BONNIE LANGFORD....
“I got into the show because a friend of mine, Faith Brown, had been in a Cyberman story (Attack of the Cybermen). I said it was the sort of thing I’d like to do, and suddenly John Nathan-Turner was showing me this character outline for Mel. I said I’d like to do it and that was that – suddenly I was being besieged by the press and everything. I don’t think I quite realised what I was taking on.
“I think I was a bit of a shock to the system for most ‘Doctor Who’ fans. I didn’t realise how protective they were about their programme and having a slightly larger reputation for one brand of work than ‘straight drama’, I wasn’t particularly popular.
“I think the fans care deeply about ‘Doctor Who’, which is great, but it does mean that they restrict themselves – they should be a little more open-minded and not pre-judge things too much. I got a lot of ‘Oh, I’m not going to like Mel’ before I even started recording the show. People thought I was going to turn it into a musical or something, which is so stupid – ‘Doctor Who’ had been running for twenty-four yars before I came along, and I doubt one year of me was going to change it very much in the grand scale of things.
“Shortly after I arrived, we got the news that Colin was leaving, through no decision of his own, and Sylvester McCoy was joining. That became quite a scream because in his first story we had Kate O’Mara as the Rani. The three of us could not keep a straight face because of the great long scientific speeches Kate was doing. She memorised them all beautifully and by the time she’d get to the end, Sylvester and I would crease up and they’d have to start again.
“I left at the end of that year because I wanted to do other things. I also thought that after a while, people might get a bit fed up of this loon with red hair running about shouting ‘Doctor’, and I didn’t want Mel to be thought of as just another cipher. Her departure was fitting – she was going off to nag some other poor space traveller and drive him bonkers!”
