His appearance and personality may have changed dramatically over the decades he has spent travelling through time and space, but Doctor Who has always remained resolutely male.
However, it has emerged that the show's creator urged the BBC to give the character a sex change in a desperate bid to prevent the series from being cancelled.
Sydney Newman, who devised the long-running science-fiction show when he was head of BBC drama in the 1960s, was asked to help after the show suffered a slump in ratings in the 1980s and was taken off air temporarily.
He told Michael Grade, then the controller of BBC One, that the ailing series could only be saved by regenerating the Time Lord into a Time Lady.
Had the advice been accepted, actresses who could have been considered for the role include Frances de la Tour, Joanna Lumley and Dawn French.
Instead, the BBC played safe and replaced the incumbent Doctor, Colin Baker, with another male actor – Sylvester McCoy, a little-known children's entertainer.
Read more at www.telegraph.co.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment