Posted in: BBC, Doctor Who, TV | Tagged: doctor who, Miriam Margoyles, Star Beast, tom baker

BBC Said Miriam Margolyes Was "Too Fat" To Be Doctor Who Companion

Miriam Margolyes says, "Tom Baker wanted me for his sidekick, but they wouldn't have it because I was too fat. I couldn't fit in the TARDIS."

In a 1983 interview with Tom Baker, as he was about to play Sherlock Holmes for the BBC in Hound Of The Baskervilles, he was asked about his time on Doctor Who. He told them the companion he would have chosen for the Doctor if he'd been allowed to, saying, "A companion? Oh, I'd have chosen someone like Miriam Margolyes or Patricia Hayes or Sylvia Coleridge." Well, it looks like it was more than just fancy. Talking to Clive Anderson on BBC Radio 4's Loose Ends, Miriam Margolyes OBE talked briefly about her upcoming role on Doctor Who as Beep The Meep, an experience she described, saying, "it's lovely, I'm really quite pleased about that." But also added, "Tom Baker wanted me for his sidekick, but they wouldn't have it because I was too fat. I couldn't fit in the TARDIS." Clive Anderson pointed out that the TARDIS was bigger on the inside, "I didn't know that then!"

She also talks about the offer in her new autobiography in slightly less frank language. "I've never been a science-fiction fan – quite the opposite – but I have always loved the various Doctor Whos (or is it Doctors Who?) I've met. Some forty-six years ago, the delicious rainbow-bescarfed former monk and fourth Doctor Who, Tom Baker, had requested me to play his assistant. But it was not to be. The BBC baulked at a bulky sidekick for the Doctor. Instead, they chose the lovely Louise Jameson as Leela and the robotic dog K9. (Fools!) But almost half a century later, things have changed, and I've been allowed to join Doctor Who in November 2023."

The career of Miriam Margolyes has mostly been theatrical, but is also known for her film roles in The Age of Innocence, the Harry Potter series. Little Shop of Horrors, Little Dorrit, Romeo + Juliet, Being Julia, as well as her voice roles for Babe, James and the Giant Peach, Mulan, Happy Feet, Flushed Away, and Early Man. TV roles include Kizzy, Blackadder, Cold Comfort Farm, Vanity Fair, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Call the Midwife, and considerable amounts of voiceover roles for pornography.

She most prides herself on her Dickens work, including her 1989 one-woman show Dickens' Women and the spinoff book. She has written two autobiography volumes, This Much is True and Oh Miriam, and has gained new fans from her appearances on Graham Norton's chat show. She will appear as the voice of Beep The Meep in Doctor Who: Star Beast based on the Pat Mills and Dave Gibbons comic strip next month.

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