Elisabeth Sladen: The Autobiography

For shooting, though, I was expected to wear a skirt and jumper and just hope for the best. Fine, I thought, it’s only for a few days. Then I noticed a line in the script: ‘Sarah Jane falls in the foliage’. I looked at the long grass all around and thought, No bloody way! What if a snake slides up my skirt?

I was head-to-toe in my Big Bird gear at the time, so I said, ‘Wouldn’t it make a spectacular shot if I was rolling around the grass in this yellow outfit?’

And do you know what? They went for it! So I got to spend the rest of the shoot in my sou’wester and wellies.

Snakes were a genuine fear. The terrain was bushy and hilly – perfect to represent future earth – and the perfect habitat for all sorts of wildlife, including adders. One lunchtime Terry Walsh and I were walking to the nearest pub to try and warm up when something came slithering out from under a boulder. For the first time in my life I genuinely screamed in fright. And what did our brave stuntman do?

He leapt about four foot off the ground!

It was like watching Nureyev at Covent Garden. One moment Terry was walking beside me, the next he was yelling, ‘What was that?’ and doing this sort of entrechat up in the air.

The pub was the highlight of the day – the weather on the moors at the start of the week was so bitingly cold you couldn’t stay out during breaks. We were filming at the top of the hill and lunch was right at the bottom. By the time we’d fought our way down in the howling winds there wasn’t actually time to eat and get back up, so on the really cold days we’d traipse over to one of the two pubs. The important thing was to grab something to warm you up. We used to come back full of rum and shrub, or brandy and lovage. Boy are they strong! We would literally weave back. Amazing how the freezing conditions sober you up.

We were staying in a place called Chagford in a charming old hotel, the emphasis being on ‘old’. The main problem with the place was the hot water. I don’t think the hotel was geared up for an army from White City descending upon it out of season. Basically, the first person to run a bath in the evening had the lion’s share of the hot water. I came home shivering and almost cried when I ran an ice-cold bath the first night. The second night I was cleverer. As soon as the closing scenes for the day were set up, my dresser offered to scoot back to Chagford and hit the hot tap. What a treasure! She dived in it first, which was fair, then I leapt in as soon as I made it back. Tom, Kevin and the rest had to make do with boiled kettle water or the icicle option.

Filming had some odd highlights. Back on The Time Warrior I discovered the amazing ability of Who fans to come out of the woodwork, no matter how remote the location. Sure enough, halfway up a rocky crevasse in Dartmoor, Ian and I were leaning against a rock with a flask of tea when a burst of giggles erupted behind us. Suddenly we were surrounded by a dozen schoolkids with autograph books. The difference this time, of course, was that I was the only one they recognised!

Towards the end of the week the weather improved enough for us to hang around the location for our snacks. Base camp was at the foot of the steepest hill so we all huddled for shelter in the makeup tent or behind the largest rocks. It was all a bit much for Kevin, though, whose scenes were shot at the top of the hill. His new suit was still pretty cumbersome to walk in and the head took ages to get on and off. So he said, ‘Look, I’m just going to stay up here during lunch.’

I said, ‘I’d love to stay and join you but I need to go down for a wee.’

‘No problem,’ he said. ‘I’ve found this cosy little nest in the rock. I’m all covered.’

So that day someone took his lunch up for him on a tray, with a little salt and pepper pot and a drink, and he sat there on his own, bless him! As soon as I’d finished, I started the long crawl back up. As I came round the last corner I saw the empty tray on a rock and Kevin relaxing in full Sontaran head and suit.

‘How are you?’ I asked.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I am fine, but a woman and her dog who came by will never be the same again!’

Jeez we had fun with Kevin! It was so sad, about six months later, when we heard he’d died of heart trouble – a great loss of a great character and a great friend.

*   *   *

That woman and her hound weren’t the only ones to get a rude awakening, though. At the end of September we shifted base to Hound Tor, near Manaton, to capture the scenes with Styre’s spaceship. In typically gung-ho fashion, Tom threw himself into recording. While he wasn’t as keen for his Doctor to be the ultimate Fighting Champion that Jon had enjoyed playing, he didn’t want him to be a pushover either. When the script called for a duel between himself and Styre, Terry Walsh offered to take over but Tom insisted on handling his end personally.

Meanwhile I’d been caught with manacles on my wrists that turned into snakes. With so many adders in the undergrowth anyway, it wasn’t hard to fake a reaction. The hardest part was keeping still enough for the overlaying images. As the fight went on, I was sitting on the ground on some sort of plastic sheet. Everything felt so damp it was like sitting in a wet nappy. I had my eyes closed when I heard this ‘crack!’ and a shout.

God, that sounded realistic, that’s good! I thought.

Then I heard fussing and Tom squealing in agony. The whole area was full of rocks, and so slippery and wet and muddy. But he hadn’t fallen – I think he was so cold that a sudden jerking movement had been enough to do some sort of damage. He was carried down the hill and then driven to the nearest hospital. Word soon reached us he’d broken his collarbone. I thought, Well, that’s the end of this serial. We can’t do it without the Doctor. With his new TB wig and coat, Terry stepped in to complete the fight (as I think you can see from the final version!) and took over lots of the other, more physical tasks, but the following day Tom was back, bandaged and sore, to take his place again in front of the cameras. We were grateful for that scarf and oversized coat because they hid his neck brace so well.

A lot of actors would have been quickly irritated by something so impossible as a long multi-coloured scarf but Tom revelled in it. Just having it there, potentially underfoot or wrapped around the wrong prop, gave every scene that sense of danger. He thrived on that, though. I did, too. Playing with uncertainty is one of the strongest things an actor can do – a quality we each admired in the other.

Speaking of costumes, I enjoyed a spot of fun with mine at Tom’s expense. I was trying – and failing – to get the Doctor’s attention while he was inspecting the transmat system. Tom naturally turned into an irascible grump for the scene – as you would in a relationship when one of you is concentrating and the other is messing around. I responded by taking Sarah Jane to an even more childish level. One minute I’m trying to talk to him, the next I’ve pulled my hat down over my eyes. Pure, ridiculous attention-seeking – boy, it felt good!