Go to Part Two of the Nicholas Courtney Interview

Five Rounds Rapid, do you think it was a good line or a bad line?

Well, I think it was a very good line in The Daemons that’s why I used it for the book (my autobiography). It was only a working title as a matter of fact. When I was first persuaded to do the book someone said, “Oh why not call it Five Rounds Rapid?” because it is a very popular line from a very popular story and originally Barry Letts thought of it - because he wrote some of it. Terrance Dicks who was the script editor said, “chap there with wings, five rounds rapid, hmmm…” and he wasn’t sure about that at first but it then became, because if the way it worked out, a classic line. Well, it’s a very funny line if you look at the script. There’s Bok the demon and he’s given five rounds rapid!

I suppose it was a way of rationalising the situation. There’s this demon who is just a “chap with wings” to the Brigadier.

Well that’s what’s so wonderful about it. It’s a typical Brigadier line. So it became a very well known line indeed. A friend of mine did T-shirts of me with Five Rounds Rapid on it. Anyway, when I had written most of the book and I had signed the contract with the publishers, my wife suggested a better title, and it WOULD have been a better title. But the publishers said it was too late as they had got America interested in the book and I had to give way to them. They wanted to keep Five Rounds Rapid but what I would have liked for people outside Doctor Who was the title A Soldier in Time. I think it would have been much better because that would have applied to my experiences in the army and that sort of thing. As I say, my wife suggested that but the publishers wouldn’t let me have it, which annoyed me very much, but they insisted. So eventually I said, “Well look, alright, I’ll give way to you but I insist on having an index of all the people at the end of the book.” That’s a very good thing to have because I can refer to the different people I’ve been around during my career. They didn’t want to do that at first so I told them I wouldn’t agree to Five Rounds Rapid. So they eventually, with some persuasion, put this index in the back of the book. Mind you, my own criticism of the book is that the print is too small. I don’t know why they had to do it as small as that, but what could I do? You see once you have written the book you are in the publisher’s hands.

Were you happy with the large, hardback format?

Well I didn’t expect it to be like that! I expected it to be like… Tom Baker’s book for example - that sort of thing - but they decided that they wanted to do it with lots and lots and lots of photographs. So once again it was a fait accompli! I wasn’t sure about the format and I thought, “Oh gosh! £17.99 is rather a high price to ask!” but they were determined to do it and once again I couldn’t say anything because I had signed the contract and therefore was in their hands. I wouldn’t have chosen that format.

There was a precedent set with I am the Doctor! , wasn’t there?

Yes, Pertwee’s book that Virgin did was like that, too.

I noticed your book was edited by John-Nathan Turner. How did his involvement come about?

Yes, JNT. Well, originally it wasn’t going to be.

So he was quite a late addition to the idea?

Yes he was, because originally I had booked someone - who shall be nameless - who knew Virgin. I thought, “First book I’ve ever written, I’d better have a bit of help editing - very important.” Well, to cut a long story short, when I was writing the book - which took about a year - half way thorough he started messing me around a bit and he tried to get my copyright and he wanted it done (his way) and I thought. “No way, I’ve written the whole thing!” so I paid the guy off rather than have an argument. I got rid of him because he was being a bit naughty… Actually, I don’t know whether this should be for publication or not!? I haven’t mentioned his name… perhaps you’d better cut that out, but I’m telling you anyway! Eventually I thought, “What I am going to do now?” So I asked John Nathan-Turner, who has been a friend of mine for years and years - he was a Floor Manager at the BBC, you know in the early days - and he’s a great friend of mine. He was Best Man at my wedding about five years ago. So I asked him, though I didn’t think he would be interested, and he said; “Yes, I will do it,” and that was the idea. He did all the technical stuff, which I can’t do - I don’t understand it, I did it all in long-hand - he did all that and got the floppy disk out and he went to the publishers and all that. Anyway, I thought it was a good idea to have somebody like John, who after all knows a lot about the programme, and he was someone I could trust, you know. And I knew he wouldn’t try and pinch my copyright!

Did the book go through many drafts before it ended up in its present form?

No… some of it was changed. The early bits that I wrote were edited because the guy whose was originally editing was very good actually - he knew what he was doing - but he suggested certain things but… as time went on it DIDN’T go through many more drafts actually. I started writing it with a lot of thought and then I was trying to meet the deadline, you know, “It should be in! It should be in!” As I say it took about a year - it was about a month late but that was nothing. So, no it didn’t go through many drafts partly because I am blessed with a very good memory and I wrote a lot from memory. I didn’t start writing the book at the beginning, I started it in the middle, as you do, and I wrote about the stories… Inferno… and I thought I’ll do all the stories first and my memories of those and then I got round to starting the beginning.

Was it actually your idea to write an autobiography in the first place?

No, somebody persuaded me - a friend of mine called Daniel Cohen, who gets an acknowledgement in the book. We were talking two or three years ago and I had actually thought of writing a book a long, long time ago - a fictional Brigadier story - and Daniel said, why not make it anecdotal because you’ve had quite and unusual and interesting life so why not write an anecdotal autobiography? So he pressed me and pressed me and finally I said; “right, now I’ll get down to it and do it.” It took me a long time and I had been promising for a long time. So it was actually a friend of mine who was nudging, nudging, nudging. Otherwise I would never have got round to it, so I am very indebted to that guy. As I say, my original thought was to write a fictional book, but he said; “no, write an autobiography” and I’m glad I did, because I suppose I have had a fairly unusual life I suppose.

Are we going to get benefit of this fictional idea eventually?

Oh, well I haven’t worked that out yet. I started writing a fictional story way back in… hmmm… when I was in The Mousetrap   in… 1988. I started writing a fictional story and never finished it. So I may take that idea up again, or I may have another idea, I’m not sure yet. If I do write a fictional story of the Brigadier it will be centred round Geneva, I think. I had an idea that the Brigadier would be there because there’s a meeting between the World Health Organisation -WHO - you know! (laughs) or it’ll be some security thing with the Arabs and Israelis meeting at some peace conference, with the Brigadier in charge of security and an attempt made on his life. Anyway, that’s roughly what I started to write about, but I didn’t get very far with it.

One thing we did want to ask you about was Roger Delgado himself. Wasn’t it sad that he died in such tragic circumstances?

Terrible - a tragedy. He was a very well loved member of the cast.

Apparently it was a tribute to his acting skills that he was able to play the Master as everyone says how sweet he was.

Oh, he was a gentlest man in the world - a charming man. He was what I called a “pipe and slippers” man. We went to dinner once with him and he had his slippers on! I don’t actually know if he smoked a pipe though! He had taken us all to dinner and he was so courteous and a true professional and he loved being in the team of Doctor Who and it worked very well bringing in the Master - they worked very well those stories. He was very good, Roger and in The Daemons he was wonderful.

That was written under the pseudonym of Guy Leopold, wasn’t it?

Yes, it was in fact Barry Letts and Bob Sloman.

Didn’t Bob Sloman write The Time Monster? Roger Delgado was brilliant in that too.

The Time Monster? Yes, I’m hardly in that one if I remember rightly! Just near the end.

You did the slow-motion running in that one.

That’s right I did!

Yes, that was pre-The Six Million Dollar Man!

(laughs) Yes, I remember when Pat Troughton and I were doing The Five Doctors we had to do some running - Jon Pertwee took the mickey out of us!

Did you ever envisage that when you were first offered the part of Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart that thirty-five years later you would still be playing the part?

No, I had no idea whatsoever!

Do you think the role has taken over your life?

Well it has to a certain degree, yes but I don’t regret any of it at all. My career might have gone in a different direction entirely. But no, I had no idea at all. I think it was quite a lot to do with Douglas Camfield who directed me when I did the William Hartnell story (The Dalek’s Master Plan) where I got killed off and also directed the Web of Fear. He was very complimentary about the way I played this Colonel - especially as I was only a trooper in the army - but (after The Invasion) when Patrick Troughton was leaving and Jon Pertwee was taking over they got the idea of U.N.I.T. Then Peter Bryant got the idea and offered me a two-year contract, which I jumped at because I liked the idea of the security as my daughter was about to be born so I thought that would be wonderful. But no way did I think that it was going to last as long as it has. After Terror of the Zygons I thought; “that’s it!” I was very depressed doing that story because I thought that it was the end and I had got to know this character rather well and what a shame it was. I was quite convinced that it was the end, but no! John Nathan-Turner brought me back some years later. …And he brought me back again! Twice and three times! And then there were the spin-offs and the radio shows and everything else.

That brings us nicely on to Big Finish. Can you tell us a bit about that?

Well, I have already done something for them called Oh No It Isn’t!   Which is a pantomime - an audio pantomime - and I play Wolsey the Cat. It’s a mixture of Sci-Fi and pantomime. Nick Briggs wrote that [actually it was a book written by Paul Cornell, edited for audio by Jac Rayner and directed by Nick Briggs - Ed ]. I’ve known Nick Briggs for a long, long time, he’s interviewed me before for Doctor Who Magazine and we’ve been mates for ages. Anyway, in January I am going to do a Big Finish story with the Brigadier and Colin Baker.

To tidy things up!?

Yes, to “tidy things up”, although I did meet Colin Baker in the Dimensions in Time special - that strange 3-D thing they did. JNT thought; “we must get Nick!” as I had worked with six Doctors and as you’ll remember I shake hands with Pertwee as he gets on the helicopter and shake hands with Colin as he gets off, or whatever. But yes, it’s going to be a Colin Baker story and, I don’t know, either Nick Pegg or Nick Briggs is going to direct it, I’m not quite sure. But I’m going to be doing an audio version of my book as well - I’m doing that next month, in two or three weeks time I think. Gary Russell came out and we talked about it before I came up here - of course, an audio version of the book will have to be cut or abridged - and then I’m doing a Brigadier/Doctor Who story, which is nice. So, as you say, it has taken over my life now - since I celebrated my seventieth birthday the other day! I have been around the character a very long time.

To rewind to your very earliest involvement with the show - The Dalek’s Master Plan where you played Bret Vyon - opinion is quite mixed about what Bill Hartnell was like to work with...

Well, he was ill at the time actually and he was very tetchy. Bill could be very difficult, very tetchy. I got on okay with him, he seemed to like me and I had no trouble with him at all. But yes, he could be difficult and he was a bit bigoted. He liked me because he thought I was so English, you see!

when you came to do The Web of Fear you started of as a Colonel. Was there any sign at that stage that you would be back?

Yes, after The Web of Fear I was indeed approached by Peter Bryant who was the Producer at the time and Derrick Sherwin (who was the story editor) asked me if I would like a two year contract. They said “we’ll do this story called The Invasion as a dummy run to see if this idea of U.N.I.T. works” - which presumably it did - and I got a two-year contract. So I was approached after The Web of Fear to see if I would be interested in doing this seven-part story called The Invasion and that led on to when Pertwee took over.

The first full-on U.N.I.T. story was Spearhead from Space and that was when the two years started.

Yes, it was two years which brought us up to The Daemons and Barry (Letts) said to me, “The Doctor has cleared off into space now but we may bring you back for the odd story.” They asked me to come back for one story but I couldn’t because I was doing some theatre then and of course eventually Tom Baker took over and I did Robot with him when he took over from Jon. A year later I did Terror of the Zygons and I thought that was it. The Brigadier retired and became a schoolmaster in Mawdryn Undead. That’s a very odd story and I could never understand it! It was called Mawdryn Undead but it brought a new companion in, had the Black Guardian in it and it brought the Brigadier back and it was called Mawdryn! It was a very complicated story - apparently it’s very popular but I’m not sure that I understood it! Mind you, I’m not a huge Science-Fiction fan - I don’t understand a great deal about it even if I have been involved in a Science-Fiction programme for over thirty years!

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