Doctor Who [Classic] » Doctor Who – Who’s Talking: Jon Pertwee

Rich

Hello, I’m Rich Nardine. Today we have a very special guest in our studio. For many of you he really needs no introduction. For the rest of you he’s Jon Pertwee. The third actor to regenerate as the famous Doctor Who, appearing in that long running science fantasy series from 1970 to 1974. Jon, welcome.

Jon

Thank you

Rich

What’s your reaction to the huge popularity of Doctor Who around the world and in America?

Jon

Great delight particularly here because up till the time my Doctor Whos were shown in the United States nobody knew me at all over here. And now they do because they now look at everything I’ve ever done. In fact they tell me about things they’ve seen that I didn’t know that I’d made. I’d completely forgotten I made them 25 years ago. But they write and tell me they saw me in such and such a film. Lord, I’d forgotten that I’d even made that picture.

Rich

Why do you think the series is so popular?

Jon

You tell me. I’ve no idea. I presume its because its escapism and why is Star Trek so incredibly popular. The same, it must be the same reason. Sci-fi there aren’t that many sci-fi fans and your remember that your fans here of Doctor Who are vastly different from our own.

Rich

In what way?

Jon

Well they’re much more adult.

Rich

Oh really?

Jon

Oh yeah, much older. The average age of the fan in America is 15 years older than the average fan in England. And they take it much more seriously. Their fan letters are much more intelligent, much more erudite. Our fan letters are awful most of them. But 65% of all American fan letters are interesting and they have interesting things to say and things they want to know.

Rich

Former script editor Terrence Dicks feels that your years with the series were the classic years of Doctor Who when the series came into its own as a long term cult favourite. Do you agree with this? Before that he felt it was more of a modest children’s show and during your period it

Jon

Yes Terrence has always been, I’m glad to say, a great advocate of mine and my era. Yes I think he liked it because I perhaps made it grow up a little. Because I’m that much older I was the oldest of all the Doctor Who’s. No I was, no I think I suppose no William Hartnell was older than me when he started. But yes I did I made it grow up a bit and I also with this thing we discussed previously about the threat coming to Earth rather than us going to the threat on other planets. If I’d had my way I’d have stayed on the planet Earth in Doctor Who. I wouldn’t have gone off onto other planets. Because I’ve always said that there’s nothing more alarming than coming home and finding a Yeti sitting on your loo in Tooting Beck which is an area of London. Because that would be a surprise whereas if you were in the Himalayas that would be the natural place to find a Yeti on your john. But and if you adapt that simile I think that works. When we had Daleks roaring over Westminster Bridge that was much more alarming to me than finding them roaring about on planets of their own. So during that period I liked the team that we had then of the Brigadier and John Levine as Sergeant and Katy Manning and as Joe Grant and that’s my favourite period of it all

Rich

Getting away from the Doctor for a minute listen to your own background You come from a theatrical family. Your father was a playwright, your aunt was an actress and your grandmother was an opera singer among other members. Did you come to performing simply because of your family tradition, or were there other forces that drew you into performing?

Jon

No I like to eat, and I found it was the best way of eating regularly was acting. It was the one thing I knew I could do. If I wasn’t doing that I’d be a policeman I think.

Rich

Really how did you know you could be and actor?

Jon

Because my when I was aged about 3 I started acting. My father wrote plays for us when we were tiny and we used to perform them in our house in London all of us the whole family would gather. And we would put on entertainments and plays that my father wrote and he wrote things specially for us and I felt that I was quite at ease with them even as a small boy. No it’s exaggerating to say 3 my first performance I gave when I was 3 and a half, or 4.

Rich

On stage?

Jon

On a stage, oh yes. I was tremendously successful. A riot I was. My grandmother thought Lawrence Olivier had better pack up. Yes. I recited a most excellent poem. Would you like to have it?

Rich

Sure, I’d love it.

Jon

My first performance was this is the first time I’ve ever told it on American television

Rich

You can still remember it?

Jon

I think so yes. It’s very difficult, very complicated but I’ll try. Round the corner out of sight luckily all of us are armed to fight. Who goes there cried little Jack and a small voice answered quack quack quack. That’s the first thing I ever did on stage. Marvellous

Rich

Fantastic

Jon

And I was very pleased about that so my ego came back again

Rich

You once characterised yourself in your younger days as a rebel. What were you rebelling against?

Jon

Well I was thrown out of RADA I was thrown out of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art for being utterly inefficient and hopeless and no future as an actor at all. And I was in a Greek play and they wanted me to be a wind I mean its idiotic going round WOOOO for hours. I wanted to get on with the acting and so I rebelled about being the wind. Said that I wouldn’t do that. And I was a bit of a rebel at school again because I objected to idiotic things like sort of prefects and fagging and so on. Fagging, I rush to state, does not mean what you mean. It means that in English public schools, you know, you have to do duties and clean peoples shoes and make pieces of toast for idiots who seemed to be incapable of making a piece of toast for themselves. And so it doesn’t matter if you’re studying music studying the cello or something 2 miles away in the music room some equally small acned necked boy will come rushing up and say quick, quick, Cardine, come your fag master wants you. So you see you rush back and say yes, yes what is it. And he says make me a piece of toast and you say make it yourself, are you crippled or something? And for that you get roundly thrashed and probably expelled, which I was, roundly thrashed and expelled.

Rich

So you thought there was a better way to get the shades

Jon

I thought that was a waste of time, yes

Rich

Is there still some of the rebel left in you?

Jon

Undoubtedly yes

Rich

In what way

Jon

Exactly the same way I think I rebel against stupidity. I’m intolerant of fools I don’t tolerate fools gladly I don’t expect them to tolerate me either. Which they frequently don’t.

Rich

You once equated being an actor with being a corn merchant and stated that one of your uncles who was head of the poetry society added some class to your family. From this one can infer that you hold acting in less than a noble. View as less than a noble profession. Is this accurate or ?

Jon

No that’s not accurate at all. I think it’s a very noble profession. I don’t belong to the noblest part of it. I decided many years ago that I enjoyed the as good a life as possible. I’m an inveterate traveller, I’m a diver, my main hobby is diving, underwater diving, scuba diving. And I travel the world and I’ve been to most islands in the world that are worth diving on and I can’t do this unless I have money. And in order to get money I work in the commercial side of the business as opposed to the very serious side like the Royal Shakespeare or the Chichester or anywhere else like that. I haven’t been that interested in that. I’ve been more in the commercial theatre. So I’ve worked a lot in musicals and things and shows like

Rich

Does one preclude the other if you take as you refer to as your betters

Jon

Yes, I couldn’t step into the sort of genre of what goes on at the Aldwych or the New Shakespeare or the Royal Shakespeare or so on. That would be completely beyond me

Rich

Does it take too much of a commitment or

Jon

No, it’s just that I haven’t done it for so long. I think if I had committed myself to it years and years ago. But I’ve been in show business for 50 years I’ve done everything I’ve ridden on the wall of death on a motorcycle with a toothless lion on the back in order to make a buck. I’ve worked in the circus in a bare-back riding act dressed as a woman. I’ve done anything. I’ve worked in rep. I’ve worked in cabaret I’ve worked in any form of show business. And so it would be difficult having done all that to suddenly go into traditional straight Shakespearean theatre and the classics.

Rich

Getting back to Doctor Who for a while. What was your first reaction or what was your fans’ reaction when you took over from Patrick Troughton in 1970? Did they have any difficulty in accepting you in the role?

Jon

Yes I think they did because they all expected me as I had spent the last, well the 10 years previously to that doing a comedy. I had a radio show, which was the longest running radio show in the history of broadcasting anywhere in the world including the United States. We ran nearly 19 and a half years. It was called the Navy Lark. It was a sort of satire on the Navy and I’d this was the most popular radio show for all those years in England. And people found it almost impossible to believe that somebody who could play all these eccentric characters which I did on the Navy Lark could go in and be a good Doctor. Play him straight. But this is why I did it. Because I wanted to do just that.

Rich

Did you watch the series at all before you became part of it?

Jon

Yes I did, because my ex-wife was an actress called Jean Marsh, who you may remember in Upstairs Downstairs, and for a time she was in Doctor Who. And so I watched 2 or 3 of her episodes. I hadn’t seen it really before that at all.

Rich

What did you did you have any impressions of it before you took over?

Jon

No, none

Rich

So you went in there with a clean slate?

Jon

Yes, that’s why we had a problem because Sean Sutton, Head of Programmes, he said well we’d like you to do it. And I said well how do you want me to play it? He said as Jon Pertwee. I said who the hell’s he? And this is where we came to what you were asking me. I said I don’t know who I am. And he said well we do, just play it as you. I said well I never have before. That’s how it all came about, how I began to sort of discover myself.

Rich

How did your involvement in Doctor Who affect your career? Did it have any effect?

Jon

Oh enormous effect yes. An enormous effect it had yeah

Rich

In what way

Jon

Well my public in the main had been, apart from the music halls, and having been in the theatre. So the people of older age knew me from the straight theatre, from the music halls of course, and from radio had been aurally not visually so I needed something that tackled the mass media and tackled the mass public on television so Doctor Who was a wonderful shop window for me.

Rich

Well how’s it affected your private life? Has it caused any problems being so visible?

Jon

No, you get used to that. You learn the ability of shutting off. I’m very good at closing my eyes to it. It irritates the life out of my wife, she gets annoyed because there’s no privacy. But I can shut it off, I don’t notice it or I don’t see it. I can do it immediately by making eye contact, as soon as you make eye contact then you’ve got somebody talking to you, but if you don’t make eye contact you don’t, you avoid it.

Rich

Peter Davidson once said that he felt that once he took over the role of the Doctor he had a special responsibility. He had to be polite and cheery and rabble rousing was right out. Did you feel that way when you took over?

Jon

Peter said that?

Rich

Yes

Jon

He’s never been a rabble rouser in his life.

Rich

Well he said it was fortunate that he wasn’t

Jon

Yes I don’t think so. No he’s a. No I never no I don’t know like that no. I mean I’ve been in the business an awful long time when I took over Doctor Who so I was used to the reactions of the public. And I hope knew how to comport myself in public. And not to get too drunk, not fall over too often in front of the Queen.

Rich

Well how much of your own personality did you bring to the character of the Doctor? He’s a precise, flamboyant, confident, paternalistic, outraged at injustice, addicted to gadgets, some even say arrogant

Jon

Yes that me.

Rich

So they pretty much tailored

Jon

Yes they did. Well they allowed me to tailor it to what I like. I mean I love gadgetry and I like speed and all these idiotic things that I used to use in Doctor Who, like hovercraft and jet boats and all these things. And if I found anything, anywhere, I’d ring up Barry Letts and say, hey I’ve found a marvellous jet boat that doesn’t go over a wave it goes through the middle of it. He’d say great lets get it in and he used to put it in the programme. In fact if you haven’t seen it yet, but there’s a programme called the Green Death, in which we have an enormous chase sequence with hovercraft and speed boats and jet boats and everything. And I eventually finished up not wanting to but I finished up owning the whole lot. I bought them all. Because I loved them and used them for many years afterwards

Rich

So it must have been quite fancy for you

Jon

I but I like gadgets, all forms of gadgetry. Yes

Rich

Do you think that you were chosen as a change of pace from Patrick Troughton?

Jon

Yes I think that was the idea. Yes, originally I met my first producer not very long ago at a luncheon on our 20th anniversary luncheon. And he said that the reason that he chose me was because he wanted to utilise my ability to play the guitar and sing. Thank God he left the job before he, before I actually took over. Because it would have been appalling. I can’t think of anything worse than a guitar playing troubadour as the Doctor Who. I mean Pat had his penny whistle, that was fine, but I mean to be a set and sing folk songs I don’t think is Doctor Who

Rich

Going too far

Jon

Yes.

Rich

You once said that playing the Doctor helped you realise who Jon Pertwee was. Now what exactly did you mean by that?

Jon

Well I had a great friend of mine, sadly he’s now dead, called Peter Sellers. And Peter and I both have the same sort of background. Peter had been an actor, then he became an impressionist and went on the music hall. And we both of us worked in the music hall together in the West End. Remember somebody called Red Ingle? He was an American who had made an enormously successful record called Cigareets and Whisky and Wild Wild Women. And he came to England with his band and Peter and I were on that bill. And we ran for a long time in the West End. Got to know each other terribly well in that period. And then Peter went off and went into the film business. But in all the years that Peter was in pictures and all the brilliant films he made never once did you ever see Peter Sellers. And up until Doctor Who you’d never ever seen Jon Pertwee. We both of us hid under what we call our green umbrella. A green umbrella of character. We never allowed our own personalities really to come through. We were always something else.

Rich

What did you learn about yourself?

Jon

Well I learnt to find that I could play me without characterising, without sticking glasses on my nose or sticking on a beard. I mean I still use that as a little bit of a green umbrella, the costume so that I can be that much more flamboyant which I couldn’t be in normal everyday mufti. So that helped me to have that flamboyance. I’m sure it did

Rich

You have a favourite Doctor Who adventure?

Jon

Yes. The Daemons. The Daemons we shot on film. I think there was a strike on at the time, so we shot it all on film and there are no monsters in it to speak of except for at the very, very end. It was all done by atmosphere. Very, very spooky atmosphere of barrows which are early pre-Christian burial grounds. And there was just an atmosphere. Winds we had, enormous winds blew everything over.

Rich

Were you the wind?

Jon

No I could have been. Yes I could have been a Greek wind.

Rich

Why did you end up leaving the series?

Jon

Well, I did 5 years. 5 years is enough for anybody really. It wasn’t my invention. If it had been my invention, as my present show is, then I’d run that into the ground, until I die. I’d be quite happy as long as the figures are good. But this was somebody else’s invention and it seemed to be after 5 years. And the team was breaking up you see. Terrence Dicks left, Barry Letts left and my companions Elizabeth Sladon, Joe Grant, and Katy Manning left. Roger Delgado one of my greatest friends who played the Master, he was sadly killed in a car crash in Turkey. And I thought, oh well that’s it, the end of an era. Its time to go.

Rich

What was it like returning to your old role in the Five Doctors?

Jon

Oh, it was like it was yesterday. No problem at all. We’d done the Two Doctors, remember, with Pat Troughton and I, the Three Doctors rather, because Bill was very sick so he didn’t actually act in it with us. We shot him on film and put him on the monitor so we acted to the monitor. But Pat’s a great friend of mine and we spark off each other very well. It’s a pity he’s not here for the conference because we have a love hate relationship. And we throw water all over each other and things.

Rich

So you enjoyed the opportunity to

Jon

Oh I loved it Oh yeah, remember they’re all most of them are my friends that I’ve know for years so it was a joy. How the director ever got the work out of us I’ll never know, because we were laughing so much.

Rich

Was there any competition between the 5, basically 4 actors, playing the same character?

Jon

Oh good lord no. I mean for a start the first Doctor was a look alike, Richard Herndon, who sadly died last year, this year. So and he was new to the part anyway. Pat Troughton and I have always had this fighting relationship. Tom as you know didn’t appear with us. And Peter of course was fine, terrific, we were all friends anyway. So it was great fun. No problems at all.

Rich

Would you like to do it again?

Jon

Oh yes, and we undoubtedly will. There’ll be Five Doctors, Six Doctors, I expect.

Rich

And you’ll return.

Jon

Of course

Rich

You get a bit nostalgic when you go back

Jon

No, not at all. I just enjoy it. I like two things about it. I like the fun of doing it and I like the money.

Rich

Do you have any preference for working on the TV, stage, films, radio? You’ve done them all.

Jon

Yeah. I like working on the stage.

Rich

Why

Jon

Because of the reaction. I like to play light comedy and hear the laughs.

Rich

I understand you put on a heck of a one man stage show

Jon

Cabaret you mean?

Rich

Yes

Jon

Yes I work in cabaret which is a spin-off of my old music hall act. I started working in what you call vaudeville. And then I adapted it for cabaret and now, now when I appear in conferences the Doctor Who conferences I do a couple of evenings of cabaret just for laughs. It goes on as long as I’m getting laughs. If I don’t get any laughs I go home.

Rich

How long do they usually go on?

Jon

Well it entirely depends on the laugh. It sometimes been known to go on for 2 hours. But otherwise it’s a quick 40 minutes.

Rich

You’re known as the man of a thousand voices. Your gift for capturing dialects and accents. How did you develop this talent? Is it natural or

Jon

Yeah, my father had it and my son’s got it and its one of the things in our family, that we’ve got an ear for copy. Copy, you see, not as an impressionist. I can’t do, I can only do impersonate about 3 or 4 people. But can pick up eccentricities of voice. And they’re all based on true people.

Rich

Individual people?

Jon

Yeah, they’re based on people. I mean there was a lady who ran a tuck shop. A sweet shop, cake shop, at the public school I was at called Sherborne, in England. And she was a lovely old lady, and every boy used to go along there and ask for a long bun and a short bun and a glass of Tizer or pop, you know. And she being the polite lady that she was always pretended that she knew who that boy was so she used to say. We used to say one long bun and one short bun please Mrs Thomson. She used to say thank you very much Mr. … Mr … Next. And she always had this shot. So I developed this sort of character ….. never could ….. never … oh to hell with the whole thing. He never could get anything out. And he was called Mr Wetherby Wet. And he ran for years and years and years and never got anything out. This character

Rich

Have you ever come across anyone that you couldn’t duplicate?

Jon

Who

Rich

Have you come across an accent or a dialect that you couldn’t duplicate?

Jon

Oh yes there are certain dialects. I mean Geordy is terribly difficult.

Rich

What is that?

Jon

Geordy. That’s from Newcastle Upon Tyne up in the north east of England. That’s a very, very difficult dialect. There are certain dialects, but if you just generalise like. I could do an Irish or a Scots or a Cockney or a Cornish or whatever. You know, do the basic dialect. But if you start pinning me down say now do a Scunthorpe or you know or do a particular part of Liverpool I find it very hard.

Rich

I understand you’re now involved in another series entitled Worzel Gummidge. Could you tell us a little bit about that?

Jon

Worzel Gummidge. Yes it’s a, it’s a story about a scarecrow who comes to life. He is made by a man called the Crow Man, who is the creator. So he in fact is Himself. He’s the creator, he’s God. And he makes the scarecrows. And we look upon him as a God figure. And his word is law. The series started based on a series of books by a lady called Barbara Euthen Todd in the thirties. And they’ve been popular right up until this day. And about 9 years ago Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall, two of our most eminent writers, wrote a movie script for this to be made into a film and asked me to play the part of Worzel Gummidge, the scarecrow. I said I wanted to, but we couldn’t get the money together and we couldn’t get the distribution together and so we. I said make me a pilot write me a pilot and I’ll see if I can sell it to television. And I offered it to the BBC and they turned it down flat. They said it had no future at all. Thames Television also turned it down another company. So I began to lose confidence in it until Southern Television picked it up and we made it and within 4 weeks we were a cult. And we now when we came off the air 2 years ago we had 12 million viewers every Saturday. Which was enormous figures. I have a feeling that the success of the show at 5.15 on a Saturday had something to do with a certain programme that we won’t mention being shifted from Saturdays to Fridays. I’m sure John Nathan Turner would heartily disagree but I have a feeling it was something to do with it because we got enormous figures. And we did have until the time we left and finished it because Southern Television lost their franchise unfortunately. And so and up till this time we haven’t been able to get a company that’s prepared to go forward and pick it up. It’s a great source of amazement to us because I’m working in the Liverpool International Garden Festival at the moment which is the biggest garden festival ever held in Europe. We draw 27000 people up to 30000 people a day. And I’m there as a sort of logo as a welcomer as Worzel Gummidge and I’m surrounded by thousands, literally thousands of children, adults, old ladies, all gathering round, all wanting to come up and talk, shake my hand, and tell me how much they love the programme. So the public wants it and we haven’t got a company that can take it.

Rich

You seem quite committed to this series.

Jon

I’m tremendously committed to it. It’s the best things I’ve ever done and we hope to sell it to America.

Rich

Why are you so committed to it? Is there a message in it?

Jon

Yes there is a message to it. It’s very much of a moral programme. Runs the gamut of emotions from A to Zed, Zee, I’m sorry. It moralises to a degree. I mean you’ve got the Crow Man who tries to teach me the morals of the situation. I have no brains. I’m made of twigs and straw and I have no brain. So he tries to he tries to make me see things the right way, which I never ever do. I’m madly in love with a wooden figure called Aunt Sally, which is played by a lovely Una Stubbs, one of our most talented actresses. And there are just the 3 of us regulars in it. And it has a sort of magic quality because I can be irascible one minute. And I can be sad and sorrowful the next. And I can be loving, loveable, horribly beastly to children, kick animals the next minute. And you know be rather like of Mice and Men fellow loving the puppies to death.

Rich

Well we certainly want to wish you the best of luck in that project and any other future projects. I know your fans in this area are certainly looking forward to your next appearance in the Six Seven Eight or Nine Doctors. In the meantime Jon, thanks a lot for stopping by and talking to us.

Jon

Not at all. Great pleasure.