Yahoo News Doctor Who actor says working with Tom Baker "wasn't a bundle of laughs"
Tom Baker's final series of Doctor Who is out now on Blu-ray and looking better than ever – with stories including 'The Leisure Hive', 'The Keeper of Traken' and Baker's swansong 'Logopolis' all having been painstakingly remastered.
Baker's final year saw the show undergo radical changes in front of and behind the camera, with a new production team, new title sequence and theme arrangement, and eventually a brand new regular cast.
The end result was a season celebrated by many fans, though it's no secret that there were tensions on set. Speaking at a BFI event, Christopher H Bidmead – script editor on the season – admitted that he would sometimes clash with Baker over the actor's desire to ad lib and deviate from the scripts.
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"We fought all that like hell and tried to put a stop to it," Bidmead recalled. "If we saw Tom doing something that was not in the script, we would come down and we'd have words with him – quite loud words sometimes!
"He wasn't allowed to improvise."
Bidmead admitted that he was "arrogant" as a young script editor, adding: "I believed that once I got the job, I understood the show with a deep clarity that nobody else had, and certainly not Tom – not Tom of that era anyway.
"Tom's view of the character was of no interest to me at all."
Baker was also romantically involved with actress Lalla Ward, who played companion Romana, which co-star Matthew Waterhouse (Adric) acknowledged led to "tensions" on the series.
"There were certainly tensions between Tom and Lalla, which affected the atmosphere in the rehearsal room," Waterhouse said. "It wasn't a bundle of laughs! I'm very fond of them both... but it wasn't an easy relationship and it wasn't easy, as a very young person, to observe."
Waterhouse observed how Baker's "whole performance would change depending on his particular frame of mind in the moment", but that the actor was "more relaxed" once Ward left the show midway through the season.
"The atmosphere was so different, and to be honest, so much more relaxed," he said.
Margot Hayhoe, production manager on 'Logopolis', also noted that Baker's demeanour seemed to have improved by the time he filmed his final episodes. She admitted: "I was actually terrified, because he had a certain reputation for being a little difficult sometimes!
"But he was absolutely fine. I think it helped that it was his last one... he wanted to leave on a good note."
Doctor Who – The Collection: Season 18 is out now on Blu-ray.
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