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Doctor's
Highland Fling
TIM
RANDALL It's clear Tom loves to play up to his persona, but today, as we meet on the set of Monarch of the Glen – the popular British drama shown on the ABC – only minutes from the grandeur of Glenbogle House, for once he seems to be in the mood to let the mask slip. "For a start, I don't think that people know the real Tom Baker, do they?" he ponders. "But they do know I have a style of approach to a character, of filtering things, which seems to amuse them. "People don't really know about Tom Baker because, if they did, they'd discover I'm really just like everyone else, with the same anxieties and such. So that when I'm criticising and shouting and raving on about what I don't like, of course that actually betrays my anxieties. "I don't pretend to have any insight. I'm perfectly willing to be debunked. I'm used to it. I'm certainly very used to rejection. In fact, sometimes I find acceptance the most difficult thing. "I play up to whatever will please people and, after a while, you discover ways, or you hope you've discovered ways, that make you acceptable. There's no point in actually alienating the people who buy you. "There's no use a tart actually deliberately cultivating bad breath, is there? Because a tart with bad breath, like a dentist with bad breath, is going to have a very limited audience. "I have always tried to do things from a slightly skewed angle because that's what pleases me. I like the oddness of things. I don't like things to be entirely rational because I am not entirely rational." Rational or not, one thing's for sure – Tom Baker is entertaining company and thanks to his narration of Britain's cult comedy Little Britain, which will screen soon here on the ABC, he is also back in fashion. "I'm being employed now by the children who hid behind the sofa and watched me," he says, harking back to Doctor Who. "So there's a good example of the power of nostalgia, because they are doing it from their hearts and I am very grateful." With a career spanning five decades, Tom started out as a prop man at the Liverpool Empire theatre in 1955 and his history takes in TV shows as diverse as Dixon of Dock Green, Medics, Blackadder and The Hound of the Baskervilles. Born in 1934 in Liverpool, he was raised by his cleaner mother Mary and his sailor father John, who was often away at sea. Despite acting with the likes of Maggie Smith and Laurence Olivier at the National Theatre in the 1960s, he was working on a building site in 1974 when he landed the role that would change his life, The Doctor. Now, at 70, he joins the cast of Monarch of the Glen, marking his first regular TV drama role since the revived Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) four years ago. He plays Donald McDonald, Hector's estranged brother, a former international racing driver with a colourful past who is back in Glenbogle under police escort and very much against his will. "Donald is a wonderful character because he likes to create a bit of mischief now he's been forced back to his rather eccentric privileged background, but under a cloud," says Tom. "He's been in self-imposed exile for a long time and, like all old people, he has secrets, meaning he can really put the cat amongst the pigeons. "I'm enjoying myself on Monarch no end and it's marvellous following in the footsteps of my old chum Richard Briers. I'm actually very friendly, full of admiration and intimate with all the cast and crew – I couldn't feel more at home." Now living near Toulouse, in France, with his wife, Sue, Tom admits it took a lot of persuasion for him to sign up to six months' work in the wilds of Scotland. "That was a big decision because we've only lived in France for just over a year and I'm also very much in demand in short bursts for voiceovers in London every month," explains the actor, who will shortly be heard as the voice of Zebedee in the long-awaited big-screen animation of Magic Roundabout, alongside Robbie Williams and Kylie Minogue. "But my wife was beginning to think I was getting a bit bored in France. She was right. It takes a long time to fit in to a new place; I found myself weeping on French war memorials all the time." Finally, with Doctor Who making a big-budget comeback, what does Tom think about Christopher Eccleston playing the lead role? "I've never heard of him," he replies, "but I was rather disappointed to hear that this Doctor, I think the phrase he used, was 'going to be more serious'. Which always sounds very hollow in the mouth of an actor. Certainly, when actors use words like 'challenge' and 'serious', you just think, 'Oh shut up! Get your head out of your fat arse!'." And with that our time is up. "All right, cock," he sighs, as he lurches out of his chair, his jumper still rolled halfway up his belly. "If you need to know anything else, just make it up – that's what I usually do." |
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Copyright 2004 The Sunday Mail |
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