Peter Davison Q&A Session. May 23, 1986
Matthew B Gross
Wow, thank you so much for typing all that in!
One thing, The guy who played Adric does not know how to spell his own name.
He spells it "Mathew Waterhouse" when it should have two t's.
I wish people would notice this. I hate having my names confused with that
Adric guy! Yech.
Matt
--
Smilies sold separately|dir...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu||||||||||||||
I'm Perpigillium Brown and I can shout just as loud as you can!!
Wow! Look at that! -Colin Baker, Dimensions in Time Preview
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
R. Dan Henry
>From: dir...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Matthew B Gross)
>Subject: Re: Peter Davison Q&A Session. May 23, 1986
>Date: 20 Mar 1994 01:04:16 -0500
>Wow, thank you so much for typing all that in!
>One thing, The guy who played Adric does not know how to spell his own name.
>He spells it "Mathew Waterhouse" when it should have two t's.
^ ^
Looks like two t's to me.
>I wish people would notice this. I hate having my names confused with that
>Adric guy! Yech.
>Matt
* R. Dan Henry, Dept. of Philosophy, UC Riverside *
* rdh...@ucrac1.ucr.edu *
* To learn is to sorrow and to know great joy. *
ph999...@rivers.acc.uwrf.edu
Here it is! This is a complete-as-possible transcription of Peter Davison's
Question and Answer session from a DWFCA-sponsored "Doctor Who Festival"
held at the Prom Center in St. Paul, Minnesota on May 23, 1986.
The recording was done by my cousin, Jeremy Kulow, using a small micro-
cassette recorder.
There are a few flaws in the recording. There are three small sections
that did not get taped for reasons Jeremy could tell you about at great
length. There are also a few places where I am unsure what is being said
by the person at the mike, as the acoustics in the Prom Center were not
very good to begin with. However, after eight years of listening to this
thing now and again, I think I've decyphered most of that kind of thing.
Anything I'm still unsure of I've placed inside parentheses.
I'll start way at the beginning of the session with Ron Katz's introduction.
RON KATZ: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Doctor Who Festival.
I'm Ron Katz, President of the Doctor Who Fan Club of
America.
(audience applauds loudly)
RON KATZ: We're closely locked tonight, aren't we? (this is a
reference to the very packed Prom Center, which was
doing its best to hold some 2000 people)
There's a couple of things that I want to tell you about.
First of all I want to thank you all for being here.
I had NO idea, I don't think anyone had any idea that
Minnesota was such a hotbed for Whovians.
(audience applauds loudly)
RON KATZ: The ones of you who were smart enough to buy tickets in
advance, I congratulate you. There's probably about a
two thousand people outside who aren't gonna make it.
(audience oohs and aaahhhs. BTW, Ron was probably being quite literal here)
RON KATZ: If you know people like that, you might tell them that
the way they find about it is, there's two ways. One:
they should become a member of the Doctor Who Fan Club of
America because that's how they find out, that's how most
of you found out early, and/or you should donate your money
to Channel 2 . . .
(audience applauds loudly)
RON KATZ: Because Channel 2 is gonna let you know about it too,
and those tickets went just like that (snaps fingers),
and the next time that we're here, which I am now at
liberty to announce. Typically we come into a city once
every year, and it broke my heart to turn all those people
away from the door, so we have *tenatively* planned another
show in Minnesota, and that would be in October. . .
(audience applauds)
RON KATZ: We're thinking it'll be at the Northrup Auditorium
(audience applauds)
RON KATZ: um, I got a call yesterday from London, and our guest
confirmed for that date of October 4th, and it's the
current Doctor Colin Baker.
(audience roars very loudly)
RON KATZ: How many of you are members of the Doctor Who Fan Club of
America?
(some of the audience applauds)
RON KATZ: How many of you are NOT members of the Fan Club?
(members boo at non-members)
RON KATZ: One last question before I move on. First of all I would
love to thank Channel 2 for their great support. Without
them, this would not have been. .. .
(audience applauds)
RON KATZ: and every one of you who are here in part have made a small
donation to channel 2, because for every one of you who are
here, we're making a donation off your ticket price to them,
but hopefully. .. .
(lost in applause)
RON KATZ: How many of you are members of Channel 2?
(lots of audience applauds)
RON KATZ: Well, you didn't spend your money just to see me sit up
here and gab, so I'm gonna get off the stage
(audience applauds)
RON KATZ: Alright. Um, I know that you're gonna give the warmest
round of applause that you can for our guest speaker tonight,
and we're going to have a question and answer session, and
when he tells you to, I want us all to line up right over
here, and please only like ten at a time, alright?
But please give the best applause that you can for Mister
Peter Davison!!!!
(Davison comes on stage. Audience roars in a standing ovation for at least
a good full minute until he flings his arms forward in a dramatic silencing
motion. The audience sits down and starts laughing at how well that worked.)
PETER DAVISON: Well, I can't possibly top that. I think I'll go home now.
(audience laughter)
PETER DAVISON: Hello to all the people of Minnesota. Hi.
(audience applauds and says, "Hi")
PETER DAVISON: I'm very happy to be here, especially to be here in the
Twin Cities of Minneapolis and (Decline), ah. . .
(audience boos)
PETER DAVISON: No, it's wonderful to be here. I didn't know there were
this many people in Minneapolis before.
(some of the audience shouts something)
PETER DAVISON: What?
AUDIENCE: We're in Saint Paul!
PETER DAVISON: I know this is Saint Paul, but I was told not to say it was
*just* Saint Paul, I know that it's Minneapolis - St. Paul.
(laughing) Yes, I know that Minneapolis is over across the
river from the airport. That's about all I've seen of your
fair city. But I. . .
This is a little short. (pulls microphone stand up)
And I can't move a great distance as apparantly there's
a videocamera aimed at my head.
Now the way we're going to handle this, I think, is I'll
sort of give you a brief resume of my career to date
that way I'll see if I can answer a few of the questions
that you're going to ask, so you'll have to think of more
intelligent ones.
(audience laughs)
PETER DAVISON: Well now, where should I start? Well, at the beginning,
I was born. (laughter and applause) Many, many years ago.
(audience wants to know when) I'll tell you later on.
I'll let you work it out. It's a good addition sum for you.
I started school at the age of five and went for about,
let me see, twelve or thirteen years and left just as stupid
as I was when I went. That was I think, probably the secret
of my success. Towards the end of my schooltime, time in
school, I had never really bothered to apply myself to
exams, as we have them in Great Britain. That's our
educational system. You get as many exams as you possibly
can and then you go to University. So I studied for two or
three years solidly, and ended up with *three* exams.
Which meant it left the way open to me, the one profession
that needs no qualifications at all, and that's drama school.
The great thing about drama school is that you can be not
very bright and go to drama school. In fact, you can be
entirely stupid and go to drama school. So, I went to drama
school. (laughter) I left three years later. I went to
the Central School of Speech and Drama. It's conventionally
known to its inmates as the Central School of Screech and
Trauma. (laughter) I left there, and went into what we
call repertory (spelling?) theater in Britain, it's the
kind of grounding that all actors who are going to be
professional do. It's basically very low pay work, but
each city in Britain has a repertory theater, and for three
years I played *very*, *very* small parts. In fact, I think
about my first, my debut on the stage, my professional debut
on the stage was in a Shakespeare play. I had one line in
this Shakespeare play, it was (something Lost), do any of
you know it?
(bits of the audience applaud)
PETER DAVISON: Oh, ou do. Oh, jolly good! I played the part of Macdie
or Mercadie or however you like to pronounce it, (something
Lost) is a comedy for half of it and then halfway through
my character comes on and tells the princess that her
father is dead and that she is Queen. So, I had one line
in the entire play, and I rehearsed for five weeks for this
line. And on opening night, this is my professional debut
on the stage, I was just about to go on. ..
(tape problem Number One. We pick up still in the Shakespeare story.)
PETER DAVISON: . . .look at the people, and at the page in the script,
and noticed what the words were, and that piece went out
of my head! This is something that happens quite a lot
to actors, it's usually . . . . it happened to me in the
hotel just the other day. I couldn't remember my name.
So, I had to come on and tell the princess that her father
was dead, and I can't quite recall what I said but it
was words to the effect, "Ma'am, your dad's dead."
(audience laughs)
PETER DAVISON: So that was my professional debut. It's also the execution,
almost, of my career. But I was allowed another chance
at gradually got much bigger roles. Two lines, three lines.
After three years of this, I was getting a little tired of
doing that. I decided to try and get into television.
And I was very fortunate, I got a part in a, funnily enough
a science fiction series, which was the ITV's answer to
Doctor Who actually. (one person in the audience claps)
Sh. You've obviously heard of it. This series was called,
"The Tomorrow People."
(lots of the audience applauds)
PETER DAVISON: And I wore a blonde, curly wig. And my wife played my sister.
It was altogether very strange. But that was how I started out
in television. I then decided that I would hang around in
London and try and get more television roles. Consequently,
I as out of work for over a year. (audience laughs.
Peter laughs) It's a great life. I worked for what you
call over here the I.R.S. Is that right?
(audience boos loudly)
PETER DAVISON: Yes, that's exactly the way I feel about it. You learn a
lot of insights working for the I.R.S. They're out to get
us all. (laughter) And then I just went along to auditions,
(can't understand a bit), after not having spoken to him
for about a year. I got a part in a television series
called "Londoninium," and that put me on the road I guess
to success. I got a part fairly soon afterwards with a
series called "All Creatures Great and Small."
(audience applauds loudly)
PETER DAVISON: I see you've heard of that! Jolly good. OK. Well, I won't
tell you about that then, except that we did 41 episodes
over three years. And uh, since we finished doing it, which
was actually in 1980, even though I know it's over here
all the time, it's still being shown. We've done two
specials, one of which you've seen, and one of which is
probably available to the PBS stations around this time,
anyway, I finished back in 1980, I then did two situation
comedy series in Britain which I don't think will ever see
the light of day over here. That's just a nudge to the
PBS station. KTCA, get off your butt. (laughter)
And then I was sitting at home one evening, minding my own
business, and the telephone rang. And it was a gentleman
called John Nathan-Turner, who. .. .
(audience applauds loudly)
PETER DAVISON: Who had worked for a while on "All Creatures Great and Small"
as a Production Unit Manager and had left to become the
Producer of "Doctor Who," and he said to me, "Uh, Peter!"
I said, "Hi, John. It's very nice to talk to you."
I couldn't think why he was ringing me up. He said,
"Tom Baker's leaving Doctor Who."
(Tape problem Number Two. We're still in the JNT story)
PETER DAVISON: Anyway, he told me that Tom Baker was leaving, a fact
which nobody knew at that time. I said, "Oh!" I still
couldn't think why he was telling me his. He said,
"How would you feel about being the next Doctor Who?"
(audience starts slowly, then roars)
PETER DAVISON: There was silence, apart from my wife who shouted,
"You can only do it if I can be your companion!"
(laughter) Uh, anyway, after about a week or so, John
took me out to lunch, so I knew he was serious. And then
we went out again, and this time phoned the BBC and they
paid for it, and so I knew they were serious.
So I figured that there was nothing else I could really
do, but to accept the part, the problem. . . heh. . .
the problem. . . go on, go on.
(audience erupts into applause again that they had wanted to erupt into
only he had kept talking)
PETER DAVISON: The problem for me was, the reason that I took so long to
decide to do it was I had watched the program since I
was twelve years old when it started. . . (switches voice
to a kind of intellectual whisper and pantomimes someone
with a notepad) There we are! Twelve years old. .. .
To be faced with being offered a part that you have grown
up with and know so well, and then someone says, "Would
you like to be Doctor Who?" Your mind sort of goes into
meltdown. (laughter) A little atomical joke. (laughter
again. Chernobyl had gone up one month before this)
Uh, where were we? Oh yes, Doctor Who.
Anyway, I did three seasons of Doctor Who. Some people
say that I left quite soon. I suppose three years is quite
(something), but I decided that I would do three years
mostly on the advice of Patrick Troughton who I uh. . .
(audience applauds)
PETER DAVISON: Who I met outside the BBC car park shortly after I accepted
the part. He'd got turned away from the car park, and I
had got into the car park. This is the best thing about
doing Doctor Who. You get into the BBC car park.
I can't get into the BBC car park anymore, Colin Baker now
has my space. (laughter) Still, I did it for three seasons
as I say, and I left because, I was still quite young when
I was offered the part, quite young! (laughs) While I
enjoyed myself immensely while doing it, there were other
things that I wanted to do however, I've kept my association
with the program very strongly, and should there be 25-year
specials, 30-year specials. . .
(audience applauds)
PETER DAVISON: OK. Actually, my ambition is to get offered the part again
whem I'm about sixty, and then I'll do it till I drop.
(audience applauds)
PETER DAVISON: Well, anyway, of my three seasons, I suppose that my favorite
story was the last story that I did, which was "Caves of
Androzani." (applause) I find that the mentality of it,
I think it was a great story, had a great writer, and it
was very well directed, and it was just a nice story to
go out on. And so I left about two years ago, and in
England I've just done two series over there one of which
I think is being seen on the Arts and Entertainment channel
called (Anna of Five Towns?), and one which has just started
airing in Britain two days ago called "A Very Peculiar
Practice." It's a very peculiar television program,
in which strangely enough, I play a doctor! It's a medical
doctor this time. I think it must be the bedside manner.
Anyway, I guess that's me to date really, apart from being
here in Minnesota.
(audience applauds)
PETER DAVISON: I think we're going to now ask people if there have any
questions they would like to ask me, so let's form an
orderly British-type queue here. Make me feel very at
home, that.
(line forms)
PETER DAVISON: Can you all hear alright out there? Jolly good!
Right. Here comes the first question!
YOUNG MAN: (stumbles through this entire question)
I have two questions.
PETER DAVISON: Two questions.
YOUNG MAN: What is about the what I uh what kind of show, is
"The Phoenix Rises?" And where does it fit in to the
chronological order of the stories?
PETER DAVISON: "The Phoenix?"
YOUNG MAN: "Rises."
PETER DAVISON: "The Phoenix Rises." (very puzzled)
YOUNG MAN: It was to have, you're the Doctor in it, and you were
supposed to have met your former self, uh, the First
Doctor (can't make out the rest of it)
PETER DAVISON: I think I'll throw this to the floor, actually. Does
anyone know about this?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: It was an April Fool's joke the Doctor Who Monthly put out.
PETER DAVISON: Ah! (switches on "expert" mode as though he knew it all
the time) It was an April Fool's joke, the Doctor Who
Monthly put out!
YOUNG MAN: (embarassed) Thank you.
PETER DAVISON: (pointing to front row audience member who gave the answer)
They're quick aren't they?
(audience laughs)
PETER DAVISON: Next question!
YOUNG GIRL: One of my friends was asking. . . .
PETER DAVISON: She's written them down.
YOUNG GIRL: How did it feel being shot by Commander Maxil who was being
played by Colin Baker? How did it feel to be shot by him?
PETER DAVISON: It was a very great thrill.
(audience laughs)
PETER DAVISON: Actually, I was asked whether I, if they ever did another
story on Gallifrey, if I would like to come back and play
Commander Maxil. I said, "Only on the condition I can
shoot Colin Baker."
(laughter)
YOUNG BOY: Um. Which did you like more, playing Tristan on "All
Creatures Great and Small" or playing the Doctor?
PETER DAVISON: Oh. This is a very difficult question, especially in front
of all you ready to bash me in. . . (laughter)
The truth is I enjoyed them both. If I'm honest with you,
in a way, you have the greatest affection for the part that
is further in your past, so I have great affection for
Tristan because it was a) the part that brought me to the
attention of the public, and b) you know, it was a long
while ago, so you look back at it with great fondness.
However, Doctor Who was always enormous fun, you know it's
like playing in the street when you're a kid, Doctor Who,
only you're doing it for real in the Television Centre
in London. So, that's as complete an answer as I can give.
YOUNG BOY: Thanks. (leaves)
PETER DAVISON: Smart aleck. . . (jokingly)
(laughter)
WOMAN: You've been watching the show since it started. Who was
your favorite companion?
PETER DAVISON: Of all the companions there have ever been?
WOMAN: Yep.
PETER DAVISON: (thinks hard) Probably Leela I expect.
(audience roars with laughter)
WOMAN: Pretty predictable.
(tons of laughter)
WOMAN: (new one) How difficult was it for you as an actor to come up with
your own character of the Doctor? Did you feel that you
emulated any of your predecessors?
PETER DAVISON: Well, when you're cast as Doctor Who, you're cast to be
very different, and to me your own man, if you like.
Having said that, you are working with scripts that had
been written for Tom Baker. With the exception of
"Castrovalva," my first three scripts were all commissioned
for Tom Baker. So your own character has to come out
right at the beginning. I guess I based my Doctor mainly
on the first two Doctors. That may be a bit hard to believe,
because they were the ones that I watched the most while
growing up, and I don't think I felt intimidated by the
other Doctors, there was no way I was cast to be like Tom
Baker. I could never be like Tom Baker, he has those
unique qualities. And it's probably true there's no way
Tom Baker could be like me. We were cast because we were
very different. So, I just kind of... (lost the end)
YOUNG MAN: Was there any significance to your stick of celery?
PETER DAVISON: Ah! Was there any significance to the stick of celery?
(audience applauds)
PETER DAVISON: Now, I'm not going to answer this question, but I would ask
you all to stay and watch "The Caves of Androzani," and
if you're very quick, in Part Four, you will see an
explanation of the stick of celery. This was part of the
deal. This was John Nathan-Turner's idea, the celery.
I had no responsibility for the celery. We were trying
to think of something that I could wear on my lapel.
And so one morning, just after we started rehearsing the
program, John Nathan-Turner came in and said, "I just
had a great idea for what you can wear on your lapel!"
I said, "Yes, yes, go on! What is it?!?"
He said. . . . "celery!"
(audience laughs)
I said, "Oh. Goodie! Great idea John" <sarc>
So I wore it on the condition that he would explain it
before I left, so watch "Caves of Androzani."
(laughs) I can't even remember what the explanation was!
It had great restorative powers, that's the basis of it.
YOUNG MAN: (new one) Yeah, uh, I saw you on "Magnum P.I." once.
(applause)
YOUNG MAN: And I was wondering what was it like to work with an
American crew as opposed to working with a British crew?
PETER DAVISON: Well, I guess I did do "Magnum P.I." Unfortunately, it
was filmed. .. in Britain.
(audience laughs and man looks deflated)
PETER DAVISON: Imagine working on "Magnum P.I." and doing the film about
twenty-five miles from where you live?
I did make sure that my character was alive at the end so
that they could maybe write me in to a future episode.
It's very different working for an American crew.
American productions have far more money
(audience gives a knowing laugh)
They do. I mean the production values on American shows
are far greater than we can afford on British shows.
Uh, but they work really to a tighter schedule than we do.
We worked to a ten-day turnaround on "Magnum." So that
you do no rehearsal. You just stand there and go through
it once, and the next thing you knew, you were recording it.
So, it was very, very quick. But I had some inexperience
at working with an American production, but they were great.
They loved the castle. John (someone) wanted to buy the
castle. He wanted to move it brick by brick and take it
back to (somewhere). So we had a great time. But it is
very different. For example, just to give you an example.
When you're filming a Doctor Who on location, we would have
stayed in the hotel that was on the highway. We actually
on Magun stayed *in* the castle. We filmed at Leeds Castle
in Kent which is a fairly compact castle, I mean nowhere is
more than half a mile from anywhere else, and they had
*seven* Mercedes Benz, engines running, on-call all day long.
We would get up, get in there and say, "Can you take us
to the end of the corridor please?" "Take us across the lawn."
YOUNG BOY steps up to the mike.
PETER DAVISON: I like your hat. (as I recall, it was a Davison-style hat)
YOUNG BOY: What?
PETER DAVISON: I like your hat.
YOUNG BOY: Oh. Um I heard that uh, you played cricket, and that played
a part in your costume for Doctor Who, the sweater. And
I was wondering which teams you played for and how long.
PETER DAVISON: Well, I've only played recently for a celebrity event which
is basically a show business event that goes and plays
charity matches in various areas to raise money for charity.
Apart from that I only played at school. (something),
which is a county in Britain. But I haven't played
actually for about a year and a half, because I'm very,
very lazy. But it's, and they give you such a hard time.
I'm doing it just for a bit of fun on a Sunday afternoon,
but if you do something like drop a catch, they give you
such a hard time these people. They take it very seriously.
I love the game, but I don't take it that seriously.
YOUNG MAN: Um, I'm wondering. Did you play the Meal of the Day on
"Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy?"
(audience roars)
PETER DAVISON: Yes, I was the Meal of the Day.
(audience applauds)
PETER DAVISON: To be totally accurate, the Omeglian Major Cow. This was
a part that came up because my wife, Sandra Dickinson,
was in the series, and this part came up where they wanted
to get someone who was fairly established, but was stupid
enough not to mind being stuck inside three and a half tons
of latex rubber. (laughter)
I spent one and a half minutes on the set, and I was
wheeled off and keeled off. But it was great.
(someone in the back shouts, "Say the lines!")
PETER DAVISON: What?
"Say the lines!"
PETER DAVISON: Can't hear you!
(someone in the middle shouts it to someone in the front, who shouts
it to Peter)
PETER DAVISON: Say the lines? Uh, the lines, uh.
(switches to Meal of the Day voice)
Good evening ladies and gentlemen, I am the Meal of the Day.
(audience roars with laughter)
PETER DAVISON: I haven't done the punch line yet! (back to Meal voice)
May we interest you in parts of my body?
(women in the front all scream)
MAN: Hello, Doctor. I was wondering, now that you've had
chance to appear on American television if you'd like
to appear in an American film or two.
PETER DAVISON: I would *love* to be in an American film. If anybody
out there wants to offer me a part in an American film
I'm open to offers.
MAN: (same guy) Would there be any particular actress you'd like to work
with? From America?
PETER DAVISON: From America? I wouldn't mind working with Kathleen Turner
a bit. (laughter)
MAN starts to ask a third question, get prodded from behind, says something
I can't make out to Davison, and is finally dragged away from the mike by
the people behind him.
YOUNG BOY: Hi. Did you ever wanna have a mechanical companion other
than Kamelion?
PETER DAVISON: I didn't even want Kamelion. (laughter) It wasn't my,
I had nothing to do with K9's disappearing before I arrived.
That was a decision that was made before I joined the
program. As for Kamelion, Kamelion just plainly did not work.
It was a great idea in theory, a fully computerized upper
torsoe, I mean it had no legs. They stuck in on kind of
mannekin legs to make it look like it did, but it didn't
actually have any legs at all. And it would move, and speak,
and someone else would say the words, and they'd program
the movements in and the mouth movements to work in sync.
The only problem was the only time Kamelion ever worked
was when it was shown to John Nathan-Turner as an idea.
That was when he accepted it.
We tried to use it in "The King's Demons," and it just did
not work. The computer would stop and lose everything
and lose its complete program, and so you're programming
it in studio punching in all the coordinates so. .
In theory, it was meant to time the gap between its lines
so that Janet and I could say our lines, and then Kamelion
would say its lines. In reality, the intervals were just. .
at random. So that I'd start to say a line and it would
cut in with the answer before I'd even got halfway through
the sentence. (laughs) So the next time you do it, you
*rush* through your line, and there'd be a ten minute gap
before you're spoken to. So we decided to lock it deep in
the TARDIS and never let it out.
(audience applauds)
Unfortunately, people remembered it, and we had to bring
it out just to blow it up.
(feedback as a little girl steps up to the mike)
LITTLE GIRL: Where do you keep all the green slime?
(audience in unison says, "What?" and "Huh?")
PETER DAVISON: (bemused) Where do I keep all the green slime?
LITTLE GIRL: Yeah! When the monsters die they always have green slime!
PETER DAVISON: What green slime?
LITTLE GIRL: When the monsters die they always have green slime!
PETER DAVISON: oh! Oh, the green slime! This is the province of the
Make-Up Department, whose job it is in Doctor Who is to
cover everyone in green slime. They have a marvellous
time. There's these four make-up girls who spend most
of their time doing boring straight make-ups. They're
putting on mascara, face, eye liner. And every time they
get to work on Doctor Who they (turns on evil voice)
*get to make **BUCKETS OF GREEN SLIME***.
(laughter)
That's the special province of the Make-Up Department.
LITTLE GIRL: And what was your favorite story as the Doctor?
PETER DAVISON: I think it's as I said before, "The Caves of Androzani."
Previous to that I would have said "Earthshock."
(applause from audience)
WOMAN: Hi. I read your wife is American, and I was wondering
what state she's from, and how you met her.
PETER DAVISON: Yes, she is American, and she's from Washington, D.C.
The nation's captial. Got you right? Washington, D.C.?!?
(as though he was being quizzed)
(audience boos)
PETER DAVISON: That's where your President lives for heaven's sakes!
(audience REALLY boos. Mpls/St. Paul is very heavily Democratic)
PETER DAVISON: What? You think St. Paul should be the nation's capital?
(audience applauds)
PETER DAVISON: I'll tell her you said that next time I see her.
I met her in Britain, and she actually went to the same
drama school as I did, although we never said a word to
each other the entire time we were there. She was in
a different year, and I was quite shy at the time.
(feedback) You know, if I touch it, it's a problem.
It's very sensitive. Um, yeah, and we subsequently did
a play in Edinborough, of "A Midsummer Night's Dream".
It was actually a rock version of "A Midsummer Night's
Dream," and we had one microphone between the entire
cast. And I met her there, and she was also in "The
Tomorrow People," where she played my sister. She's
never worked over here, mainly over there on stage.
YOUNG MAN: First of all, I want to say on behalf of all the fans
here, you've gotta be one of the greatest heroes in all
our lives.
(audience applauds)
YOUNG MAN: You said you'd been watching the show since it first
started, like with William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton
and Jon Pertwee and how was it like in "The Five Doctors"
to be working with them in a show that you grew up watching?
PETER DAVISON: You see, after I finally accepted the part, I didn't really
think about the other Doctors, but when I did "The Five
Doctors," it suddenly came home to me that I was working
with Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee and with Richard
Hurndall who took the place of William Hartnell in the
special. It wasn't an earthshattering experience, but
it was great, and the only problem, my only criticism
of "The Five Doctors" is that we weren't allowed to do enough
together, um, the producer felt there might be a few too many
egos on the set if we all got together, but it didn't work
like that.
YOUNG MAN: Thank you.
BOY: YEAH!!
(he didn't realize how loud the mike was. Davison reels back as though he's
been shot.)
PETER DAVISON: My heart's gone.
(laughter)
BOY: In one of your episodes, why did Adric have to get killed?
(audience applauds)
PETER DAVISON: The question is why did Adric have to get killed? Well,
it's a question Adric would like to know the answer to too.
First of all, uh, you see, it started off in a very logical
way. John wanted to get rif of one of the companions,
and as Adric had been there the longest, he felt that
Adric should leave. And, he was thinking of a way for
Adric to be left behind on a planet or decide to go back
into E-space, and they all seemed kind of a bit lame, and
he felt, and I felt too, he talked to me about it, that
it would be quite a good thing for the show if it was
found that awful things *could* happen, that it was
possible for something as terrible as that to happen.
I think it helped the show. Well, I, because it shows
that the cliffhangers weren't always tricks, and awful
things happen, and sometimes the Doctor didn't succeed.
I mean, he failed. Adric was killed. Uh, I was, I thought
it was quite a good way to leave the series. If you're
going to leave the series, you might as well leave the
series with a bang.
(audience boos)
PETER DAVISON: Hey! It's a joke! I mean, no one forgets Adric's departure
from the series. You know, companions come, companions go.
Tegan goes back to Earth. Nyssa decides to stay on Terminus,
but Adric gets blown up!
(missing section Number 3. This is the longest, and in fact three entire
questions were missed. I can't recall what two of them were, but I do know
the third was rather funny. A little girl had asked, "How do you fly the
TARDIS?" Davison replied, "Well, you go up to the console, and you just
press *any* button! It doesn't matter what it is so long as it's not the
door handle. And then the thing goes wrong of course and you have to lean
against the console. Oh, and the thing goes up and down." )
PETER DAVISON: (repeating new question) What's my reaction to being called
"nice" by Nicola Bryant? No, I'm very happy. No, I would
have liked to do more stories with Nicola, with Peri, but
you know, Colin got all the luck.
(laughter and applause)
(I know the next guy, as we nowadays go to school together. His name's
Jim Hall, and he was my lab partner last year, and he's a really fun guy.
We didn't know each other at this time, however)
JIM HALL: Yeah, I was wondering if you raided Colin Baker's
wardrobe! (this is referring to the very ugly-looking
tie Peter is wearing)
(laughs and applause)
PETER DAVISON: You're just lucky there's a state of grace at this
convention. This is taste!
JIM HALL: Yeah, I wanted to, you know. What was your first impression
when you left and you saw Colin Baker come on in that
costume?
PETER DAVISON: My first reaction was, "How did he fit into it?"
(audience applauds and laughs)
PETER DAVISON: And uh, recently I had to go to Washington, D.C. to launch
a promotional Doctor Who bus, and they got the costume
so they brought it over, and I put the costume on, and
it was sort of, like that (makes a motion), and there
was a huge great V at the back. I knew then how Colin
Baker fitted into it. Not a word to him when he comes here,
OK?
But he was very nice, and I had a great time recording
the final scene. It was mostly starring Nicola Bryant's
bust really, but. . .
Colin and I get on very well (some stuff I can't hear)
JIM HALL: Yeah, I can't believe I'm talking to you. I mean, you're
from London!
PETER DAVISON: London, England. Yes.
JIM HALL: I mean, I've been watching Doctor Who since I don't know
when, and I'm going to take your picture, and I want you
to smile.
(Peter smiles and Jim takes a picture. Audience cheers.
I also got to know this next woman, though we've been out of touch for a
while now. Her name's Donna Lang.)
DONNA LANG: Hello. I understand that on the side of acting you write
msic, and I've recently seen an episode of "Faerie Tale
Theater," and the music was done by a Peter Davison, and
I was wondering, did you do that or is it just a coincidence?
PETER DAVISON: Which theater was it?
DONNA LANG: "Faerie Tale Theater."
PETER DAVISON: What was it about?
DONNA LANG: Um, Snow White. One of the stars was Vincent Price.
(audience wonders aloud what *that* was like)
PETER DAVISON: I don't know about that. I mean I have written, is it
like a children's thing?
DONNA LANG: Yes. Shelly Duvall hosts it.
PETER DAVISON: Who?
DONNA LANG: Shelly Duvall?
(Davison is none the wiser.)
PETER DAVISON: It might be. It might be. I've written music for a couple
of shows in Britain, but it certainly didn't go under that
name. It might be.
DONNA LANG: Thank you.
YOUNG MAN: Hi. I was wondering what your favorite villain was.
PETER DAVISON: My favorite villain?
YOUNG MAN: As such.
PETER DAVISON: Yeah. As such. Well, apart from the Master who I kind of. .
(audience applauds)
PETER DAVISON: Very good. Of the monster-type villains, uh, the Cybermen.
(audience applauds)
BOY: Hi. On "The Five Doctors," why did Tom Baker go to that
galaxy or something?
PETER DAVISON: What?
BOY: Go to that galaxy.
PETER DAVISON: (treading carefully) Well, uh, Tom didn't want to be in it
is the simple answer to that, so they used excerpts from a
story called "Shada" (boos for this) which was never
completed. But they fit them rather cleverly, I thought,
into the storyline, but because of the fact that he didn't
want to be in it it was only possible to use small parts
from a different story. So, at least he appeared.
BOY: (new one) Did you ever get a case of stage fright?
(Peter looks worriedly at the audience)
PETER DAVISON: Look at those people out there! No, I've been quite lucky.
I don't usually get stage fright. (feedback again)
(to mike) Be quiet! I know that some people suffer from
nerves on stage generally speaking (feedback again. Plays
with the mike) Sometimes I think that it works
(TONS of feedback, audience laughs)
(someone in the audience shouts "Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow!")
PETER DAVISON: Yes, very good. (laughs)
(audience laughs)
PETER DAVISON: Yeah, what was the question? Stage fright. Oh. I don't
usually suffer from stage fright. It's a thing I understand
usually gets worse as you get older, but stage fright is
an incessent worry. I mean, everyone gets a bit nervous
whether its an appearance like this or when you're doing
a television program. Stage fright is like almost
paralysis. You have a tendency to lock yourself in your
dressing room and never come out.
MAN: What's it like working with Tegan?
PETER DAVISON: Well, she's Australian, you know. (laughter)
We had some good times Janet and I. Some times were better
than others. But I don't think Tegan's character
worked particularly well in terms of the Doctor, I think
it was a bit too, a bit too, (someone in the audience
suggests an appropriate adjective), yeah, sassy, or
bossy. But um, the cast of Doctor Who while I was there
got on very, very well. But my feeling is that characters
like Tegan and Turlough don't work as well as characters
like Nyssa.
(kind of gets both Kate and el bid in this one,doesn't he?)
LITTLE BOY: How do you do the regeneration trick?
(laughter and applause)
LITTLE BOY: Demonstrate.
(more laughter)
PETER DAVISON: The regeneration trick. Colin Baker's here sooner than
you thought. What they do is, well, the regeneration I
remember mostly wasn't from myself into Colin, it was
from Tom into myself. It was where I arrived. ..
They always manage to organize the regeneration so that
they do it with five minutes to spare in the studio.
I mean, they had three days to do it, and they always
do it at five minutes to ten. And uh, first of all they
wanted to cover me in white make-up, kind of plaster,
white plaster of Paris. So they started to do that.
So then they said, "Wait a minute! It's five to ten!
We can't do that! Get it off!" (he starts to accelerate
as he tells the story) And then they covered my face
in a sort of white paint, so they painted my face white,
and my hair white. While, Colin, uh, Tom, fell off
the gantry, splat! (laughter) I had to watch what I was
doing. They freeze the frame. Tom gets up, I lie down.
They take about ten seconds of videotape. They then
*drag* me up, drag me into the make-up room, it's now
*three* minutes to ten, they scrape all the white paint
off my face, they stick my head quite literally into the
sink and pour boiling water and shampoo all over it,
wash my hair, throw make-up at me, throw me into the
studio, put Tom Baker's clothes on me, throw me on the
floor, take another ten seconds of videotape, and then say. . .
"Sit up and smile!"
(audience applauds)
PETER DAVISON: So that's what I did! That's how the trick is done.
MAN: How was it like working with Sarah Sutton and Janet
Fielding, I mean did you guys get along together?
PETER DAVISON: We all got along very well together, and what' really
great is when we do conventions where there are all of
us together. It's really like old times. Stay up all
night drinking, getting hung over. . . No, we all got
on very well indeed.
MAN: (new one) Just want to say I like your tie, but somebody beat me to it.
I wanted to ask you do you regret leaving the show as much
as a lot of us do?
PETER DAVISON: Well, yeah, it was very touch and go whether or not I'd
stay for a fourth year. It was just that I had to decide
whether to stay for a fourth year at the start of the
third year to allow John to think ahead and commission
the ending script and the beginning script for the next
season. So, I mean there have been times when I wish
I would have done a fourth year. I think I would have
certainly have left after a fourth year. Three years seems
a long time in one's life, and as I said earlier, if I
got offered the part again when I'm sixty, I'd do it
till I dropped. The thing was I was still very young
and there were many things I still wanted to do. And I
wanted to leave while I was still enjoying it a lot.
Part of the problem was, sorry to keep interrupting myself,
I wasn't entirely happy with my second season. Had I been
asked to make the choice at the end of my third season,
I think I probably would have stayed for a fourth, but as
it was I had to make it on the basis of what I had done.
And there were people I wanted to (something), things
were wrong with the second season.
MAN: (same one) How much of your dress and costume did you design or
was that given to you?
PETER DAVISON: The cricketing side of it was my idea, because John wanted
to have something in the costume that was younger,
eccentric, and I guess slighly sporty, and cricket seems
to fit those three things fairly well, apart from the
sportiness. But, that's how I got the cricket outfit.
But for the actual design of it, I wasnt so sure about.
I wanted a more a kind of unprepared look, like he'd gone
into the TARDIS wardrobe and just picked certain things
up and some sort of frock coat, but John wanted the design
look, which he took one step further with Colin's outfit.
(audience laughter)
PETER DAVISON: What? (to someone in front row) Are you suggesting
that Colin Baker is younger than me? What?
Yes. Appearances can be deceiveing.
No, it uh, I think (something) at the moment when they
got Matthew Waterhouse to leave (something)
Alright! A lot of Matthew Waterhouse fans here.
BOY: hi. You were talking about make-up and throwing everything
on, how did it feel to have rice crispies and green slime
on your face running around Amsterdam?
(audience laughter)
PETER DAVISON: The worst thing about that particular sequence in "Arc of
Infinity," now at the time that we did this, Doctor Who
did not go out in Amsterdam, so no one in Holland had
the *faintest* idea what we were doing. (laughter)
There I was standing in the middle of Dammes Square in
Amsterdam, which is a famous, famous square in Amsterdam
with, as you say, rice crispies and green slime all over
my face, and no one bothered to tell anyone that we were
filming. The camera was up in a building high across the
square, and I had to stagger across *clutching* my rice
crispies and green slime (laughter) and make these
amazing faces while I stagger across the road, and people
just look at me in amazement. (laughter) We did *six*
takes of this scene! And in the end it wasn't even in
the final program!! It was very embarassing. It's
alright, you can do any of that kind of thing in Britain
and people will know what you're doing. You can wander
through London with rice crispies and green slime and
you say, "Doctor Who," and they go "Oh, I see," but not
in Amsterdam.
BOY: (new one) Do you mind if I ask two questions?
PETER DAVISON: No, I don't mind at all.
BOY: Was there any episode that you really *didn't* like?
PETER DAVISON: Yeah, I wasn't awfully fond of "Time-Flight."
(audience murmurs)
PETER DAVISON: The reason I wasn's awfully fond of "Time-Flight" was that
it was the last story of my first season, and we had run
out of money. (laughs) You can see that by the fact that
we tried to recreate the prehistoric Heathrow landscape
in Studio 1 with bits of polystyrene foam and a black
backcloth and model Concordes, and uh, it really wasn't
very satisfactory, and the monsters in hat, what were they
called?
(front row answers "Plasmatons")
PETER DAVISON: That's right. Well, they were the silliest things I'd
ever seen! Blobby, shaking foam really. That was my
least favorite story, for those reasons.
BOY: And did you ever feel like when you were playing the Doctor
did you ever feel you were slipping back to your character
of Tris?
PETER DAVISON: Slipping back to what?
BOY: to your character of Tristan?
PETER DAVISON: Ummmm, no, I think that by necessity because it's the same
person playing the part there's going to be a bit of, you
know, my character slipping into Tristan and then into
Doctor Who's. I don't think the two ever seriously
converged apart from the fact that when I started off,
I did a television program in England and they invited a
number of children to the studio to say how they thought
I should play Doctor Who, and one child came up with the
idea that I should be, "like Tristan, but brave."
(laughter) It seemed as good a starting point as any,
so that's sort of where I started my characterization.
LITTLE GIRL: What does the new TARDIS look like?
PETER DAVISON: The *new* TARDIS? Well, I think it looks about a hundred
percent like the old one! No, are you talking about the
fact that there was talk of the TARDIS being made to work
and therefore change into different things?
LITTLE GIRL: Yes.
PETER DAVISON: Yes, I think that idea's been abandoned now.
(audience roars)
PETER DAVISON: In fact, I think it was all just evil (something) on the
part of John Nathan-Turner to get you all upset and write
lots of letters to the BBC. No, the problem was because
the police boxes are no longer around in Britain, they
were something that was around before the invention of
two-way radios, which policemen now wear, they just aren't
a common everyday thing in Britain, but it was discovered
that because of the show most people knew what they were
and most of the younger people knew what they were.
I think it starts to work in one story, one of the Colin
Baker ones.
MAN: Yes, I was wondering what's your home address and
telephone number?
(audience laughter)
PETER DAVISON: What's my home address and telephone number?
I don't know. I forget. It's three weeks since I've
been there. Ummm. Oh, go away! (laughter)
Just put Peter Davison, London, England.
(laughter)
MAN: And what was your favorite costume of the other Doctors?
PETER DAVISON: Well, I think, probably Patrick's because he it was the
most unique and off-the-cuff look. (and more stuff I
can't make out)
YOUNG MAN: Hi. I was wondering how long are you going to be in
Minnesota, and could you come and have dinner at my house?
(laughter and cheers)
PETER DAVISON: Why do I get these invitations from you boys?
I'll be in Minnesota for exactly twelve hours and twenty
minutes more. So, sorry.
MAN: hi, how are you doing?
PETER DAVISON: Fine. How are you?
MAN: Oh, not too bad.
PETER DAVISON: Oh, good. Good. (laughter)
MAN: I know to me Doctor Who has always been more than just
entertainment, it's like art. For me personally, Doctor
Who both as a series and as a character has always seemed
to be a very individualistic and liberalistic and
anti-authoritarian character and I was wondering if you
agreed with that.
PETER DAVISON: Yeah. Anit-what?
MAN: Anti-authority.
PETER DAVISON: (struggling a bit to come up with an answer)
It's certainly an anti-establishment character, the
Doctor, that's how he started out being, and I guess he
was one of the first of those sorts of heroes and
who isn't just a good guy working for the forces of
good but an anti-establishment character who worked
his way towards the good, though I think he's sometimes
reckless in what he's done, I mean, if he had any sense
he'd get the hell out of there as soon as he arrived.
(laughter) But he is, sort of a rebel, though as a
program I nevr felt much responsibility as to the morals
of the program. What I wanted to do was make the best
science fiction program that I could make, and that's
what we did.
(audience cheers)
PETER DAVISON: What? That's it? That's *it*?!?
Right. I'll stand here for a few minutes so you can all
take pictrues if you like. Then I think we're going
to *try* and sign some autographs. (loosens up his
arm as though in pain) Ah! I know that sometimes you'd
like me to sign more than one thing, but if it's just
*you*, if it would be possible and we could keep it to
one that would be great unless it's for someone else
then we could make it two, but it's just that there are
so many people here tonight. I'd really appreciate it
if you kept your request to the thing that you wanted
signing the most, so that's it. And it's been great
seeing you all in Minnesota!
(audience sends him off with a standing ovation)
Having typed this entire thing in now, I'm beginning to understand how
his arm felt that night. :)
I'm keeping this on file for a while in case anyone else needs copies
and something goes wrong and you lose this one. Just email me anytime,
and I can send it to you.