The script for my second story, Invasion of the Dinosaurs, came through in mid-August. This one was written by seasoned Who scribe Malcolm Hulke. A couple of things leapt out. First, not only was the Doctor still Earth-bound but the action took place entirely in London – I wouldn’t be getting a jolly away-day with the cast this time. Secondly, the UNIT boys were back in numbers. Nick Courtney’s regular assistants Mike Yates and Sergeant Benton were both in this one. Once more, I felt the challenge to impose myself on the set in the face of some very established relationships. I need to let them all know I deserve to be here.
It wasn’t just a fresh cast I had to master, though. On The Time Warrior Jim Acheson, Sandra Exelby and their teams had been my support network, my comfort blanket whenever I needed to get away from the glare. On Dinosaurs I’d be working with new costume and makeup people. It really was like starting all over again.
I met Jim and Sandra’s replacements soon enough. After a call from Jean McMillan, the new makeup supervisor, I was whisked away to an upmarket hair salon and given a neat, bouncy bob cut. That was a treat. Then our new costume designer Barbara Kidd and I had to pick out Sarah Jane’s look for the seriaclass="underline" a smart brown trouser suit and a white, wide-collared shirt. I think it’s a look that would still work today. More importantly it reflected the character – the strong feminist journalist. No dolly-bird outfits for Sarah Jane. Not yet, anyway.
I was a bit apprehensive as September arrived but nerves gave way to excitement as I pitched up at North Acton for the table read-through. Obviously I’d missed out on the last one so this was something of an eye-opener to see how things worked. As I made my way in everyone was chatting about what they’d been up to – it was like the first day back at school. New faces mingled with familiar ones – everyone seemed to know someone. I was delighted to see George Gallaccio, whom I’d met on Z-Cars. By the time I’d said a few hellos all my nerves had gone. I saw Jon regaling a couple of chaps with some tale – he was a natural raconteur – and went over, determined to get off on a better footing than the first time we’d met on location.
‘Lissie!’ he boomed, breaking off from his story. That was good of him, rather than leave me hanging. We hugged and then he looked me up and down.
‘What have you done to your hair? No, I don’t like that!’
Oh, Jon. It’s going to be a long series …
I always like table read-throughs and they’re exactly how they sound. Everyone sits at a table – all the cast, someone from makeup, someone from costume, someone from camera, Barry, Terry, sometimes the writer, and the director – and we literally read through the script. The technical team would make notes about what they could achieve and how we might have to amend things. For Dinosaurs I’d prepared inside out. Later I realised this was the time to suggest changes, especially if I felt a writer hadn’t quite nailed Sarah Jane as well as they might. (It made sense that the writers wouldn’t necessarily be as au fait with my character as I was. Some of the scripts might have been written before I was even cast.) I began to alter the odd word, then sentences, then whole exchanges. I’d never ask, I’d just do it. Afterwards I’d look up at Barry and he would simply nod. You’ve no idea how satisfying that is, as a newbie, getting the blessing from the highest authority in the room. Well, the highest authority on paper …
Mostly we had a very collaborative working arrangement where everyone contributed. Jon probably contributed more than anyone else. Whether he was in a scene or not, he loved to have input. ‘Why don’t you try this?’ ‘I don’t think that’s working.’ He had so much experience after all. Unfortunately he didn’t always agree with my interpretations and he really didn’t like it when I stood my ground.
‘Oh, I think the moon’s in the wrong position for someone today, isn’t it?’
His heart was in the right place but I could have throttled him sometimes. We got on better with every passing day. I just had to remember, now and then, not to stoke the fire.
As with The Time Warrior, Barry was still too snowed under with Moonbase 3 to direct. His replacement, I was pleased to see, was a woman. Paddy Russell had previously held the reins for the First Doctor some seven years earlier, on The Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Eve.
If anyone is going to go softly on us, it’s her, I thought.
Well, I got that one wrong.
I don’t know if it was because she was trying to overcompensate for being a woman in a man’s world – and we all have those moments – but Paddy was not an easy person to work with. She didn’t set out to make friends, not even with Jon, so there was friction right from the off. Her way was to treat everyone like children. It was the job of the assistant director – known as the ‘First’ – to keep us all in order, like naughty schoolkids. Ridiculous, but that’s how Paddy wanted things.
We’d get to a location and normally you’d walk around, mull over the logistics of what we needed to do. Not with Paddy.
‘Silence!’
For me, joining the show was all about fitting in, how you could meld and interact and find the best way of being part of something that had been going a long while. Not so Paddy. At one point she completely lost it with Barbara Kidd and bawled her out in front of everyone over some minor costume detail. I’m sorry, but you don’t do that. We all lost respect for our director that day but I don’t think she cared.
I’m sure Paddy cared deeply about the programme. How else can you explain why she made us go over some scenes a dozen times until we were incapable of bringing any vim or vigour to the lines? There’s an optimum time for a scene and she sailed past it so often, always pushing for something better – which, of course, rarely came. I never thought I’d miss Alan Bromly!
Paddy didn’t care who or what she trampled on, including film regulations. Completely unscheduled – and without a permit – she took a camera team out early in the morning before official shooting started to get shots of a deserted London (I think they all posed as tourists). The official location shots started a few weeks later, which was fun – lots of running around London streets and reacting to the sight of dinosaurs in the distance. But more on them later!
Speaking of dedication, if you ever needed proof of how much the programme meant to Jon, the evidence was there for everyone to see on 23 September, the first ‘official’ day of location shooting. Earlier in the year he’d commissioned a car builder, Peter Ferries, to construct a futuristic vehicle suitable for his Doctor. I think he was expecting the BBC to pay for it. When Barry said ‘No’, Jon went ahead and financed it himself. Typical BBC, of course – once the thing was built, they were happy to include it in the show.
‘You wait till you see it, Lissie,’ Jon gushed. ‘It will blow your mind.’
He was right there. When this thing turned up I was shocked to see it really was part-car, part-hovercraft, part-spaceship. Jon called it the Whomobile – although I think its real name was The Alien – but in the script it just said the ‘Doctor’s car’. Barry always vetoed any puns on the show’s title and certainly wouldn’t let anything like that into the script.