Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actor best known for portraying Doctor Who, voted the best Doctor of all time.
On the island
Eight records
This is from their very first album, one of their best songs, Over in Dunman.
I kind of went back and started buying all his albums and just think he's one of the greatest musicians there has ever been, Elvis Costello.
This is the best concert I've ever been to. was the Glasgow SECC and it was the House Martins, their farewell tour just before they split up.
Well, this always makes me think of Scotland, and Glasgow in particular. It comes from the album Rain Town, which of course is about Glasgow.
This probably of all the songs on the on the list, this is the one that reminds me most of Doctor Who because I remember it being played on set a lot, I remember people singing along to it a lot.
White Wine in the SunFavourite
The two times I've seen him live he's finished the set with this and ... starts off as a sort of what seemed to be a sort of funny song but then just becomes a kind of a very simple heartfelt ballad to the importance of family actually and both times I've seen it it's left me in floods of tears.
This has possibly the finest lyric in the English language, which is how can you lie there and think of England when you don't even know who's in the team.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:40Do you walk down the street on your own [with your level of fame]?
I certainly do. ... Yes, but I often with a hat and keeping moving. Yes.
Presenter asks
6:27Was it when you were watching Doctor Who as a little boy that you thought about acting?
Absolutely. ... I believe I remember seeing John Pertwee turning into Tom Baker. ... And then quizzing my parents about what that was, and then very quickly getting ... what an actor was and that these people were actors who told these stories. And just thinking that that sounded like the perfect job.
Presenter asks
12:43Did your parents, did your father, the minister, try to talk some sense into you at any point [about acting]?
Yes, they did. They did, but I didn't really notice. But only because of that sensible profession to try and make a living at. ... They always have been to see every show that I've been in and been very supportive and hugely excited when it's been going well. So it's not that they were against it. ... They just wanted me to make sure that I'd be able to feed myself.
The keepsakes
The book
Marcel Proust
I'm going to go for Proust, à la Rocherche de Tom Perdu, because it's like a a gazillion pages long.
The luxury
solar-powered DVD player system with the complete West Wing
What I would like, if I'm allowed, is some kind of solar-powered DVD player system with the complete West Wing on it.
Presenter asks
23:28Did you bother to read any of that stuff [on chat rooms about your casting as Doctor Who]?
Because I was new to it, so I didn't realise how foolhardy that would be. ... people think, oh, I'd much rather have someone else. This is terrible. This is an awful choice. Of course, that hurt. And again, because I was invested in it as a child. It hurts your eight-year-old self and that that's quite hard to get over.
Presenter asks
30:34Would you like to have children?
I think it feels like an important thing to do. ... I'd need to miss out on that, yeah. ... my parents had had three kids by this age, so I'll have it none yet.
“I was doing it for my eight year old self, you know, who who had loved this show and had grown up a huge avid fan. ... And that eight-year-old self is still a a huge part of who I am now. So I think I felt the responsibility not to break it.”
“I remember that feeling of sitting in your bedroom playing records and thinking, Music is the most important thing, it's so exciting in it and it speaks to me in a way that's never spoken to anyone before.”
“There was a sense that doing Doctor Who had finally made me friends with the cool kids at school”