Posted in: BBC, Conventions, Doctor Who, Events, Pop Culture, TV | Tagged: bonnie langford, colin baker, comic con, doctor who, london, sylvester mccoy

Sylvester McCoy Plays The Spoons On Colin Baker And Bonnie Langford

Sylvester McCoy plays the Spoons on Colin Baker and Bonnie Langford during the Doctor Who panel for London Comic Con (Spring).

London Comic Con (Spring) was a very Doctor Who affair. The big lines on Saturday were for Billie Piper and Anita Dobson – though Anita probably had the edge. This was Anita Dobson's first comic con, and her fame from her years on Eastenders has now been dwarfed, within the chilly walls of London Olympia, by her role as Mrs Flood in the Doctor Who Christmas Day special, The Church On Ruby Road. Not that she, or any of the cast of Doctor Who were giving any hints as to where their characters will be going. Or whether we will be getting the return of The Common Men.

On the Sunday, it was Bonnie Langford's turn to get the big line, and she also joined Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy on stage, her two Doctors from playing the companion Mel in the eighties and recently returning to The Giggle for the 60th-anniversary episodes.

And attendees got excellent value. As we started with Israel, as one of the audience members had travelled from there to the show. Sylvester McCoy recalled when he was part of The Ken Campbell Experience, long before Doctor Who, and they had been booked to perform in Israel as the Glen Campbell Experience and were faced with a very serious audience while he was sticking nails up his nose, setting fire to himself and blowing himself up. "Maybe that's where they got the idea…"

Moving on quickly, Colin Baker recalled that Israel had one of the biggest audiences for his first breakout hit, The Brothers, and when on a promotional tour and visiting the Wailing Wail, caused slight chaos when people stopped praying to run over to their bus to mob him.

There's always a bit of competition between Sylvester and Colin, but always in fun, between old friends who have been through the same grinder, as Sylvester told us, "I went out with Diane's cousin"  to Colin's reply, "So did I." "She was American." "No, he wasn't."

Sylvester McCoy recalled his own recent episode, The Power Of The Doctor, for the 100th anniversary of the BBC in 2022, how Sophie Aldred, who plays Ace acted against a brick wall instead of him. "She didn't notice the difference," but she turned up to feed him her lines when it was Sylvester's turn to film. Both Doctors also expressed their love for Jodie Whittaker. With Colin saying, "When you've been away, there is a fear of being one of the old ones, just turning up…." "Old ones, who were they?" asked Sylvester. "She was lovely, made us feel part of it again."

Bonnie Langford talked about her astonishment at the continued love for Doctor Who, "would any of us have said when we started, we'd still be talking about it now? It is so beloved, now opening to a wider audience with Disney Plus, all but one episode on the iPlayer when it used to be 'let's get rid of this old thing'. This show is loved and made by people who get it and love it still."

Colin Baker credited two people, BBC producer John Nathan Turner "Whatever you think of him, he kept it going when no one else at the BBC was interested. And now Russell T Davies, who is John Nathan Turner on speed, the hyper fan made producer. He's a great fan but also a hugely talented and innovative producer. Without them, you'd be looking at an empty stage. Fans get jobs so they can make Doctor Who, whether at the BBC or at Big Finish."

Colin Baker shared how he knew a Cambridge don who had quit academia to get a job at the BBC so he could move sets on the show; he loved it so much. Sylvester McCoy shared how it was such an exciting show for those in makeup, in wardrobe, and sets, able to create the wild and the exotic. And that Doctor Who was why they got into the industry in the first place, to blow things up!

Sylvester McCoy recollects that he met with Steven Moffat for the Doctor Who 50th anniversary in a Japanese restaurant, and "a couple of sakis in, he turned into an absolute fanboy; he knew more about the show than I ever did.  Same with Russell, like you are", he indicated to a cheering audience.

Bonnie Langford also shared that you never know who is watching you. She recalled that Russell T Davies went for an audition as an illustrator for the BBC children's TV series Playschool, and was in the building while they were recording the Doctor Who series Paradise Towers, and went to the BBC canteen where the whole Doctor Who cast were having lunch. And that it was that moment that led him to realise that he could stop just being a fan of Doctor Who and could actually make it."

Russell T Davies' first attempted Doctor Who script has now been made into a Big Finish audio adaptation, and Bonnie Longford found out she was in it on The One Show when he announced it. It was after that that he asked her if he could send her something, and that was the script for the Doctor Who 60th anniversary special, The Giggle, and was at the time, only one of seven people who had seen it and was asked if she fancied being in it. "Five months later, we shot it, and it  pretty much stayed exactly the same from the script to the screen."

They talked about the Tales Of The TARDIS anthology series on the iPlayer, with a little ambiguity as we would be getting more, with some lack of sureness as to whether Bonnie Langford had done one yet. Sylvester telling Colin, "Bonnie wasn't in Tales Of The TARDIS,  she was doing the grown-up show." Colin told the audience of his episode, "I felt a bit important, something I hadn't done for a while," and he relished the "lovely costume I got." He is also doing a Big Finish podcast alongside a reissue of some of the old Doctor Who scripts.

Bonnie Langford also recalled working with Honor Blackman for Terror Of The Vervoids, how she was very naughty, and they got the giggles, taking twenty-four takes for both of them to get through some line about killer plants. And that most of the time, Honor was happy to be just sitting in the corner doing the Telegraph crossword. Doctor Who wasn't Bonnie's first work with Colin Baker though; they were both in the pantomime season of 1980 in Dick Whittington, where Colin Baker played a King Rat and would regularly deviate from the script to the annoyance of a 16-year-old Bonnie Langford, who delivered the perfect put down to Colin, "you were so funny then, you nearly made me laugh."

Colin Baker was also asked about working with Brian Blessed on Trial Of A Time Lord. Colin described Blessed as "a law unto himself, a force of nature, he gets away with far more.. He's an explosion of sound; he's very rude but in a harmless way. I had no trouble with him." Colin said that it was difficult to tell stories about Blessed because the language would have to be so extreme. But he has a sharp shock when Brian Blessed had to pull out of a play, The Haunted Hotel. after he collapses and was taken to hospital after first night. It turned out that Blessed had taken the role just after climbing Everest. And the producer called Colin asking if he would step in to play Sir Francis Westwick. Colin Baker said it was not the message he particularly wanted, that a producer's first thought of a replacement for Brian Blessed was him. But he took the job and stepped in.

While Bonnie Langford worked with Blessed in Cats, and he asked her in advance, "Do I need to apologise for anything I've done?" There wasn't, but he did pull a sink off the wall in rage at one point backstage.

As for upcoming projects, no one can talk about anything Doctor Who related. But Bonnie Langford will, for one night only, appear in the stage version of Made In Dagenham, playing Barbara Castle MP, and she already has the red hair. Colin Baker is playing Sherlock Holmes in the radio play tour of Hound Of The Baskervilles with Terry Malloy, the original Davros, as Watson. "I'm the last you'd cast from the book, slim aesthetic Holmes, but it's just a stage, microphones, chairs, wonderful special effects with coconuts, gravel pits, slamming doors, wind machines, and audiences love it. And we don't have to learn it." Guest stars in the production will include former Doctor Who stars Nicola Bryant, Katie Manning, and his own daughter for a week.

Sylvester McCoy recalls being a soundman for a radio-style stage production and annoyed the rest of the cast by stealing the show, they all watched him making sound effects rather than the other actors. Colin feigned mock surprise at Sylvester McCoy being the centre of attention, which led to, what else, Sylvester McCoy playing the spoons ON Colin Baker while Bonnie Langford held the mike… and thankfully, the moment has been prepared for, and it's on TikTok already…

@thatrichjohnston Doctor Who on Doctor Who action, Sylvester McCoy plays the spoons on Colin Baker at London Comic Con (Spring) 2024 with Bonnie Langford #doctorwho #comiccon #london ♬ original sound – Rich Johnston

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!