Apart from the fact our TARDIS had a special key (compared to the modern Yale lock), there’s another advantage the modern model has over ours: it’s bigger. These days five or six people will pile out and you think nothing of it. Back then it was a bit cosy with just me and Jon inside. Once you start adding Ian Marter or someone else then you’re all a little too close for comfort. You certainly notice if someone’s been eating garlic.
But I remember how excited I was stepping in there for the first time. The door closed and the importance of what I was about to do suddenly hit me. It was a massive moment. I was entering that funny blue box as Lis Sladen but I’d be emerging as Sarah Jane Smith.
Thrills aside, there was still work to be done. After all the build-up I couldn’t wait to get inside and enjoy a few moments cut off from the outside world – and especially Jon on his bloody shooting stick! There was no light, and it was cold. In fact, it seemed the perfect place to gather one’s thoughts. But I could hear the voices outside and the longer I stayed in there, the more nerve-wracking it got. Then I heard someone call for quiet. Even Jon’s gaggle of fans hushed. I took a deep breath, focused on what I had to do.
‘Ready, Lis,’ a voice said.
Here we go.
‘And action!’
* * *
Normally, I don’t suffer from nerves but the sense of relief when that first scene was in the bag was palpable so I must have been quite tense beforehand. But from that moment on, I knew I would never have a problem: I’d broken my duck and I knew my character. Now I could just enjoy myself.
I must say, I had a ball – I think everyone did. It was a really low-key shoot but there was a lot going on. Bromly certainly didn’t hang around with reshoots. And I really loved the physical stuff. The Time Warrior was a good old-fashioned adventure and I was thrilled when I saw I’d be doing as much running and jumping and fighting as Jon. It was very feisty for me. Where I get scooped up by Bloodaxe and dragged into the castle like a rag doll I was really fighting him. It was great and I’ve had lots of letters over the years from fans who’ve detected the fact I yelled a very Scouse-sounding ‘Gerroff!’
I’m actually rather sad that I can’t do as much rough stuff these days because you can achieve so much with body language. As a dancer and theatre actor, you’re very aware of the unspoken communication possible through the body – a fact I think a lot of purely television actors seem oblivious to. And I’m such a fan of the silent film era, D.W. Griffith and the like, that if you look closely at those moments where I’m being manhandled across the courtyard, I swear I was channelling Lillian Gish in Broken Blossoms.
There was actually a fight co-ordinator for that scene, although there wasn’t much he could teach me on this particular occasion. Terry Walsh was a stunt man and Jon’s double for the more dangerous scenes; he would also do the same job for Tom. On top of that, if there was a part requiring a man in a helmet then Terry usually got those as well. Check the credits of my Who serials and count the different characters he plays! You never knew where he was going to pop up next.
I became great pals with Terry over the years. He saved my life at least once – which I’ll tell you about soon – and spared me countless broken bones and twisted ankles (although not all of them!). Because any companion of the Doctor spends so much time running, and because I was lucky enough to be comported in heeled boots for most of it, if I ever needed to run down a path Terry would say, ‘I’m just going to move Lis’s stones!’ Then he’d come over and tell me, ‘I’ve cleared a path – keep away from the right-hand side.’
Once I’d seen how physical the part was going to be I made the decision that Sarah would attack each hurdle with gusto. In a way, that part of her character wrote itself. I really tried to put a stamp on it, though, by showing she was as much of a swashbuckler as any man – or Time Lord. I’m not sure I quite nailed other aspects of her character. Considering she’s meant to be a journalist, Sarah nearly missed the biggest scoop of her life – the fact she’d gone back in time! Despite sneaking up on bowmen and watching the locals run around wearing Lincoln green, the best she can gush is, ‘Oh, it must be some sort of pageant!’
Any more subtle character development, I decided, would have to be attempted back in the studio the following week.
Jon was great fun to act alongside because he adored all the rough-and-tumble as well. He was a big man, very physical, and he brought a lot of his personal get-up-and-go to the role. The Third Doctor’s Venusian aikido came in as a direct result of Jon’s willingness to get his hands dirty and show off his sporty side. I was acutely aware of him leading me around those opening performances, which was fine. Bromly just went along with it. By now, I understood that that was how the relationship had to work.
We had one terrific scene where we needed to flee the castle. Irongron’s men were trying to shoot us with futuristic rifles supplied by Linx. Our effects guys wired up boxes of explosives in the ground to be triggered remotely as we passed nearby.
‘How nearby?’ I asked Peter Pegrum.
He laughed – we had a lot of giggles over the years. ‘Don’t worry, Jim Ward’s in charge and he’s the best special effects guy in the business.’
When I was introduced to Jim I couldn’t help noticing he had only one eye.
‘OK, I admit, he made one mistake,’ Peter said. ‘But he’s never going to make another one!’
A scene like that is hysterical. Those squeals are genuine. You don’t need to act at all – it’s pure reaction as each bomb goes off, nearer and nearer. I’d never done anything like it – and I loved every second.
We were in Peckforton for a few days and mostly the weather stayed dry. When it did rain, though, without a trailer or any other vehicle, we took to getting changed in the church attached to the folly. It may have been a fake castle but there was nothing false about the vicar. I was getting changed one morning, leaning against the altar and struggling to pour myself into this ‘authentic’ archer’s costume that Jim had created, when I heard this ‘Oi!’ ring out. I don’t know where he appeared from but the vicar was standing there, red in the face, indignant as could be that I was showing my smalls so brazenly in a house of God. That was me banned, rain or not.
Not everyone was so easily offended. The American family who were renting Peckforton at the time – I think they were attached to the US Airforce – invited all of us to a meal on our last night. That was very charming of them, so we all rushed to the hotel for a wash and a change, then jumped in taxis to get back there. Don’t ask me how, but I ended up perched on Jon’s knee for the duration of the drive.
‘What have you got there?’ he asked, spying the Tupperware pot on my lap.
‘Oh, it’s nothing, just a little salad. I was raised never to turn up empty-handed.’
‘A salad!’
Jon’s face lit up with wonderment. For that second he was a child again, full of wonder, bombarding me with questions about my recipe. When he heard I’d added mustard, it was like all his Christmases had come at once.
‘You put mustard in your salad as well? So do I!’
Of all the things to bond over! Seriously, I really think we connected on that journey. It was just one example of the incredibly sweet side to Jon that I would see so many times over the years.
Actually, if I took one thing from my first experience on Who, it was the genuine camaraderie among the whole team. It was truly the nearest I got to being back in rep in Manchester, where I’d had the happiest time of my life. There were some amazing people on that crew. I’m sure it was just another job to most of them, but it certainly didn’t feel like it as they were willing to go that extra mile, put in the extra hours, sweat blood for the show.