Elisabeth Sladen: The Autobiography

I’d said was ‘I’m quitting a TV show’ – I was just an actress, after all. Apparently other people didn’t see it so simply. Press interest was nothing like it would be today but it was still massive. Who, when, why, what? I had every conceivable question thrown at me. My agent was handling more interview enquiries than he knew what to do with. After a while of being asked the same questions, of course, you start to trot out the same rehearsed responses. For example, I remember more than once being asked what advice I’d give my successor. Remembering the scene in The Seeds of Doom where I was tied up and thrown into a deadly threshing machine, I joked, ‘It will help if they like bondage.’ That, of course, won me even more publicity. Apparently children’s TV stars shouldn’t talk like that.

Mandragora wrapped for me at the start of June. It had been fun. All I could think of, though, was, Four episodes down, four more to go …

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The Hand of Fear, my last story, had originally been intended as the closer to Season Thirteen. But by running late and moving to the second serial of Season Fourteen it had lost two episodes. That didn’t bother me – all I cared about was getting to the end.

This is the home straight, nearly there.

When I think back to how Jon soon regretted his resignation, I realise I was the opposite. I’d given as much as I could to the show; that was the best I could do. If I’d stayed, there was always the risk that it would have gone downhill. It was so exhilarating to leave on a high. Not to think, Oh, it’s not as good as it was. It was empowering, actually. I felt in control – and you can’t always say that in this profession.

Unusually, the first scenes we filmed were actually the first ones broadcast. And like a knowing nod to all the time I’d spent in one during my time on Who, they were set in a quarry – this time in Cromhall, Gloucestershire. From the moment I arrived to start filming, I was already aware the script asked for me to be buried under rubble. Now, depending on who the director is, this might be interpreted in a number of ways. Unfortunately for me, our director was the blood-thirsty Lennie Mayne.

And he fancied the literal interpretation.

It was quite a big deal when they blew the rocks up – it doesn’t matter how often you see them, dynamite and explosives always catch the eye. But then yours truly had to be buried underneath. Lennie was all for keeping me down there for as long as possible so he could get the perfect shot. Luckily for me, our First on that one was Marion McDougall. She’d been on Spiders, Ark, The Sontaran Experiment and Android as well. If you had Marion as your First, you knew it would be a good day at the office.

I had to lie on the ground and when Lennie called ‘Action!’ the rocks started to fall on top of me. Literally. They weren’t huge, they weren’t going to crush me to death. But it was terrifying and I felt every single one hit my body. I desperately covered my head with my hands for protection but even though I could stop the rocks hitting my face I couldn’t do anything about the dust. I could feel it coating my lungs with every breath. I’d never known claustrophobia before but another minute and I would have, I’m convinced. I remember thinking, You’d better get the shot, Lennie, because there won’t be a second take.

I’d been in there for God knows how long when I heard Marion say, ‘Lennie, I think Lis should come out now.’

‘What’s that?’ he asked, completely distracted by his camera angles. ‘Nah, nah, don’t you worry, Mother’s all right in there, she’s fine! Tell her to relax, we’ll just do one more.’

‘No,’ Marion replied, ‘I’m getting her out now, Lennie! Getting her out!’

They were a perfect match – Marion would look after you really well while Lennie was such fun. I still see Marion sometimes, always a pleasure to catch up with her. Unfortunately, Lennie died in quite tragic circumstances not long after we wrapped. He loved sailing and one day took his boat out in the fog and never came home. They found the boat but not Lennie – I think he was washed overboard. It’s a tragic, terrible waste of life and my heart went out to Pidge and their two daughters.

It was only Tom and me at the quarry but the full complement had arrived by the time we made it to Oldbury- on-Severn, just up the road, a few days later. No quarries this time – just a bloody great nuclear power station. Sometimes you look at these scripts and think, Well, it says we use it, but obviously it will all be in a studio.

Think again, Sladen.

Oldbury Power Station had been operational for nine years by the time we arrived. As far as I was concerned, it was just another location. You get driven somewhere, deliver your lines and go home; that was as complicated as I liked things to get. This one was just the same. It was only afterwards that I thought about how we were swept down with Geiger counters on the way out every day as a precaution. It sounds naive but I had no idea that place was radioactive. What if one of the girls had been pregnant, for God’s sake? I wouldn’t have gone in if I’d known but we didn’t have a clue. I just trolled onto the coach as usual, asking no questions, head in the clouds, la la la. Do the job, back to the hotel for a drink and a laugh afterwards.

I heard later that we got Oldbury because Hand of Fear’s writers, Bob Baker and Dave Martin, live nearby. They kept that quiet, the buggers! It would have been nice to pop in for a cup of tea.

One of the thrills of boarding the location bus, with your clothes case in hand, was never quite knowing who you’d find on there. For The Hand of Fear I was delighted to see Rex Robinson, who’d been Gebek in Peladon. Rex was never short of an anecdote or a kind word. Mr Versatile, Roy Skelton, was on board as well, unrecognisable as usual as King Rokon. Roy was always such fun on set – I don’t know why they don’t use him now. His voices just flow from him, without gizmos – and it wasn’t only monsters. Sadie used to love the kids’ show Rainbow and of course Roy would do the voices of Zippy and George. When they did Christmas shows with the cast’s Rod, Jane and Freddie, she got to meet Zippy and still has all sorts of things signed by him.

And then there was brilliant Glyn Houston – he really enjoyed himself. If I’m honest, I don’t think Hand of Fear was particularly well put together. In places it felt like a draft rather than a polished final script. It probably wasn’t the best episode to go out on because there were one or two boring scenes, but Glyn really enlivened them. He was exceptional value.

I have to take some of the blame for the pace of the thing. This was the second serial, after Android, where I wasn’t playing myself so you’d think I might have been used to it by then. For those who haven’t seen it, the explosion at the quarry unearths the fossilised hand of Eldrad, a criminal from millennia past. Sarah’s touch reignites its life and as a result, she is possessed by Eldrad. I think I should have played those scenes much more quickly; I remember toying around with it and no one said to do it differently so