Elisabeth Sladen: The Autobiography

‘I don’t like this – it’s a bit high.’

If we could have faked it on the blue screen, I think he would have been delighted.

I put a lot of trust in our film cameraman, Elmer Cossey, who was the one calling the shots that day. I remember talking to him at Ealing that morning. Just general chit-chat, and then he said, ‘So, Lis, do you want to see your wall?’ I think he’d been looking forward to seeing my face, the little so-and-so.

The problem with having a technical bod in charge, of course, is they’re never satisfied. The first time Stephen and I managed to fight our way up I thought, That wasn’t so hard, we’ll be finished early today.

Not a chance.

We spent the entire day going up and down, up and down this bloody wall. The distance between bars was just too great to be comfortable for me. Another six inches closer together and I could have managed them. As it was, I’d just get a foothold then really have to overstretch to reach the next rung. The following day I could barely lift my hands to head height.

The only plus side of the whole experience is the end result. There was a chance it could have been another stunt that looked rubbish on telly, like my big leap in Peladon, but I think Elmer captured the scale of the place pretty well.

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Back in the safe arena of the Acton Hilton we rehearsed as normal for six studio days, filming, largely, in episode order, plus the odd out-of-sequence bit if it saved on scenery. Maloney’s inspired idea of only having the Daleks indoors paid off. They’re pretty menacing in the right environment, aren’t they? As usual we had John and Cy but this time round, Murphy was replaced by Keith Ashley. It’s funny to think you can conquer whole galaxies with just three Dalek operators …

As before, the Dalek boys all learned their lines for rehearsal. In the studio, however, as Michael was playing Davros now, it was Roy Skelton who took over. Roy is the master of Dalek voices, he really is. Brilliant to watch as well. He’d be in the studio, headphones on, studying the screen and acting out all the parts. When the Daleks argue among themselves, he’s just hysterical.

One of the more threatening aspects of Genesis is the whole ‘master race’ undercurrent. I think Terry Nation originally worked a lot of Nazi allusions into the show with Robert and Philip’s blessing, although these were watered down in later episodes. (Lovely Guy Siner, who plays Ravon, would of course go on to play a rather camp Nazi in ’Allo ‘Allo!) Spotting the similarities does add that layer of menace, I think. If you’re too young or naive to spot the allegorical references, that’s fine too.

There’s a hint of a ‘final solution’ in Genesis, of course, which threw up all sorts of issues. The Doctor realises he has the opportunity to connect two leads and prevent the Dalek race from ever existing. Harry and Sarah urge him to act for the sake of the future universe but he can’t.

And Tom couldn’t either.

It was a big moment at Television Centre when, as we were actually preparing to shoot these lines, Tom just said, ‘No, I can’t do this.’

He just stopped the whole thing. Refused to go on as it was written.

‘Maloney, this isn’t right,’ he called up to the gallery. ‘We need to think this through seriously.’

To put this into some sort of context, Tom’s suggestions were often along the lines of: ‘What if there was a Mer-man sitting at my feet? Wouldn’t that be astounding?’

‘Er, I don’t think we have the budget, Tom,’ would be the normal excuse. ‘But thanks …’

This time he was being deadly serious.

‘Think about it, Maloney. I’m the Doctor – I can’t go around wiping out entire civilisations. Do I have the right?’

They struggled with it for ages. Tom was very uncomfortable. Rewrites were drawn up and a lot of his questions made it into the script. It was powerful stuff. Not exactly the sort of debate you find on your average kids’ programme.

So we went from an exciting scene in a fast-flowing episode to a major philosophical discussion point, thanks to Tom.

Over the years, of course, the Doctor has theoretically wiped out the Daleks several times (I even helped him in Journey’s End). If Philip and Robert had their way, they would have been killed off for good in 1975: neither man could stand the Daleks and I think it must have been pretty galling for them to have to work on Genesis which, like the rest of Season Twelve, had been commissioned by Barry and Terry as part of their outgoing duties.

*   *   *

Part one of Genesis of the Daleks went out in March 1975 – impressive considering we only finished shooting Episode 6 on 25 February. When you’re airing shows so rapidly after wrapping there’s a risk the end result will suffer. This one certainly didn’t. The whole serial attained, I think, a punchy realism that was hard to beat at the time. Some would argue it was too realistic. In fact, Mary Whitehouse did argue that very fact – and quite a lot more. Younger readers won’t remember Mary, but she was a campaigner for standards on television and radio. She was quite a celebrity in the 1970s and 80s, always on the warpath about the levels of sex or violence in this programme or that. Her name has become synonymous with censorship, and not always for good reasons, I think.

In a way it was a compliment if Mary Whitehouse noticed you. Once she started her sabre-rattling about Who I thought, We’ve really arrived now. But she really went ballistic at Genesis of the Daleks. ‘Tea-time brutality for tots,’ she called it. Apparently Davros was too scary, which he was meant to be – Christ, he terrified me – and there was too much violence. I heard Terry Nation thought it might be a bit much for kids. Philip Hinchcliffe disagreed and so do I. I mean, the message of Who is very clear: it’s good versus evil and there’s a hero and good always triumphs. And if you take away anything from the programme it’s that you should never give up. Time Lords, journalists, navy doctors – we can all make a difference. Barry came to me once and said, ‘Do you think it’s too much for children?’