S MAGAZINE ★ 25 AUGUST 2019 57
INTERVIEW
like Z-Cars, but then it all went
ominously quiet. Was it the fact
that everybody knew me from
Doctor Who? I don’t know. The
phone just stopped ringing.
Looking back, I suppose that
was quite lucky. In 1967, I got a
call from Blue Peter and... well,
that’s another story.”Peter is at Film & Comic Con
Exeter, Westpoint Centre, on
September 14 and 15. Visit
showmastersevents.com/exeter.and took a group of fans to the
top of the Empire State Building,
which is where one of my
episodes was set. The only sad
part of this story is that The
Massacre Of St Bartholomew’s Eve
is missing. Of the 46 episodes
that I did, only 17 survived. The
rest have been wiped. In total,
almost 100 Doctor Who episodes
have been lost.
After I left the show, I naturally
assumed that I’d carry on getting
acting work. I did a couple of bitsWe never had any money on the
show, but the crew always did the
most amazing job, creating these
sumptuous sets and costumes.
For many years, this picture only
existed in black and white. The
show was filmed in black and
white and we were still a few years
ahead of colour photographs
becoming the norm. I always
looked at it and wished I could
bring the colours to life. As if by
magic, I came across a guy called
Clayton Hickman who used to work
at Doctor Who Magazine. He told
me that he’d been colourising
some old Doctor Who pictures and
offered to do this one. Obviously,
I had to tell him the colours, but,
after a couple of attempts, we got
it spot-on. That’s exactly the image
I had in my head. I was thrilled.
The picture would have been
taken at the old BBC Television
Centre in west London, which is
where we did all the filming –
unless it was an outdoor scene.
And we were on such a tight
budget that each episode had to
be more or less recorded live.
We’d run through the whole thing
in one go, only stopping if we
needed to insert an effect. If you
made a mistake, you just carried
on. It was weekly theatre for
television. Here we are, almost 60
years since the start of Doctor
Who, and we’re still talking about
it. People are still watching it. It’s
a global phenomenon.
Even though I left the show in
1966, it’s remained a big part of
my life. In recent years, I’ve been
involved in the audiobooks and
providing commentaries for the
DVDs. I’ve even been to a Doctor
Who convention in Long IslandMy favourite photograph by
Blue Peter’s Peter Pur ves
Peter, 80, recalls how his early career as an actor led to a long stint on
Doctor Who before he joined BBC1’s iconic children’s show Words by Danny Scott
“I WAS nine
years old
when I
decided I was
going to be
an actor. The
school play
was The Pied
Piper Of
Hamelin and I was given the lead.
Then I got the lead in Robin Hood.
I thought I’d made it. ‘Dressing up
for a living. I’ll have some of that.’
And I was used to the idea of
‘showbiz’ because I was brought
up in Blackpool. Outside of
London, it was the home of
showbiz. The big names came
to Blackpool every year and I went
to see ’em all... The Crazy Gang,
Arthur Askey, Charlie Chester,
Tommy Trinder, Nat Jackley, Frankie
Howerd. I liked being in that world.
It might sound silly now, but
I fancied myself as a bit of a
leading man. Square jaw, rescuing
the damsel in distress. And it kind
of turned out all right. I worked in
rep, then started getting some TV
jobs like Armchair Theatre, Dixon
Of Dock Green and this relatively
new series called Doctor Who.
I was only down for one episode,
but I suddenly found myself
playing the Doctor’s new
companion, Steven Taylor. That
one episode turned into 46.
Obviously, I loved the Dalek
plotlines, but I always enjoyed
taking the Tardis back in time. This
picture is from my favourite story,
which was called The Massacre Of
St Bartholomew’s Eve with William
Hartnell. It was set in Paris in
1572... tensions between the
Protestants and the Catholics.
Look at that outfit. It’s wonderful.●SROBERT FOYERS