Elisabeth Sladen: The Autobiography

scene as standard. For example, we’ll start with a wide scene that captures everybody, possibly repeating this a couple of times. Then you’ll do the exact same scene from every character’s point of view. So instead of making do with a couple of pickups we actually have the whole scene played out with, let’s say, me in shot for the duration, then Clyde, then Luke, then Rani. Then the editors splice it all together afterwards. I’m sure it’s a lot more work for the technical bods and it’s definitely a lot more work for us because you have to say and do the precise same things over and over but the end results speak for themselves.

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When the decision was taken to hold Zygons back as the new season’s opener, Philip was faced with a new quandary: with Pyramids following immediately afterwards he’d be left with two Earthbound adventures in a row. After the Third Doctor’s economical but seemingly endless Earth exile, it was a pattern he was keen not to repeat. So the call was made to switch Pyramids and the next production: Planet of Evil. No one could complain about that story being Earthbound. The whole thing was set on Zeta Minor – a planet at the very end of the universe. And for the first time since Ark in Space, it was shot entirely indoors. It could literally have been anywhere.

I’ve always enjoyed the buzz of location shoots. That said, if you’re going to shoot indoors for six weeks, you can’t go wrong if some of that time is spent at Ealing Studios. The reason for being at Ealing, as it was with Genesis, was one of scale. Philip elected to pour the whole of a week’s location budget into recreating Zeta Minor in a single expansive studio set. Designer Roger Murray-Leach – the incomparable Roger Murray-Leach – was in on meetings from the beginning. His concept of a colourful, malevolent jungle was a triumph, I think.

Tom and I loved having a coffee and a laugh with Roger. We formed a great friendship, actually – just one of many on that set. If I’d been a happy bunny on Pyramids, this shoot was off the scale. Looking back, I’d say it was the zenith of my time on Who. I don’t think Tom and I ever got it more perfect than in Planet of Evil. It didn’t matter what was going on in the outside world or even in my own head – those doubts vanished when we were together. The magic of television never seemed more powerful to me.

I always say Planet of Evil is my favourite serial, but I do wonder if that’s because I had such a blast making it. When I sat down to do the commentary for the DVD the happy memories came flooding back. The performances are so chatty, so natural, as though they’re not scripted at all, and that typifies how we felt at the time. But I do wonder, with hindsight, if we were having too much fun, if there wasn’t the odd moment of, ‘Oh, you’re dying? Right, I’d better do something about that then.’ I’ll let other people decide for themselves.

Once again we had Maloney in the director’s chair, which just made the event so enjoyable. Bless him – he’s another one no longer with us. I loved him dearly, truly I did, and always had a fantastic time in his company. Like Tom, he had a sense of humour, very left of centre. He would always come out with the most unexpected line. Other times he could be very direct. I remember overhearing him talking to Andrew Rose, my costume designer on Evil.

‘Look, can we make Sarah look a bit more like a girl?’

Hysterical!

He was right, though. The whole ‘journalist’ persona had been well enough established by then – I didn’t need to keep the suits on anymore to be seen as a ‘serious’ woman. In fact, I was already beginning to have a bit more fun with her, to play around a lot more. Sarah had been so strait-laced with Jon and now it was time to let her hair down. We began to find a lot more frilly things for her to wear, the more outlandish the better. After all, I thought, She’s travelling in space now. Who’s to say what’s smart on other planets?

She’s whizzing around the universe in the TARDIS, meeting aliens with eight legs, one eye, fur, clothes, gaudy robes – you name it. Why couldn’t she become a bit more off the wall? So in Planet of Evil I wore a bodice, nothing like I’d ever worn in the show before. And espadrilles – they were all the rage then – cut- off jeans, a short-sleeve puffed jacket. It wasn’t quite so outlandish as Hand of Fear, but we were heading in that direction.

The thing about clothes, of course, is that they can alter your behaviour. It wasn’t planned when I first picked up the script, but I’m sure Sarah is a bit more girly when she’s in more of a fun costume. It seems so natural, why fight it?

I’ve been thinking about the quality of the scripts on Planet of Evil because, as I sit here now, the serial’s writer Louis Marks has just died. It’s very sad seeing those faces from my past fade away. At least with DVDs and videos a bit of them lives on.

I don’t know if Robert asked Louis for a ‘Jekyll and Hyde meets Forbidden Planet’ storyline – but that’s what he got. I love it when there are other references in the programme.

Of course the villain of Evil was the actual planet itself. It was quite a clever plot, I think. Extremely forward thinking and ecological – man can’t just ride into town, plunder natural resources and suffer no consequences. The anti-matter creature was very futuristic as well. But I don’t think Philip was terribly impressed with it, actually. Maybe he had imagined something else. I remember watching it on television at the same time as everyone else – I thought it was fine.

One of the bonuses of filming at Ealing is the fact it’s a bona fide film studio. Everything is set up for the director to be at the heart of the action at floor level, not cooped up on an observation deck. I really enjoyed having Maloney up close and personal. It’s one thing having a First translate the director’s ideas, another seeing on his face exactly what he wants before he says it. In that respect Ealing really was just like being on location.

We also had to do some interesting recovery work at the studio. Roger’s vast jungle set was so lifelike and sprawling that Maloney struggled to get the mics anywhere near enough. In the end a lot of our lines on the planet’s surface had to be dubbed later. These days we do this all the time but it was a novelty then. If you don’t time it right, the result looks like a bad foreign film, with lips and words not synching.

Roger’s set might have caused Maloney problems but Terry Walsh couldn’t believe his luck. As soon as we’d finished at Ealing Terry ran round and gathered as many of the exotic plants and fauna as he could carry. That night he crept out into his garden and planted them all within view of the house. The following morning his wife pulled the curtains open – and screamed, ‘Terry, Terry, you’ll never believe what’s growing in the garden!’

Poor Terry lost his wife quite young. That’s when you find out who your friends are. I got a call one day from Jon Pertwee. ‘We must look after him. We’ll have to take him round the conventions with us,’ he said. It was a sweet thing to do. Jon could be very considerate like that.

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