You’ve also been working with Carole Ann Ford as Susan again.
I’m enjoying going back – you can’t really say that in Doctor Who, can you? – going sideways to the stories involving the great grandson and granddaughter. I’m fascinated by the history, the idea that Bill Hartnell first appeared with a granddaughter.
When one stands there on stage on your tod, yakking to 300 serious Doctor Who fans, sometimes it’s electric because you ask these questions about the mythology and there’s people out there with degree-level knowledge about such matters. I’m always amazed that people out there have timelines, essays in their head about what happened when and to whom. I never understood it to start with and was never a fan anyway as a kid, I just watched the other channel, I watched the football! But I’ve really grown to be seriously fascinated, as much by the people, by its adherents, as the stories themselves. I’m kind of a newfound… I don’t know if I can call myself a fan, I don’t know about anything, I couldn’t even get an O level in it, let alone a degree in it! But the last couple of years in particular the penny’s really dropped about it.
This really pleases me. Paul McGann has always admitted he was not a Doctor Who fan. He never really watched Doctor Who when he was young, nor did he ever understand it. However, over the years, since he started (I am saying “started”, because actors taking up the part never really stop playing the Doctor, maybe except for Christopher Eccleston.) he started to get more interested, even fascinated, by the characters and the stories in the Whoniverse. For me that’s a big reason why I love Doctor Who (the series) as much as I do. Of course I’ve got also a fascination with the Doctor, but never mind that… Anyway, I am so pleased because he (Paul McGann) now understands a great part of why fans love Doctor Who. And the fact that he hung in there with us crazy fans only receives bucket loads of respect.
Source: Interview in Big Finish Vortex Magazine August 2010
