“Ooooh, journalists with egos. Don’t like ‘em!” — Magda in Absolutely Fabulous, 1994
She was fierce, formidable and thoroughly fearless. For three years in the mid 1970s — during the celebrated Barry Letts-Philip Hinchcliffe eras of Doctor Who — this alluring earth creature captivated us schoolboys and girls as the Time Lord’s first journalist companion. And then she did it all over again in the 21st Century. This is a potted history of Miss Sarah Jane Smith.
After two and a half years as UNIT’s civilian operative Jo Grant, Katy Manning decided to leave Doctor Who, thankfully with her clothes on, at the end of Season 10, broadcast in the summer of ’73. Thus, it was decided the “assistant” role — generally a slightly bubble-headed but well-meaning damsel-in-distress foil for our favourite Time Lord — needed not only recasting but a total shake up of what constitutes a companion on contemporaneous television.
Enter the introduction of sassy feminist journalist Sarah Jane Smith, possibly the best sidekick ever. Debuting with Jon Pertwee’s Third Doctor, in the Season 11 opener The Time Warrior of December 1973, Sarah broke the mould to portray the Time Lord’s new travel companion as an independent, inquisitive reporter rather than the all-too-soppy screamers of yesteryear.
Elisabeth Sladen’s first season would ultimately be Pertwee’s last as the Doctor, and years ahead of her time, she drags her role a little closer to equal billing. Even in her second story, Invasion Of The Dinosaurs — transmitted the month this writer started school, and, coincidentally, the first DW serial I can remember seeing, albeit via the requisite black and white rental set of the day — Sarah (the Jane came and went, depending on the Doctor’s mood) was more than capable to swan off on her own, investigate the evils, and demonstrate to captive scientists that they’re not really on a spaceship, all while the extraterrestrial eccentric is off out somewhere, probably driving his sci-fi-tastic Whomobile under a stegosaurus.
Sladen was, however, far from first choice to play the character she’d become most known for. For years it was known that another lady had won the role of Miss Smith, and that Lis had been offered the part at the last minute after it hadn’t worked out for the initial actress in rehearsals. Research for 2012’s DVD release of the Robert-Holmes-authored Dinosaurs uncovered BBC files that documented it was in fact April Walker who was let go.
Moreover, it has only been in the last decade the actress — who’d been in many of my parents’ favourite programmes by that point, including Crossroads, Dad’s Army and The Onedin Line — has gone on record to confirm she was indeed the original SJS. And that it was largely due to a non-disclosure pact, but also as a matter of courtesy to her co-star and replacement that she stayed shtum for so long. Pertwee died in May 1996, while Sladen died 15 years ago today, in April 2011.
Depending on who you wish to believe, Walker was released from her contract because Pertwee, who measured 6 foot 3 (1.91m) felt her tall stature (5 foot 8, or 1.73m, arf) was physically imposing, ie pretty blonde overshadows vain egotistical act-or shock. Or, after a warm and close bond with the pixie-like Katy Manning, he felt there was a lack of chemistry in the pairing. I’d hazard a guess it was probably a bit of both. Either way, producer Barry Letts let April go, paying her in full for her Season 11 contract.
It’s one off those great ‘what if’s of Gallifreyan time travel, I suppose. Though it’s interesting to note how you don’t get a free lunch from Aunty Beeb. The corporation managed to make their severance pay work for them by clawing it back when Walker accepted numerous replacement roles, including a turn opposite the Third Doctor Patrick Troughton in The Two Ronnies, as well as a radio spot with Pertwee himself, on The Navy Lark.
Most memorably for me, though, was an hilarious one-episode stint as Jean Wilson, one-half of an amorous “hanky-pankying” couple who check in to Fawlty Towers as part of the eponymous Wedding Party in the hope there’s air in the room. Batteries, eh?
By virtue of being the first companion in my long on-off viewing history of Doctor Who, Lis Sladen, of course, will always be “my” sidekick, and her two subsequent seasons as indispensable foil to Tom Baker (“my” Doctor, obviously) solidified the sentiment. So much so I remember this seven year-old Bletchley boy feeling all adrift that she was moving on to pastures further afield. Even if it was crummy old Croydon, where our own cousin, a TV presenter called Malcolm Muggeridge who was quite popular at the time, hailed from.
Starring opposite the previous article’s subject, David Tennant in a storey written specially for her, that Lis had a further crack at the DWhip when Russell T. Davies made Sarah Jane the very first companion from the classic era to reappear in New Who, in 2006’s brilliantly poignant School Reunion, was wonderful moment in the Whoniverse. And which proved so popular with fans young and old alike that her own spinoff in the shape of The Sarah Jane Adventures, set in the Borough of Ealing where Lis lived, was the icing on the cake.
Steve Pafford
