Ten Sitcoms Whose Stars Guested In Doctor Who

1. Gavin & Stacey star James Corden has made a return to Doctor Who in its thirty-third season and drew a fair bit of press attention. But featuring comedy stars in the show has been a long tradition:

2. Fawlty Towers: John Cleese was in City Of Death in a one-scene cameo as an art expert. I mention this because it is probably the most successful sitcom – certainly its twelve episodes are regarded as the most influential television comedy show by members of the BFI (according to a recent poll). Cleese’s cameo (along with fellow Cambridge footlights star Eleanor Bron) is fondly remembered and often YouTubed.

3. Butterflies:  Geoffrey Palmer was in Doctor Who And The Cave Monsters and Voyage Of The damned

4. Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads: Stars from this series appeared in two Dalek serials, Rodney Bewes played Dalek duplicate Stien in Resurrection Of The Daleks and Bridgit Forsyth played Ruth Maxtible in 1967’s Evil Of The Daleks

5. The Good Life: Richard Briers turned in a truly abysmal performance as The Chief Caretaker in Paradise Towers (1988), while Felicity Kendall played Lady Clemency Eddison in The Unicorn And The Wasp (2008)

6. The League Of Gentlemen: Mark Gatiss as Professor Lazarus in The Lazarus Experiment, and Gantok in The Wedding Of River Song, and Steve Pemberton as Strackman Lux in Silence In The Library.

7. Only Fools And Horses: Roger Lloyd-Pack as John Lumic in The Rise Of The Cybermen/The Age Of Steel (2006), John Challis as Scorby in The Seeds Of Doom (1976)

8. One Foot In The Grave: Richard Wilson as Doctor Constantine in The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances (2005), and Annette Crosbie as Mrs Angelo in The Eleventh Hour (2010)

9. The Liver Birds: Polly James in 1982’s The Awakening and Nerys Hughes in Kinda (1984) both starred alongside Peter Davison.

But the first star of Doctor Who, William Hartnell comes from a venerable sit-com:

10.The Army Game (1957-1961). He is in good company: First Ice Warrior Varga from The Ice Warriors (1967) was played by Bernard Bresslaw, and Bill Fraser played Grugger in 1980’s Meglos.

So in general, it’s a very good ploy for Doctor Who directors to cast comedy stars. In most cases they can act, in some cases, they turn in an exceptional performance. The only real clunker in this list is Richard Briers who, having given sterling service in Marriage Lines, Ever Decreasing Circles, and The Good Life,  and proved himself in “serious” theatre, chose to ham it up carelessly in Paradise Towers.

Big Brother & Gooodfellas

When Big Brother was first announced, it was described as a social experiment, with psychologists commenting on the behaviour of the inmates. It wasn’t supposed to be tabloid TV, but what you might expect to see if Radio 4 were on television…..It’s interesting to watch people. With the “celebrity” versions, we are saved some of the initial time investment – we know the characters. there’s an added level of intrigue “why would so and so want to do this show?” “Did they not realise cameras were on them all the time?” Unfortunately the tabloid side took over and we were left with people screaming at one another and being racist enough to obscure anything else that happened on television that week… so I have instead watched Goodfellas. I was interested to watch it because I really like gangster films, and Brighton Rock, Get Carter, and The Long Good Friday are in my top 100 films. A lot of people whose views I respect think this is a great film. But this was not that enjoyable. Overlong at nearly two and a half hours, it is the story of one gangster from his life as a teenager to his rise in the gangs of America and eventual retirement. This film seems at first glance to differ from the Godfather in that these are not Mafia gangs, but in fact they are, and this makes it a little like a copy of that film. There are killings which are shown as casual and brutal, but because no sympathy is built for the characters being killed, the deaths seem incidental, more like the behaviour of the gangsters is being described in documentary fashion, rather than a moment of dramatic impact. Ray Liotta and Robert De Niro turn in good performances as the main anti-heroes in the film, and there are some nice bits of cinematography (the cinematographer won the LA Critics’ Award for it). There are major problems with the performances of most of the actors at several stages in the film, where it feels like they are improvising their dialogue. This is distracting and occasionally feels as funny as Joe Pesci’s miscast performance (yes, he’s funny like a clown), though Joe won the film’s only Academy Award, so some must have welcomed the comic relief.