor’s assistants’ bosoms tingle?

I don’t think so. My Doctor was very androgynous. The girls, without exception, all seemed fond of me but they were good actresses. I was that much older, so it was in a kind, paternal way.

You had the most glamorous assistants.

I married one. I married Lalla Ward, who played Romana – she is terrifically articulate and witty. She was in New York at some science fiction bash. Somebody from the floor said: ‘Ms Ward, what was your favourite monster?’ and she said: ‘Tom Baker.’

The show is coming back – who should play Who?

Eddie Izzard would be excellent. Because he is so mysterious and strange, yet benevolent. He would be very good indeed. And Judith Chalmers perhaps as the assistant? Or am I getting her mixed up with Melinda Messenger? Oh yes, that’s right, Melinda Messenger then.

Eddie Izzard and Judith Chalmers might be like seeing twins.

Eddie wouldn’t like that, but you don’t have to please Eddie.

Would you do another reunion?

I might jib at that but I want to suggest the BBC makes me The Master. The new viewers wouldn’t be bothered as they wouldn’t recognise me – but for older people, there would be a certain frisson. The BBC wouldn’t like it because it is a bit witty. But I am used to rejection.

Baker went on to cameo in The Day Of The Doctor (Picture: BBC)

Rejection. What about the grannies?



That’s quite different, I was talking about my sex life. Oh God yes, it’s fantastic. It is wonderful. The comical ones, the really pushy ones, the real sex maniacs. They say things and nudge me, you know. They say: ‘I’ll take my teeth out later on.’

That’s outrageous.

Mind you, they wouldn’t be working-class old ladies. They’d all be terribly Newnham College and old head mistresses and things like that. They wouldn’t be working class, they would be very proper. I do think the upper middle-class ladies stay lecherous, to the point of death. Well, that is my experience anyway. And I have been had by a few.

Why did you turn up to rehearsals in a white boiler suit?

I used to turn up anyway I wanted to. I used to get terribly pissed off with the whole conformity: you can always tell a film crew on the streets and you can always tell what actors look like in rehearsal, bloody tossing their hair and walking around not wanting to crease their trousers. I used to get terribly fed up. Now, of course, it is considered particularly funny for cricket players because, you know, they have been watching Bruce Willis in the movies. So cricket players and footballers don’t shave anymore. That’s because they want to look like villains. This whole thing, being a slave to fashion, is actually conforming to the stereotype.

What do you think of Jon Culshaw’s impressions?

My wife says he is doing an impression of the way I spoke 30 odd years ago. So when I listen to him, I don’t recognise it as me. I don’t really speak in that idiotic way, do I? It’s so grand and affected. Maybe as we get older, everyone becomes a parody of themselves. Look at the state of Peter Snow or Patrick Moore. When Patrick Moore started out as a young-ish man, he was quite sane. Then he began to get letters and Peter Snow began to get letters; and people ring up and do cartoons of Peter waving his arms around, so people naturally oblige.


People get more eccentric?

I think so. People write in and say: ‘I like it when you do such a thing,’ and once an actor hears that kind of thing, it can’t be eradicated. So when people say: ‘I love that peculiar way you open the door,’ I couldn’t help but carry on doing that. I couldn’t actually write to the guy and say: ‘Listen, the reason I do that is if I came through the door naturally, the BBC set would fall down.’ We flirt with the audience in order that they don’t tell us to f**k off and try another station. This is particularly so of pop stars and early morning television. Somebody asked me to go on what’s-the-name?

GMTV?

Yes, Eamonn Holmes with his terrible ‘I’m eating shit’ grin and that acid blonde: bottle blonde, black bush – Fi-ona, I think he calls her. I couldn’t possibly go on, I would be sick in his lap.

That would make great TV though, wouldn’t it?

Oh blimey, it would. That would go into repeats, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t that go into repeats?

Your biggest scam?

I keep getting money because they repeat my appalling Blackadder performance. Did you ever see me as the legless sea captain?

Yes.

For which someone should have taken away my Equity card. It was terrible and the buggers keep playing it.

How about Ghost Detectives?

Some people thought I wasn’t taking it seriously.

Were you not?

I remember the producer saying: ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’ I said: ‘More importantly, ghosts believe in me.’ He went for a piss, came back and said: ‘What you just said, was that profound?’ I said: ‘I believe in ghosts, the BBC is run by phantoms of all descriptions. The minute you bring your film crew in, the ghosts all f**k off.’ The producer said: ‘Exactly, but I thought you may be able to hide that.’ We went to old theatres and we had these student-slaves, wanting to get into television: the ones who did sarcasm at Cambridge. We had cameras everywhere, infrared lights and even had a thermometer up the cat’s arse. And not a bleedin’ dicky bird.


Did you bluff it?

Apparently. But I do enjoy that stuff, ghosts and mediums. I remember this medium; some old trout with enormous tits, smoking two Rothmans and putting four sugars in her tea. Within seconds, she slumped in her chair. I thought: ‘Judi Dench wouldn’t have done it like that.’ She said: ‘My name is Dr Sunshine, I have good news for a man called Laker. I’m just getting in touch with my contact, who is a Red Indian. He is called Laughing Gas or Running Water. Oh, what did you say, Running Water? Oh, someone with the name of Baker?’ Because Laker hadn’t shown up, of course.

Do you really own your own gravestone?

I do.

What does it say?

You can’t say much because all these dumb vicars believe passionately in things that aren’t important. You can’t say anything sweet or sentimental, so it just says ‘Tom Baker 1933 to whenever’.

That’s spooky.

What do you mean? I have a bloody coffin ready and waiting full of cat litter in the garage. You have got to be prepared these days. I am a professional. That’s why I go to bed early. I am rehearsing for death.