It’s mid-May, and my exam stress has been obliterated by an email I’ve received back from an actress I’d contacted on a whim about a possible interview for York Vision. Louise Jameson starred in the original run of Doctor Who from 1976-8 as Leela, a space-age savage that accompanied Tom Baker’s Doctor through time and space visiting Victorian London, battling giant Jellyfish, potato-headed Sontarans and art-deco automatons of death. Understandably Jameson retains affection for the show, being a regular speaker at conventions for the show and has been a long-time fan of the show, even before she got the job.
“It was a big family event in the living room with eggs and baked beans on toast. My mother never allowed us to take food into the living room and Doctor Who was the exception. I remember watching the very first one with William Hartnell and completely adoring the program. And then fast forward 15 years, and I’m 26 and because I’ve already done RADA and nearly 3 years at the Royal Shakespeare Company and had my good classical theatre training, my agent’s decided it’s time you got a TV series.”
It wasn’t an immediate thing though, as Jameson went through auditions for a number of shows before landing Doctor Who. “I got shortlisted for Angels which was a show about nurses, I got shortlisted for a part in The Avengers and got down to the last ten for that – that didn’t happen! And there was another show…Survivors, which Pennant Roberts directed but he didn’t’ want me for that particular part, but he had a little black book of actors and he really liked me and was certain he wanted to use me in the future and then he got the job of casting Leela. They got 60 young women, and then got reduced to 10 and then 3 and then me.”
She admits that filling the shoes of popular companion Sarah Jane-Smith, played by the late Elisabeth Sladen was no easy task, especially since Tom Baker was difficult to work with at the time. “It was hard to replace Liz because she’d done such a wonderful job and I think they made a very deliberate decision to go with a completely different character, which was great for both of us. Tom was quite sad to see Liz go, and wanted to go on his own for a bit, so didn’t really want a companion there, so my life was quite tricky to begin with because he just didn’t want Leela.” Louise was quite clear though, that since the show they’ve become great friends, “Now we get on absolutely wonderfully, so I really want this on record, we do a lot of work for Big Finish (a company that produce Doctor Who audio-dramas) and in fact today I’m putting the finishing touches to an audio that I’ve written for Tom and I to do inside the TARDIS.”
Jameson starred alongside Baker during one of the show’s most successful periods in the classic-run post Dalek-mania, with viewing figures regularly breaking the 10 million viewers mark. Robert Holmes, a famed writer in the history of the show, who was known for quality writing and developing a more Gothic-undertone for the show, wrote her favourite story. “The Sun Makers is my favourite, it’s all about Marxist philosophy on the oppressed workers. It was Robert Homes’s two fingers to the BBC, as he thought it was going to be his last work for them at the time but it wasn’t, so he was having a little dig at the BBC’s P45 form and there’s all kinds of things. I’m amazed a lot of it got through actually. He was having a real dig at them. The Talons of Weng-Chiang is the most popular story from my era I think, the fans told me, which is plagiarised from Sherlock Homes and Eliza Doolittle but it’s such a clever and interesting story, and they spent more on it than all the other stories I did and it was two episodes longer, so there was more chance to develop character and it’s really stood the test of time.”
The Talons of Weng-Chiang featured some notable action sequences for Leela, and on the topic I asked her about whether she appreciated being different from the default ‘screamer’ companions. “I only screamed once and actually it was in Talons, when the wobbly giant rat got a hold of my leg. When I read the script, I saw a stage direction, and it said Leela jumps onto the table, somersaults over the door, crashes through the window and falls ten foot onto the ground beneath and I rang the producer and I said I don’t think she does actually. And he said, ‘don’t worry we’ll get you a stunt double for that bit.’ So Stuart came in and doubled for me!”
When Jameson left Doctor Who in 1978, she was missed and concedes that in hindsight she perhaps should have stayed longer. “You know, Leela was very popular and it might have been better to stay a bit longer. Having said that it wasn’t the happiest of rehearsal periods and I’d been offered Portia in Merchant of Venice down at the Bristol Old Vic, and Shakespeare’s absolutely my first love. I was actually asked to go back into the series when John Nathan Turner took over to oversee Tom leaving and Peter (Davison) arriving, but he wanted me to stay for one possibly two seasons, and I wanted to stay for one possibly two stories.”
That isn’t to say she was happy about the way she left, ending up marrying a Time Lord on Gallifrey. “I think they could have made much, much more of Leela leaving. You know, she could have died saving the Doctor and he could have gone back in time and saved her. Leela’s so much more than that. Rather flatteringly they thought they could change my mind, even the day before we shot it, Graham Williams said they could change it on that day so I didn’t leave. But I couldn’t be persuaded.”
She was also miffed not to meet the famed Daleks during her time on the show. “When I got offered the part I thought – oh! – I’m going to meet the Daleks…and then I never did. That was a big disappointment.”
Once Jameson left Doctor Who she starred in several acclaimed BBC Dramas, including Tenko, a drama about female internees at a Japanese camp, science-fiction serial The Omega Factor and detective show Bergerac set on Jersey. I asked her whether she felt the TV industry had changed while she was working in it. “After Bergerac things changed a bit. My next big job was Stick With Me Kid which was American money so that was all very different anyway, and then Eastenders, which I found a very different animal from all the different series. Mainly because of lack of rehearsal and because it doesn’t have a very specific story arc. It’s just an ongoing machine, because you’re on screen 4 nights a week. Which was an odd experience.”
Appearing in the soap opera was a change of pace from dramas like Tenko. “There’s less attention to the actor in those series, in Eastenders if you hit your mark and didn’t forget your lines you were turning in a good performance – acting is more complicated and complex than that.”
With Doctor Who’s successful revival in 2005, the show is stronger than ever in 2013 and Jameson feels there’s been big changes since her time on the show, with improvements in effects and the increasing prominence of the companion only being to the benefit of it. “I was absolutely delighted it was coming back, because it regenerated all the conventions and daily events and opportunities of it. It’s a wonderful thing it’s back – here’s to the next 60 years! There’s a lot more money involved in it, and CGI has made a big difference to what’s achievable, and I think the assistant’s role has been stepped up: she’s no longer always asking questions, and is a lot more proactive: it’s great for women.”
Though she notes a lot of what is possible in 2013 wasn’t possible in 1977 somethings would have been. “My favourite monster from the new series is the Weeping Angels and I think they’re absolutely terrifying and something like that would have been achievable back in the day, it would have taken longer in the day but we could have done it.”
Lastly, as a fanboy, I can’t resist seeing if she’s been asked to do anything special for the 50th Anniversary, but unfortunately Louise is as clueless as the rest of us, or so she says. “I’ve been asked to keep three days three – that’s all! I’m not being coy; I haven’t a clue what’s happening. If they were going to film me, I think they’d have nailed me down by now! It’s all conjecture – nothing’s firmed up. I’ve just have letters and emails. So I’m obeying orders and waiting to see what happens!”