COLIN BAKER ONLINE

Where did the summer go? I know where I went – nowhere much until a couple of weeks ago, when I got my driving licence back after six months of enduring the vagaries of public transport, which if you live in the country as I do, isn’t that regular or reliable.  Anyway, I have learned my lesson now and have the delight of looking in my rear view mirror and seeing cars desperate to overtake me because I am obeying the speed limit and they are desperate not to.  May be I should put a sign in my rear window saying – “Just got my licence back – sorry don’t want to lose it again!!”

So what did I do during the long summer months.  Well, a few conventions – one in Chiswick and one in Shepton Mallet in August for my cousin, Ian Burgess, which was fun.  We did it at what was then called BAPA (the Bristol Academy of Performing Arts) which is now called The Musical TheatreSchool, apparently.  My second daughter, Bindy is a student there now in her final year.

Daughter No 1 – Lucy has decided to switch careers and is training as a Primary School teacher in Oxford.  Until then she was working in TV – most recently as a researcher on ‘Eggheads’ – you’ll see her name flash by in the credits of the current batch of programmes.  No 3 – Lally is at Warwick reading Film and Literature and No 4 - Rosie is still at school doing her A levels.

At the end of August, I filmed an episode of Hustle in Birmingham, where they now film the series, after a couple of years of filming in London.  All my stuff was with Robert Vaughan – the iconic 'Man from Uncle' himself, which was a delight. He is not a young man, clearly, but you would never know it.  He was on set,  the week I worked with him, from 7 in the morning until 7 at night and , although tired (who wouldn’t be working a twelve hour day in their late 70’s?) delivered the goods.  I won’t spoil the story by telling you anything about it – but suffice to say that I am a ‘mark’ but I cause problems for the Hustlers!  Who would have thought that I would ever work with a member of the Magnificent 7? I think he’s the only left, so I won’t be working with any of the others.

I visited the Whoovers in Derby in September and had a great day playing railways at Midland Railway Centre at Ripley, near Derby.  It was such a good idea to combine a Dr Who Fun day with a railway museum.  The fans got to ride on a steam train with the lovely Anneke Wills and myself and at the other end we ‘convened’ in a railway shed. All around were leisure activities for the families as well as the stuff that would delight a railway enthusiast’s heart.  I got to stand on the footplate of a steam train and shovel coal into the boiler, the kind of boys' own thing which never fails to put a smile on your face.  I hope they do more days like that; everyone had a really great time. And I include myself in that, despite the journey up when my ‘real’ train from Buckinghamshire to Derby stopped in Birmingham and emptied us all out to the accompaniment of the message that the replacement driver was 'sick' so the train was terminating in Birmingham.  Then we had to find another way of getting to Derby!!  I certainly cursed my heavy right foot that got me caught speeding four times in three years then!

At the end of September, I did my Panto Press call in Malvern with the rest of the cast - Mike Fischetti, Amy Thompson, Douglas Mounce and Sarah Thomas (from Last of the Summer Wine) – all of whom seemed good fun, so I am looking forward to working with them all in a few weeks.  Gosh, is itreally nearly panto time again?

In terms of acting work all that I have done in the last couple of months, apart from Hustle, is half a dozen or so Big Finish audios.  I would happily spend my entire time recording Big Finish stuff.  It has been a great year for that for Old Sixie, as I have had my series of stories with Charlie (India Fisher) then the Missing Stories/Lost Adventures – ones written for the TV series but never actually recorded for various reasons, including the 1985 cancellation of the series.  And now I have been recording a series of stories with my friend Frazer Hines, whom I last worked with a decade or more ago when we did a summer season at the end of the pier in Bournemouth with another chum Linda Lusardi!  It was great to work with Jamie McCrimmon again (after the marvellous time we had filming in Seville in 1984)  He is a naturally humorous individual who must spend every waking moment reading the Ken Dodd book of gagsand one-liners – as he is never short of a double-entendre or quick quip.

It has, as you will have gathered, been a quiet summer in terms of acting work – mainly because I declined to work away from home while I was unable to drive.  But things are back to normal now and I am looking forward to heading off to Malvern for the Christmas season and I'll then take a deep breath and see what 2010 has to offer.

As you will read elsewhere on this website, Tim Hirst has asked me to let him publish a digest of my articles for the Bucks Free Press –the local newspaper for which I have contributed a weekly column for the last 14 years.  He is in the process of selecting the appropriate ‘gems’ and when he has done so I will add some linking material explaining, updating and enlarging where relevant.  I hope that you will find it diverting.  I know that some of you log on to the Bucks Free Press website to read and comment on my ramblings – and thanks to all of you for that.  The more hits and comments I get, the longer they are likely to tolerate my wittering. I am up to Article No 744 and am keen to get to 1000 articles without missing a week. I haven't missed one so far.  It might even be a record if I did, who knows.  Five years to go!

Off to Wycombe Wanderers tomorrow to see them play Walsall – we haven’t won a game for weeks, so here’s hoping the new manager, Gary Waddock,  can work some magic for us.  We are currently ‘propping up’ the division as they say.  The only way is up – as the song goes.  If only that were true.

Happy Halloween all!

I've been a bit busier since my last blog.  At the beginning of July, I was up in Birmingham filming an episode of 'Doctors' for the BBC.  I was called upon to play a rather sleazy professor who tried to hit upon aformer student who returned to the University as a visiting lecturer.  It was a most enjoyable job.  I got to work with Bill Ward - who played the nasty piece of work, Charlie, in Coronation Street and got killed for his pains.  He turns out of course (Bill that is) to be the most gentle, decent and amusing bloke and we had a great couple of days locking horns over the lovely Sara Stewart, who was the object of both our affections. I'll leave it to you to work out which of us she favoured when you watch it  should you choose to in October (14th I think).  Aside from my travel to and from the second city,  which you can read about in my articles from the Bucks Free Press on another part of this site,  it was a very pleasant experience - particularly so because I got to work for a lovely new director (to me anyway) called Sarah Punshon, whose name I knew from her theatre work and who created a lovely atmosphere in which to work.  Theatre directors are more often than not very good at getting the best out of actors when and if they move into television.

I also spent a very pleasant and very sunny and hot day in Basildon at the invitation of an old friend of mine, David Alacey,  who is a councillor in that Essex town which was celebrating sixty years of existence by laying on a great fete and jamboree for the citizens.  They had decided on a 'time travel' theme to reflect the sixty years progress, hence my presence. I hadn't seen David for a while and it was good to catch up with him. You may see his photo outside theatres all over the country from time to time with his Rat Pack tribute show -  The Rat Pack is Back. Check him out on www.franksinatratribute.co.uk

I have also recorded another Big Finish audio Paradise 5 which was yet again another excellent story, which we managed to squeeze in just before Nicola Bryant disappeared off to foreign and exotic climes filming a travel documentary.  Lucky her, say I, given the weather we have enjoyed this July. If "enjoyed" is the right word.  My only consolation is that the bad weather means I wouldn't have been able to drive around with the roof of my convertible down much this summer - were I able to drive! But I am nearly two thirds way through my enforced carlessness now.

A week after Basildon I was in Hitchen at their lovely little Museum where they too were having a Doctor Who day.  I spent several hours meeting local fans of the show and visitors to the museum and was very warmly received by David Hodges and the rest of the museum staff.

Then, two weeks ago,  I headed off to San Diego for the mammoth event that is Comic Con. I had heard about this convention but was unprepared for the sheer scale of the event. 130,000 people descended on this beautiful city on the Pacific coast to celebrate cult film and TV, comics, novels, computer games and art. 

And everyone goes to Comic Con apparently.  Johnny Depp even turned up at one of the panels.  Given the number of people thronging the vast convention centre it was almost impossible for me to have a good look round, but I did get to see some of the cast of Dexter, including thedelightful Julie Benz, and Leonard Nimoy, Brent Spiner from Star Trek were justround the corner from me, as was the ubiquitous John Barrowman, whom I met therefor the first time.  He was charming the socks (and probably everything else) off the throng of admirers that surrounded him.  I said to him that I was very glad he wasn't around when I was doing the show. I would never have got a look in! He laughed and politely suggested that the Doctor always had a look in!

When I returned home I told my daughters that I had also run into the cast of Twilight -  a film that I had somehow failed to register.  They seemed to have a huge following, I said and was then told that Robert Pattinson (who played Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter) is the hot star at the moment and I should be ashamed of myself for not knowing who he was. Twilight is apparently to new "in" cult film.

Each night I joined my host Gene Smith (who runs the annual Visions Convention in Chicago and has the franchise for Big Finish in the States) and his delightful and shrewd wife Karen for dinner, when we eventually found somewhere we could get into. 130,000 people looking for somewhere to eat in a small City downtown can put a strain on resources.  One night we were sitting outside one restaurant in the main drag, enjoying the evening sun and eating our pasta, when several hundred zombies came lurching and dribbling down the street, 'terrorising' the passers-by, complete with variable, but mostly excellent, make-up and frantic murderous stares.  Apparently this is a regular Comic Conoccurrence.  I imagine some of the residents leave town for the duration, while others rub their hands together with glee at the prospect of all the extra business. 

I must admit that the majority of convention attendees neither knew nor cared who I was. However the delight on the faces of those who did know, and were polite enough to pretend to care, when they discovered that a Doctor Who had troubled to traverse the pond to meet up with his American fans was mostgratifying.  Almost worth the experience of transatlantic air flight on crowded planes; though the fact that they hadn't changed the films for the return journey diminished the pleasure slightly, until I discovered the screen in front of me didn't work.  Then I was glad I had seen the films on the way out !!

Back to a performance of 'Love Letters' with my best friend Louise Jameson. We always enjoy doing this play together.  It is such a beautifully written and poignant and funny piece and each time we discover something new in it.  Last Sunday was no exception.  We were the inaugural production at a new pub venue in Eastbourne - The Lamb.  Newlandlord Jim wants to make the pub an arts venue and seemed very happy with this his first venture, which was mounted for him by Steve Scott who, among other things, puts on shows at the Underground Theatre in Eastbourne. 

The room was full to bursting and the audience were very receptive and appreciative.  It wasparticularly nice to see my cousin John and his wife Shirley, who had trekked over from Lewes to see the play with their friends Cynthia and Dave from Bristol. They were good enough to say that our efforts exceeded their expectations.  Mind you John didn't say what his expectations were.  He supports Brighton and Hove Albion so his expectations can't be that high!  Also there was my friend and vet  Malcolm who very generously gave me a lift home to Buckinghamshire.  After my journey down where I spent an hour and a half on a packed bus sitting next to sniffing Portuguese boy with a streaming cold and then another hour on a train behind two Italian boys playing the loudest version of 'Snap' you have ever heard- it was very welcome.

I'm off to the Fleet Air Arm at Yeovilton with another cousin,  Ian  (from the other side of my family) next weekend,  so if you read this and are coming,  do say "Hello".

And for now I'm heading back to the cricket at Edgbaston.  It's so frustrating,   but for the rain we would have put the Ashes beyond doubt, I think.   But we can still do it.  Come on  Freddie!

I have been enjoying the summer at Baker Towers - a rare experience for me as I am usually dashing around on tour somewhere.  Work has not been abundant I must confess, although i have turned some stuff down because of my enforced car-lessness due to my speeding carelessness.

However I am doing an episode of the BBC series Doctors next week in Birmingham which I am looking forward to as I haven't done a telly for a year (which is when the episode of  Kingdom screened last week was filmed in Norfolk - some people told me that they felt that they could 'smell' Mr Dodds - that animal loving yokel with a bitch of a daughter!)  A different kind of character in 'Doctors' - a smug sexist git of a University lecturer. Hopefully it isn't type casting! Well I may be a 'git' but I would object to 'smug' (as I have nothing to be smug about!!) and to sexist!  As a father of daughters I wouldn't dare be remotely sexist.  I'm the one who argues for a female Doctor. - perhaps the next one eh?

But I have been able to watch most of Wimbledon so far - and Queens - and the French Open Tennis - which has been fun - as I haven't been able to do that for a few years either.

I am doing another Big Finish in a couple of weeks too - one of the missing stories - but I have learned now not to say which one as I know the lovely guys at Big Finish like to announce these things themselves!!

I went to see The King and I last week at the Albert Hall - courtesy of some good friends who have a box there - and it was very good indeed.  It was that musical that I was watching when I was 19 years old and said to my mother 'I'd love to do something like that' and was overheard by the man sitting in front who was President of the local amateurs and persuaded me to turn up the following week and audition!  And that's where it all started really.  So it was nice to see another live production all these years later.  Maria Friedman was superb as were the young lovers and Daniel Dae Kim (from 'Lost'?) as the King.

I have been enjoying watching my favourite TV programme currently being shown - Dexter - which just gets better - and am eagerly awaiting any news about more Heroes.

My daughters are all about to return from university, school and drama school respectively for the summer - so it will be nice to have a house full again - until I start getting cross about mess and noise.  Fathers eh?  Never satisfied!

Otherwise, oh loyal Colin watchers, I have nothing much to report.  Hopefully the autumn will bring some interesting work - it had better, given the demands upon my shrinking purse of my daughters!!!

Enjoy the summer!

Back to the tennis!!!

Old Sixie - aka Colin

Well it's Spring at last and the bluebells are abundant in the woods around our home,  I can see a blue swathe of them out of the window of my study as I write this blog.  I also see my car.  Nothing surprising in that you may say.  But two weeks ago I had a jolly trip up to Northallerton where I appeared before the magistrates of that North Yorkshire town because a man with a radar gun - and more importantly a uniform - a police uniform - decided to point his gun at me, one sunny October afternoon in 2008.  The radar gun told him that he could stop me and tell me I had broken the speeding laws by travelling at 90 mph on a dual carriageway.

Oh dear - guilty.  And the annoying thing is that I wasn't in a hurry.  I was taking my daughter Bindy up to South Shields where we were doing a concert (her singing - me compering) for my friend George Hastings, conductor of a new orchestra which is trying to get the northeast interested in music by playing full orchestral versions of accessible music like film scores, and classic pop.

I was watching the road and not the speedometer. My generation of drivers got used to judging our speed by the road conditions and not the speedo.   The road was empty and straight and wide and we were both in a good mood, chatting and looking forward to the concert.  Now I know the speed limits are there for a good reason - but all the times I have been caught there has been no danger whatsoever.  I was radared twice in two days a couple of years ago - one going up to Scotland and one coming back the next day.!  I was doing another compering gig, funnily enough.  This tiime for the Royal Air Force band - what is it with me and orchestral music?

I was apparently doing 85 on the way up and 86 on the way back - as radared from a bridge in Midlothian on the A74.  Six points in one fell swoop.  The other three?  Doing 40 mph in an underpass in Canary Wharf on a Sunday morning at around 7am.  Again empty road.  In all three cases - completely empty roads.  And my Northallerton trip added the three points  that disqualified me from driving and turned me into a pedestrian - or at least a passenger!.  I had a lawyer who tried to tell the court that I needed a car for my work and my busy life!  I have earned my living principally from touring over the last ten years.  And when I am touring I only take the jobs because I can commute or get home regularly.  There are no buses or trains that can be get me back home to the remote area in which I live after the curtain comes down in Guildford, Milton Keynes, Cheltenham, Bath, Woking, Birmingham, Cambridge or Canterbury.  But they are all commutable for me by car in around two hours maximum each way.  But the lady with a decided plum in her voice and steel in here eyes (which never met mine once) who was chair of magistrates decided from the word 'go' that she wasn't having any truck with sympathising with my plight if she were to give me the full six month ban.  She referred to me several times as a 'serial offender' - which made me feel like  mass murderer.  It is at times like that when you are completely at the mercy of a strager who has no idea of  the effect they are going to have on the life of someone else - that you realise how lucky we are most of the time in this country.  There are places in the world where you are at the mercy of a ruling few the majority of the time - not just when the traffic police feel your collar. 

Anyway, now I cannot take any touring work until I am mobile again in October.  I know I could stay in all those places and just not come home but the cost of accommodation these days combined with my desire not to leave my girls alone in the country for weeks on end means that for me (and indeed them!!) this is going to be a belt tightening year!

Fortunately Big Finish rides to the rescue.  The missing season stories have meant that I have plenty to do.  I have done three of them already - having last week completed Paul Finch's adaptation of the splendid story his father wrote for my first season - Leviathan - which was never done.  And great fun it was too.  I can only imagine that the expense of the sets and spaceships required made it too expensive back in 1984 - no such problem with radio!  It LOOKS stunning!  I have been able to do a couple of Conventions too - a great day in Barking for 10th Planet - loads of guests, loads of attendees and a good day all round. I got to meet for the first time one of my heroes of tv comedy - the great Richard Briers - who turned out be every bit as delightful as I had hoped.  A fund of funny stories and a very sweet man. I heartd a bit of his panel and he had the fans enthralled. And I sampled the joys of the tube going through West Ham when there was a football match on at Upton Park.  Thank you Northallerton Magistrates.  I would love if it the ice queen who dismissed my appeals for a lesser sentence to enable me to work - were to be caught herself!  Mind you she probably has a chauffeur!!

I also went to Memorabilia at the NEC for two days and met quite a few chums.

I have been up for a few jobs and not got them.  A couple of West End musicals decided that they could re-cast without troubling me - sadly. And a TV programme similarly got made without enduring a contribution from me.  They didn't even bother to let my agent know that I was surplus to requirements.  Welcome to the real world, Colin.

So I have cleared out my shed.  Cleared out the attic.  Done my back in, gardening.  And endured the agony of watching Wycombe Wanderers nearly slide out of the automatic promotion spots in League Two and into the Play-Offs from which  they have failed to progress for the last two seasons now.  This time however, despite losing on the last day to Notts County - I was there, squirming with nerves  we have gained promotion to League One

to meet Norwich, Southampton and Brightonnext season.  Bring it on.  I think?

My wife and I were diners at Hell's Kitchen too.  That was great fun.  Superb food - and because we knew before the show started to air that were going to be there one night, we watched - and got hooked on - the whole series.  I never watch cookery shows normally - as the process of preparing food is for me a chore - not a subject for entertainment.  However Hell's Kitchen is of course more about the journey of the people and less about the ingredients and processes.  Loved the series, loved Marco Pierre - and really loved the food! I could happily dine there nightly!  No disrespect to my wife.

Two daughters birthdays this month.  Lally last weekend.  Rosie this weekend.  She is now old enough to drive - so here comes the expense of driving lessons!  But she is the last thank goodness.  It could come about that I will be supporting them and their cars - all of them - and not be able to drive myself if Rosie passes her test before October!  That would be ironic I suppose.

The only plus for me is that when we go out now - my wife is the one who can't drink not me!  Another glass of wine Mr Baker?  Yes, why not!

Have a good Spring!

If ever I post blogs on this site regularly, you should worry for my well being.  It will mean that I have time on my hands and am not working.  And not working, while I have two daughters at University and one still at school is, believe me, bad news!
Anyway not only am I largely at liberty right now, but I am also labouring under a chest thing that has followed the virus I picked up either in America or on the plane home ( I am very suspicious of the ill effects of the air circulation systems on long haul flights. Virus redistribution systems if you ask me... anyway!)  I am trying to shake it off so that I can go and strut my stuff out there and get some work - so staying in the house and answering the huge pile of fan mail that I always receive while doing a panto season - seems to be the order of the day.
Panto ended well - ironically I was literally the only member of the company who did not fall prey to the annual panto bug that caused various absences, understudy panics and cut songs.  Foolishly I thought I had escaped scot free - but at least I didn't have a repetition of last year when I was prevented from doing the last two days of my panto in Norwich, which was a source of great regret for me.
I had a week to catch my breath and then headed off to New York and LA for conventions for Gene Smith, who runs the annual Chicago Dr Who event in November every year and who also sells the Big Finish stuff in the states at doctorwhostore.com.  We had an amazing reaction in New York at Comicon at the Javitz Convention Centre.  I lost track of the number of fans who were amazed and delighted that there was  a Doctor Who actor in New York.  Apparently, none of us have been brought there for quite some time.  It was good to meet so many people who seemed genuinely delighted that we were there.  I even managed to get a couple of days free on this trip too. Gene and his amiable assistant, Jeff, and I went to see a recording of the Letterman Show, which was quite interesting, apart from the interminable queueing that preceded our entry to the studio in Broadway... and the enthusiastic young man whose job it was to get a bunch of people to start behaving like children and doing all that whooping that TV audiences are called upon to produce!  But Naomi Watts was an enchanting ( although size zero) guest and Letterman is a very accomplished presenter.  I wouldn't want to queue up for an hour again to see a TV show being recorded though - and I am amazed anyone does.
That night we went to see Chicago - Chicago in New York eh?  It was a magnificent production of a great show - and there was added value, as on our arrival there were flash bulbs popping - not for your blogger I hasten to add - but for Sully Sullenberger - the pilot who landed his plane so brilliantly on the Hudson River without anyone being hurt.  He and his crew were invited up onto the stage at the end and were given a well deserved standing ovation.  One of those " lucky to be there" moments.
My daughter, Lucy,  was in New York with her friends at the same time, so when the hotel I was staying at finally acknowledged that I was there (Lucy and I spent 24 hours searching for each other in New York due to the Hotel's inefficiency!!) - we met up for breakfast at a local diner a couple of times.  America does know how to breakfast - despite the difficulty in obtaining vegetables with meals later in the day!!  And the portions defeat even my appetite!!
Then on to Gallifrey, in Los Angeles.  I was a guest again of Gene Smith and the Doctor Who Store, so spent my time very pleasantly sitting in the Dealers' Room signing stuff, while Nicola, Frazer and Phil Collinson did all the hard work.  I got to meet Kai Owen from Torchwood too - who it seems is also a Manchester United fan and therefore a good bloke - and we shared a drink or two in the hotel bar. Also Keith Temple, an old friend and writer of the great Oood story of the last series of Doctor who, was a guest and it was great to catch up with him. although to my HUGE embarrassment I failed to recognise him for ten minutes of our conversation because he had lost so much weight since I had last seen him. I am so used to taliking to people who know me but whom I don't know at Conventions that I had uncconciously put him in that bracket. What an idiot!  And I caught up on all Nicola's news, too not having seen her for several months.  She is looking even younger than she did last time a I saw her - I suspect that there is either a picture in her attic or my eyesight is getting blurred!  I know she must be more than 35 but she doesn't look it!!. Anyway... all in all a very pleasant time.  And in addition I got time off to visit friends, including Michele and Randi who took me to visit their respective places of work which was particularly fun because she works at Disney (legal department) and he works for Warner (props and furniture) - so see below for pictures of me at those places - and on the Friends set!!  Michele also runs a cat rescue charity, currently looking after 42 of our feline friends - so I had very pleasant couple of hours visiting her and them.

All that and travelling Virgin for the first time added up to a very enjoyable trip.  I am definitely a Virgin fan now - a distinct improvement on the American airline I will not name that I flew when I went to Chicago in November.  Service, films, food all good.  And I love that advert too!!!
Quite a downer to return to a chest infection but at least the snow had gone.
Sadness at home too as we have lost both our fat deaf old Dalmatian - organ failure - and our top, alpha male cat Billy Bagpuss in the last month.  Poor old Billy picked up some poison somewhere and we found him under my daughter's bed, fitting.  Rushed him to the vet but too late.  Not a nice way to go - and he was such a stylish and sleek tabby that he deserved a better end.  Our old ginger cat, Tigger, who in her decrepitude sees the whole world of indoors as her lavatory is still with us. Ironic really - not that I wish her any harm....  Honestly.
Bindy, daughter no 2, was 21 last weekend and we all went out to TGI for a celebration (her choice) on the day.  Then she drove off back to her musical theatre course in the new car she had received.  I told you I needed to keep working!!!
My agent for the last decade, Jan Evans, announced to me over Christmas that she was retiring and closing the agency, so I had to find new representation.  I decided to re-join Barry Burnett, my agent for the decade before that, whom I had left in order to test whether the grass was any greener on the other side of the agent fence.  Actor insecurity!  In fact they are both very good agents and the work pattern remained essentially the same.  Employers either want me or they don't. Anyway Barry very generously welcomed me back into the fold and I am looking forward to picking up where we left off - and I wish Jan, who has also become a good friend - a long and happy retirment.
And now back to finishing the musical I am currently writing on commission - more of that in my next blog.