We Need a Plan

Or, We could just let Logan deal with them....

THE GREAT ESCAPE (1963) | First Escape Attempt | MGM

Kids're just Testing Their Limits --

If you take My Advice, you'll

contain The Problem,

Wait until they grow out of it,

and Don't Be a Jerk about it.

'The Doctor appears in a leather jacket’

And yet as the production date neared, I began to feel uneasy. Whereas in any series there will be discussions over personality and tone - a gradual portrait of the character being painted on a mental canvas - here there was nothing.

'The Doctor appears in a leather jacket’, stated the script for episode one. No more information than that. 'OK,' I thought, 'so he's modern. But that was all that single scrap of information gave me.

I could have looked at any of the old series for a character. It was either a mistake or a virtue, but I didn't. Instead I decided I'd play Russell. Right in front of me was a man who wore a leather jacket and whose brain was genius level, a tinder box of ideas. Russell had energy, he had humour. And there was no one who wanted to be the Doctor more than he did. I took the fizzing of thought in Russell's head and gave it to The Doctor. It wasn't a new tactic. In Our Friends in the North, I decided I would play the writer Peter Flannery. In any Jimmy McGovern drama, I feel like I'm playing Jimmy. With the Doctor, however, while Russell gave me a physical embodiment, the sketchiness of the character in the script still made me feel uneasy. How do I get a handle on this? And if I can't get a handle on it, how can I expect the audience to? It felt like I'd been given a platform I didn't understand. Perhaps I'm not alone in that search for the Doctor. It's an interesting fact about the show that a lot of actors, including myself, have been highly criticised for their performances, for being wacky, zany, or whatever other characteristics they injected into the role. It might be a fundamental flaw in the character that you can never quite get him right.

Russell's real brilliance was in the writing - I'm not sure he knew what he wanted from the Doctor. I don't think he had a very strong take on the character. There was never any discussion, for instance, about me being a 'northern' Doctor. But nobody told me not to and so I did it. As a working-class kid off a council estate, I certainly wasn't going to repeat what had gone before. I thought about people like Alan Tur-ing, the scientist and codebreaker, born in Moss Side and credited by Winston Churchill for shortening the Second World War by two years, and Anthony Burgess, a brilliant and original literary figure, born in Harpurhey, both of whom would have spoken with my accent. I was aware also that, down through time, those with high intelligence, great scientific knowledge, a poetic gift, sensitivity, status, who made it on to radio or TV, had all spoken like the Queen. But brilliant people don't all sound like the narrator on a 1950s newsreel. I knew that for sure because I'd been brought up by two of them, Ronnie and Elsie Eccleston. I was always going to use my accent, and I think, in terms of tone and characterisation, it was one thing that definitely did work. It became a defining part of the Doctor. Just look at that beautiful line that Russell wrote - 'Lots of planets have a north.'

One area where I was definitely on wobbly ground was playing light comedy, an absolute requirement of the role, but one I wasn't used to. I loved comedy but I'd never done any. I'd positioned myself as this overly earnest actor. I wanted to be Hamlet. And to a large extent that was because I felt my mum and dad and so many others of my class hadn't been taken seriously. I wanted to navigate a path where someone of my background would be given that respect. Now, though, I was in a massive role, with massive responsibility, working in a style of light comedy I knew little about. Because hitherto I'd been so dour and serious, so tombstone solemn, when I started smiling on Doctor Who, it looked over the top. 'He's overdoing it. He's Timmy Mallett. Watching it again now with Albert and Esme, I can see that actually, all I was doing, albeit a bit clumsily, was trying to create another character. I'd done it with Nicky Hutchinson in Our Friends in the North, and a dozen other TV characters, and now I was simply trying to create The Doctor.

Russell's great legacy would be the feminisation of the show. As a progressive man, he made Rose an equal, not a sidekick. It is she who, on several occasions, saves the Doctor, rather than the other way round. As can any parent with a daugh-ter, I now look at Esme and think, You could be the Doctor. In 2005, as recently as that, such a thought would have been a pipe dream.

When it came to the Doctor's relationship with Rose, I was occupying the same territory as Russell, firm in my mind that she should never be one of those assistants we'd seen before - women basically there to be awestruck by the Doctor and tell him he's amazing. I knew even before I'd seen anything of the characterisation of Rose what Russell would want to do. I'd already seen it with his depiction of Lesley Sharp's character Judy in The Second Coming, a woman with an independent mind willing to confront received wisdom. In Doctor Who, where that was let down a little was in the kissing between the Doctor and Rose. I never wanted that. I was always against it. I felt it made the relationship too explicit. To me, the Doctor and Rose's love was pure and any physical expression weakened that precious commodity.

Myself and Billie Piper had a chemistry that allowed the relationship between Rose and the Doctor to live in the mind of both them and the viewer. Better preserve that than make it too obvious. In my view, the Doctor loved this person - not this woman - and that was a trait of the Doctor I clung on to for all thirteen episodes.

Billie was magnificent as Rose. I knew she was good at the time but looking back now I can see her absolute brilliance. It reminds me how much we loved working together, which is palpably obvious on screen. Actors work at chemistry; it doesn't just come with a snap of the fingers, but we were fortunate enough to have something there from the start. We were also professionals and knew how to achieve onscreen banter. What truly amazes me is I know how nervous Billie was at the start.

She thought I was some big serious performer and she didn't have the belief in herself as an actor. She proved herself, of course, to be way better than any of the rest of us. Her luminosity on screen comes from herself, not those around her, and instinctively she made Rose exactly the person she should be. When Doctor Who won a BAFTA for Best Drama, it was Billie for whom I was truly delighted. The reception she got when the show was screened made any lingering reservations on her part about her ability evaporate. It was admirable in her that she had zero arrogance that she could do it. The work she has done since has shown her to be worthy of every accolade that comes her way.

Watching our characters now reinforces what I concluded at the time: Russell enjoys writing more for women than he does for men. If so, I'm glad - there's been a lot of writing for men. Rose arrives on screen fully formed, one of the strongest female characters of any show of any year, painting a solid line leading directly to Jodie Whittaker. If you think about it, the relaunch in 2005 was actually the chance to create the first female Doctor. Why not do it then? Perhaps, really, we should be looking back on Billie Piper not as Rose but as The Doctor.

Billie made Doctor Who a delight but so also did Steven Moffat's scripts, which delivered my best work, bringing me closer to finally knowing exactly who the Doctor was than any other time during the shoot. Directors Joe Ahearne and Euros Lyn also allowed the character to blossom and thrive. I loved Joe. If he'd directed the show from day one, I'd probably still be playing the Doctor now. Joe, like Euros and Steven, had really done his homework. He spoke with the passion of a proper fan who had the knowledge that Doctor Who, along with comic books and sci-fi, is drawing on the bigger-picture stories of Greek myth. There's a hugely intellectual and emotional content to that kind of output. If a director doesn't get that, they shouldn't be anywhere near the show.

Doctor Who has left its mark on me. People from both inside and outside the industry still say, 'I don't know why you did it in the first place. It just didn't seem to fit. That reaction comes from my departure, which was enormously negative for me.

Yes, I have felt bitter, and yes, I have felt betrayed, but I know also that Doctor Who was the best thing that, professionally, ever happened to me, not so much a learning curve as a plunge down a well and a long climb towards the sunshine I see now.

These days, I feel nothing but positive about the show, to the extent I have even started doing conventions, something I'd been wary of because I always wanted to earn my money from acting. What I've actually found is some amazing people who want to talk to me not only about Doctor Who but Our Friends in the North, 28 Days Later, Second Coming, Shallow Grave, Cracker, and so on. People bring memorabilia from across my whole career, which makes me feel good about my work and also about myself. It has healed something in me. Forget producers, forget politics - here are real people who have seen me do my stuff and want to shake my hand.

I sat here with my children again last night and watched myself. At first, some familiar nagging thoughts were apparent. Wow, I pondered, you're young, and you have no idea what this is going to do to you.

As the minutes passed, though, I felt more upbeat about what I was viewing. I can see what you're trying to do here, I thought, even if you're overdoing it a bit. At other times, I'd think, That was all right - you're actually pulling this off. I was watching it from a distance - and enjoying it. I liked what I was seeing.

So when anyone, including myself, tries to tell me Doctor Who wasn't a good fit, I tell them straight - 'But that's exactly why I did it' I did something positive. The role - posh, received pronunciation - needed changing.

And I changed it.