Well, allons-y and all that, because it just happens to be a certain Scotsman’s 55th birthday today. David John Tennant, or should I say né McDonald, was born on 18 April 1971 in Bathgate, a West Lothian town equidistant of Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Famously, as there was already a David McDonald registered with the acting’ union Equity, when this coruscating Caledonian was a mere slip of a 16 year-old he found himself in need of a name change. Thus, the polydactyly-afflicted actor (he has a sixth toe on his right foot) was scouring a 1987 issue of Smash Hits and decided to swipe his new name from the pop magazine’s former assistant editor. That’ll be Pet Shop Boys’ vocalist Neil Tennant, himself of Scottish and Irish ancestry just like his namesake.
Through his reputation as a burgeoning act-or, his pre-existing professional relationship with showrunner Russell T. Davies (the title role of Casanova), and his lifelong fandom of the series, Tennant took over the role of Doctor Who from Christopher Eccleston on Christmas Day 2005.
Arguably the most popular Time Lord since Tom Baker, when the Tenth Doctor spent the biggest part of his first story, The Christmas Invasion, asleep or generally out of it. This left everyone watching — including the chav princess Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) herself — in a state of befuddlement, wondering if this was really going to be The Doctor. By the end of that seasonal special, the universe had been reassured. New teeth and still not ginger, this was most definitely New Who’s our Doctor.
As someone who, since 1974, grew up watching the Time Lord as the aloof and eccentric alien I’m not a huge fan of the Doc getting embroiled in love stories, but I concede the Rose relationship was handled well enough that I acquiesced. Despite some superb stories — the triumvirate of Human Nature, Family Of Blood and Blink takes some beating — the subsequent Martha season in 2007 just annoyed me, though. Not because of the actress, Freema Agyeman, but just because the pining, unrequited love stuff was dull, mundane and took the edge off what could have been a promising character.
Admittedly, they redeemed her slightly by turning Martha into a kamikaze UNIT operative by the end of the fantastic fourth season of new Who in 2010, Ten’s standing, in fact. Talking of which, when Catherine Tate came along for an extended ride as Donna Noble after a brief stint in The Runaway Bride a couple of years earlier, the Doctor/companion vibe was arguably at its best.
Initially unimpressed by the smug spaceboy showing off, her character and their relationship developed beautifully with not even a whiff of soppy romance, and the show was all the better for it. Which is why when RTD returned as showrunner in 2023, the obvious pairing to celebrate the reunion frenzy in the 60th anniversary specials was CT and DT, though with the latter technically portraying a slightly different iteration as the Fourteenth Doctor, before he gave way in a swingingly camp bi-generation with the ultimately short-lived Ncuti Gatwa as Doc 15.
Ending on a slightly less positive note, allow me a spot of self-indulgent timey-wimey if I may, and we rewind a decade earlier to the afternoon of 17 March 2013. DT and I briefly worked on the same BBC television programme: he in the lead role (obviously) of a mini series called The Escape Artist and yours truly in my first job for the Ray Knight casting agency. Get me.
It was, alas, a minor role but John, Amanda and I certainly played up the surroundings of Inner Temple, a tranquil 16th century ‘hidden legal city’ comprising the historic Inns of Court, and its serene manicured gardens. All tux’d up and ready to go, I played a suited and booted guest in a rather posh dinner scene for the opening episode, which saw Tennant play a barrister called Will Burton ultimately accused of the ‘perfect murder’.
You know, your grandma always said if you have nothing good to say about anyone keep quiet, so I shall.. for now. Perhaps he was having a less than perfect day. We weren’t.
Steve Pafford
