- 9 months ago
No star is too big for the tardis.
Category
đź“ş
TVTranscript
00:00Modern Doctor Who is often seen as the show that launches the careers of the next generation
00:05of stars.
00:06Karen Gillan, Carey Mulligan, Daniel Kaluuya and Andrew Garfield have all passed through
00:10those big blue doors on their route to Hollywood.
00:13But what about the other way round?
00:15Back in the 1980s, John Nathan Turner was keen to get theatre legend Sir John Gilgud
00:20to play a mutant in Revelation of the Daleks, but unfortunately it never came to pass.
00:26Similarly, Dennis Hopper had voiced a desire to appear in Doctor Who.
00:29But Russell T Davies decided against it, as he felt it would overshadow Kylie Minogue's
00:34cameo rather than, you know, add to it.
00:36Sometimes, however, big-name guest stars do agree to appear in Doctor Who.
00:40Who could forget Alan Cummings, scene-stealing turn as King James VI in The Witchfinders, or
00:46legendary British sitcom and movie actor Beryl Reid's turn as a grizzled space captain?
00:51This list collects some of the more surprising cameos and guest turns from Doctor Who's
00:55long history.
00:56From TV episodes to charity sketches and specially-filmed comedy sketches, these are some of the big stars
01:02that you may not have realised have appeared in Doctor Who, or alongside the Doctor in something
01:07else entirely.
01:08So, with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with Who Culture, with 10 Big Stars You Forgot Appeared
01:14in the world of Doctor Who.
01:1610.
01:17Brian Cox
01:18David Tennant's final two-parter, The End of Time, was a big deal.
01:23Airing over Christmas Day 2009 and New Year's Day 2010, it was complemented by Tennant guesting
01:29on popular BBC panel show QI and specially-commissioned idents before each programme on BBC One.
01:35Not only that, but the production team secured two huge stars to join Tennant, Bernard Cribbins,
01:41Catherine Tate and John Sim for the big finale.
01:44One of those was former Hannibal Lecter and future Logan Roy actor Brian Cox as an Ood,
01:49or more accurately, the voice of an Ood.
01:51Brian Cox would likely channel Logan Roy's catchphrase if asked to don the Ood prosthetics.
01:56It's a brief voice-over role as the elder Ood, but the actor brings the required levels
02:01of gravitas to their portentous warning.
02:03It is returning, and he is returning, and they are returning.
02:07Set the tone for the momentous end of Part 1 Cliffhanger that revealed the impending return
02:12of Gallifrey and the Time Lords to bring the RTD Tennant era to close.
02:17Years later, Cox would bring lashings of piss and vinegar to his role as Doctor Who's Canadian
02:22impresario creator Sidney Newman in Mark Gatiss' excellent docudrama about William Hartnell.
02:289. Timothy Dalton
02:31The other huge star in The End of Time was Timothy Dalton as the President.
02:35It's only in the climactic confrontation towards the end of Part 2 that RTD reveals that the President
02:42is a resurrected Razzalon, the original founder of Time Lord Society.
02:46Apparently, Davies had considered making Omega the villain for Tennant's final story,
02:50but quickly dropped the idea. Omega would require far more explanation, and a corrupt president
02:55desperate to survive is a much easier sell for a hungover New Year's Day audience.
03:00The Razzalon reveal is merely a nice bonus for fans.
03:02Timothy Dalton is excellent as Razzalon. Like Cox, he gets to do a lot of portentous voiceover
03:07acting in the first part. His vengeful fury in his confrontations with the Doctor and the Master
03:12is tangible, not to mention spittle inflected. What makes it even better is that it's essentially
03:17James Bond vs. Doctor Who and the Master, a real casting coup appropriate for such a
03:22momentous role and episode. Dalton's Bond predecessor Roger Moore once said that he'd
03:27have loved to star in Doctor Who for Mark Gatiss. He never got the chance, but in the RTD era,
03:33it was only right that the Welsh James Bond Timothy Dalton joined the show.
03:368. Burt Kwok
03:38Burt Kwok was a British screen legend, born in Lancashire in 1930 and raised in Shanghai.
03:44After the Communist Revolution, Kwok returned to the UK where he embarked upon a prolific career
03:49in film and television, which included a small role in Goldfinger. He is best known for his role
03:55as Kato, Inspector Clouseau's hands-on man-servant in the Pink Panther series. In later years,
04:01he delivered an acclaimed performance as Major Yamaguchi in Japanese Prisoner of War drama Tenko.
04:07It was around the same time as Tenko that Kwok would appear in Peter Davidson's first serial as the
04:11Doctor, 4 to Doomsday. Kwok plays Lin Futu, who was kidnapped by the frog-like monarch and converted
04:18into an android. When the Doctor reveals that he's been deceived by the monarch, Lin Futu and his
04:23fellow androids assist the Doctor and his companions in foiling the monarch's plan.
04:27Davidson and Kwok would meet again years later on the set of The Harry Hill Show, where they took the
04:32helm of the Enterprise in a Star Trek-inflected version of Pulp's Disco 2000. In many ways,
04:38it's less weird than anything in 4 to Doomsday. 7. Ronnie Corbett
04:43There have been all manner of Doctor Who charity sketches and crossovers over the years, but it's
04:47rare for one of the spin-off shows to get in on the act. Torchwood, for example, never crossed over
04:52with Holios. It just felt like it did. One exception was the Sarah Jane Adventures, which got involved with
04:58Red Nose Day in 2009 to raise money for comic relief. In a sketch known as From Raxacorica
05:04Falapatorius with love, Sarah Jane and her team come face to face with an alien ambassador played
05:09by UK comedy legend Ronnie Corbett. Given that it's comic relief, the alien part is a very thin veil,
05:16as Corbett deploys his various trademarks, a love of golf, delivering monologues from a
05:20comfortable chair, and of course Sarah Jane gets to say a goodnight from him when she dispatches him
05:25once his true colours are revealed. For Ronnie, or Ranius, is revealed to be a Slothene who is intent on
05:31capturing K9 and using the robot dog's knowledge and capabilities to rule the galaxy. He is very
05:37quickly found out and dispatched in a fun throwaway scene that also has the honour of introducing deadly
05:42deeliboppers to the world of Doctor Who. 6. Michael Sheen
05:47Michael Sheen has been about to play the next Doctor since Christopher Eccleston's departure
05:51was announced in 2005. The Welsh actor certainly fits the bill as an idealised version of what some
05:56fans see as the Doctor, but it feels unlikely that he'll ever get the keys to the TARDIS. He'll just
06:02have to take the Doctor's ship by force, and he's already got experience in that department.
06:07Neil Gaiman's acclaimed Doctor Who story, The Doctor's Wife, casts Sheen as the voice of the
06:11villainous House. He was a non-corporeal entity that survived by consuming Artron energy from captured
06:18TARDISes on his junkyard planet. He is defeated by the TARDIS in the form of Idris, who expels the entity
06:24from the Doctor's ship. Sheen's voice is quite unrecognisable, unsurprising given his talent
06:30for mimicry. It's a spine-chilling performance, and despite recording all his lines separate from
06:34the filming, you get a real sense of Sheen going toe-to-toe with Matt Smith in the fantastic
06:39Fear Me scene. Sheen and Gaiman are of course firm friends, and continue to work with each other on
06:44the anticipated second series of Good Omens. 5. Stephen Fry
06:49You could be forgiven for forgetting that Stephen Fry appeared in Spyfall,
06:53given how brief his role as the head of MI6 was. However, that's not the forgotten Fry role in
06:58question. The polymath actor had previously appeared in a very different type of Doctor Who
07:03story back in 2001. With the series come back four years away, other revival options were being
07:09considered. One of these options was an audio serial entitled Death Comes to Time, which picked up the
07:14story of the seventh Doctor and Ace. It's a murder mystery, an epic intergalactic battle, and steeped in
07:21new Time Lord mythology. It also just happened to kill off the Doctor, seemingly for good.
07:26Joining a returning Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred was an extraordinary guest cast that
07:30included John Sessions and Anthony Head. Stephen Fry played the Minister of Chance,
07:35a fellow Time Lord who breaks the laws of non-intervention in a catastrophic fashion.
07:40It's a great performance by Fry, and the closest you'll likely get to him playing the Doctor.
07:44If the series had taken off, the plan was to have the Minister of Chance adopt a Doctor's title to
07:49redeem his prior actions, which led to the Doctor's death. It wasn't to be.
07:534. Ricky Gervais
07:55This is probably more a case of a Doctor that you forgot appeared in something else. Given that
07:59the Extra's Christmas special features Gervais' character playing a role in a fictionalised version
08:04of Doctor Who alongside David Tennant, it counts. Andy Millman takes on a part in Doctor Who when his
08:10career hits the skids. Watching the scene in question, it's clear that neither Gervais or
08:15Merchant have actually watched Doctor Who since the 1980s. The slug-like character that Millman is
08:20playing and the use of salt by Tennant's tenth Doctor to defeat him are ripped directly from 1984's
08:26The Twin Dilemma. Clearly, Colin Baker's debut story had a profound effect on the pair. It's a
08:32surprise not to see a producer wandering around in a Hawaiian shirt, a la AT's producer John Nathan
08:37Turner. It's an odd moment, given how many big stars have played villains in real-life Doctor
08:42Who by this point in the new series' history. The idea of playing a Doctor Who monster as a low
08:47point feels outdated in 2007. It's almost as if Gervais is prone to making sweeping,
08:52simplistic generalisations in his comedy.
08:543. Eddie Redmayne
08:56Eddie Redmayne is a name regularly plucked out of the next Doctor hat, likely due to his Doctor-ish,
09:02slightly quirky-wears-a-long-coat performance in the Fantastic Beasts series. However, Redmayne has
09:08come within spitting distance of the TARDIS in a charity sketch that saw the world of Harry Potter
09:13crossover with Doctor Who. The sketch involves Newt Scamander, a role that incidentally Matt
09:18Smith reportedly turned down, call round various fictional characters to ask if they'd seen Pudsey.
09:24The one-eyed yellow teddy is the children-in-need mascot, and has clearly gone missing. Given that Newt
09:29Scamander has a history of magical creature wrangling, the mind boggles as to his intentions
09:34for the bear. One of the calls he makes is to the 12th Doctor, who lists a variety of strange
09:39alien creatures that may or may not be Pudsey. Capaldi is on fine form, relishing in rattling
09:46off elaborate creature descriptions and delivering the best gag in the whole sketch that Pudsey has
09:51destroyed whole worlds with a death ray. Redmayne, meanwhile, blandly simpers and pouts his way through it.
09:57As for calls for Redmayne to be the next Doctor, maybe the 12th Doctor should answer those.
10:02Thank you very much for your call. Have a nice life.
10:042. June Brown The late, great June Brown appeared in
10:09Doctor Who back in the 1970s, going toe-to-toe with John Pertwee in The Time Warrior. This was
10:15before she landed the iconic role that would define her career, Dot Cotton in EastEnders.
10:20Through Brown's incredible performance, Dot is firmly embedded in British popular culture,
10:25to the point that she once made friends with Lady Gaga on The Graham Norton Show.
10:29Decades after her first appearance in the series, June Brown briefly re-emerged in the Doctor Who
10:33world via a short sketch. And we're not talking about dimensions in time.
10:372011's National Television Awards channeled the spirit of Billy Crystal at the Oscars via a
10:43whistle-stop TARDIS tour around TV history. The central conceit is that presenter Dermot O'Leary
10:49has slept in for the ceremony, and needs the Doctor's help to get him to the NTAs on time.
10:53The TARDIS travels a hundred years into the future to find an advert-laden BBC,
10:58and returns to Albert Square. When Dermot emerges onto Albert Square,
11:02he's immediately recognised by Dot Cotton as not being the Doctor. After all, he's only got one outfit.
11:08Where else would he get it cleaned but in one of TV's last standing laundrettes?
11:121. Ian McKellen Ian McKellen has regularly worked with
11:167th Doctor Sylvester McCoy, both in King Lear at the RSC and in Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy.
11:22It was while they were filming this that McKellen and Jackson submitted a short scene for the
11:26celebratory comedy The Five-ish Doctor's Reboot back in 2013. However, McKellen had already appeared
11:33in Doctor Who 11 months earlier as an evil snow globe. If anyone can lend the required gravitas to
11:38something as ostensibly silly as an evil snow globe, it's Sir Ian McKellen. McKellen's voice performance
11:44as the Great Intelligence is a superb addition to 2012's Christmas special, The Snowmen. He's warm and
11:51paternal as he entrances the lonely young Simeon, then shifts to frosty malevolence as the Doctor
11:56discovers the extent of the plot. It's the sort of star casting that became expected of the Doctor
12:01Who Christmas special since Catherine Tate, who, lest we forget, was huge in the UK in 2006,
12:07appeared in the TARDIS at the end of Doomsday. Despite him only being a voiceover, McKellen's
12:12portrayal of a classic villain like the Great Intelligence is indicative of Doctor Who's
12:16increasing popularity in the run-up to the 50th anniversary in 2013.
12:22And that concludes our list. If you can think of any that we missed, then do let us know in the
12:26comments below. And while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification
12:30bell. Also head over to Twitter and follow us there, and I can be found across various
12:34social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie with Who Culture,
12:38and in the words of River Song herself, goodbye, sweeties.
Comments