I was in Cardiff anyway for The Sarah Jane Adventures, Series Three, but it was still a joy to be involved again. From the moment I saw the script, however, I knew I had every right to be there. Or rather, Sarah Jane had.
The villain of the piece, we soon learned, was Davros. Like the Sontarans, I’d been the first person, along with Tom and Ian, to face this monster (although this time it was Julian Bleach under the prosthetics and not Michael Wisher). Davros and Sarah had genuine history. The moment he recognises Sarah is quite enthralling and for anyone who’s seen Genesis of the Daleks, it’s guaranteed to send a shiver down the spine. It did mine, anyway, and I was in a studio surrounded by lights and wires and crew. Just think, if Sarah had got her way and the Doctor had wiped out the Daleks, this story would never have happened …
After the regeneration cliffhanger of The Stolen Earth there was massive interest in Journey’s End and that carried us through to a funny five-minute SJA Comic Relief Special, starring Ronnie Corbett, and in turn to our third series. As we arrived in Cardiff the press were going crazy for David’s final four ‘Specials’ as the Doctor. Little did they know he was actually doing five!
Series Three of The Sarah Jane Adventures was our best yet. The Who crossovers continued, so we got to meet the Judoon, who’d been in Freema Agyeman’s debut, Smith & Jones, while the return of the flatulent Blathereen meant another outing for the Slitheen costumes from the parent show. The guest stars this time were really top drawer. Jeff Rawle and Suranne Jones were in Mona Lisa’s Revenge, Miriam Margolyes and Simon Callow chipped in with voices in The Gift, Floella Benjamin was a hoot in The Eternity Trap and Nigel Havers almost stole the show in The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith.
Two men, however, stand out. The Mad Woman in the Attic had a very special guest star from London. His name was Brian Miller!
Poor Danny had no idea. I didn’t tell anyone before the read-through and it was only afterwards that he came running over embarrassed in case he’d put his foot in it. The show’s schedule is so punishing that I barely got to see my husband working but it was refreshing to spend our evenings and lunchtimes together.
I’m sure he thinks I moan out of turn about my work, so when Brian nearly got swept away by hurricane conditions while filming on Barry Island beach, I couldn’t help but feel a little smug – ‘Now you see what I’ve been putting up with for thirty years!’
Apart from my real husband, it was an honour to have Nigel Havers play Sarah Jane’s groom-to-be in The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith. But it was our other guest who I knew would seize the headlines.
When David Tennant agreed to appear in The Sarah Jane Adventures I’m sure he didn’t expect it to be the last thing his Doctor ever did. The poor guy had already endured his regeneration, seen Matt Smith and Steven Moffat take over, basically had run himself physically and emotionally ragged for The End of Time – and now he had to do it all again! He must have been completely Who’d out by the time he arrived with us but you never would have guessed it. And it’s fitting, I suppose, that his last appearance as the Doctor is to save his former companion one more time.
The kids – I must stop calling them that – were obviously bowled over by the whole thing. Tommy and I had been in Journey’s End and The Stolen Earth already, but having the TARDIS with us and the actual Doctor really gave the whole episode the sort of boost money can’t buy. The energy of the man is utterly incredible – he’s like an electrical storm arriving on set. Things just happen. Even K-9 seemed to behave for him!
The only thing about the episode that frustrates me is the ending.
Sarah says, ‘until we meet again.’
‘Don’t forget me, Sarah Jane,’ David’s Doctor replies.
Loads of people wrote to congratulate me on that – ‘Oh, Lis, that was a stroke of genius!’ – and I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about.
And then the penny dropped. It was a beautiful homage to my original farewell from The Hand of Fear and I hadn’t even spotted it. The whole point of that scene had gone completely over my head! Gareth Roberts, who wrote the episode, is so clever – and I’m so stupid. I bet David knew – he is a proper fan. Me? Not a clue, I’m afraid – I didn’t tie it in with Tom’s words to me at all. If I had realised, I would have played it very differently. There’s obviously a lot of emotional baggage you can unpack with those words. All the things I could have done … But no, it completely passed me by until the plaudits started to come in.
Still, at least I wasn’t hiding a broken leg this time.
School Reunion had been very much me entering the Doctor’s world. Now he was coming into mine. At least, that’s how it should have been. But as soon as the team knew David was definitely doing it, the number of pages with his name on just seemed to go up and up. His heart must have sunk when he saw the amount of work in store for him. So he might have been forgiven if he’d served up some sort of Doctor-lite. But you never get that with David – it was a majestic performance, so alive and rat-a-tat-tat, and I’m proud to know it was his last performance as the Tenth Doctor.
* * *
I’m pretty sure my days on Who are over now as well – on the main programme, at least. We’re just finishing the fifth series of The Sarah Jane Adventures now and who knows how long that will go on? As long as our passionate audiences are still there, we will be, I suppose, although budget cuts and time constraints don’t make it any easier. (Not everything has changed at the BBC …) And Sarah Jane can’t regenerate.
Maybe one of the kids will take over, like on Taggart. Perhaps it will run forever.
While I knew David was coming over to us in spring 2008, I had no idea that I would be appearing in his show, too.
It would be easier to get an invite to the Royal Wedding than squeeze any information out of the Who team these days. I don’t blame them – every single episode or piece of gossip is leaked online within seconds. So I wasn’t surprised, then, to be handed two pages rather than the whole script.
We filmed it outside Sarah Jane’s Bannerman Road address, so nothing out of the ordinary as far as other people were concerned. Except, of course, David had just saved Tommy from a speeding car.
Nobody told me anything. Some things don’t need to be spelt out, though. The script just read: ‘You come out, you see him and you’re upset and you cry.’
Oh, it must be David leaving, I thought.
And so I didn’t ask any questions – I took it that Sarah Jane would know that the Doctor was regenerating. But really, they might have given me a few pointers. That annoyed me, actually, not having any context. So I did it in three different ways and just hoped one of them would fit.
For me, David’s real goodbye was equally disappointing. They had a no-expenses-spared party for him and emotions ran high. Russell told this brilliant story about trying to write his speech. He’d gone to a park in Cardiff, completely deserted, and sat down on one of the many benches. Then he watched a tramp enter and he just thought, I bet he sits down next to me.