Sir Tony Robinson’s ‘history with a twist podcast’ Cunningcast is releasing an episode dedicated to Doctor Who ahead of the brand-new BBC series.
Fresh off the back of celebrating 60 years of Doctor Who last year, and looking ahead to welcoming Ncuti Gatwa as the 15th Doctor to the show, Tony is joined by Sophie Aldred, Doctor Who’s first ever assistant Ace, and the journalist and Doctor Who superfan, Matthew Sweet.
Together they look back over six decades of the show, sharing the low-down and gossip from the first episode starring William Hartnell as the Doctor.
Tony remembers watching it back in 1963, the cutting-edge soundtrack created by Delia Derbyshire at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, hearing how Sophie got the role as Ace aged just 24, the ‘wilderness years’ following the show’s cancellation in 1989 when it was off air but not out of mind and Russell T Davis’s reboot and the new Doctors for a new generation.
There are also answers to questions including was Tony ever in Doctor Who, what kind of Doctor would he have made, and is Baldrick in fact the ultimate time traveller?
Sophie Aldred played The Doctor’s companion Ace in the original television series (to Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor). She later reprised her role in ‘Ascend From Darkness’. She was in the last episode ‘Survival’ of Doctor Who before it was cancelled back in 1989.
Commenting on the show’s infamous race of mutants Sophie says: “You could outwalk the Daleks, let alone outrun them! And they couldn’t go upstairs. And they were a pain to work with, even in our day.
“We were filming on cobbles in the streets around Waterloo station, and they had those children’s wheelbarrow wheels on so they couldn’t go over the cobbles. So, the result was they sort of tipped from side to side, wobbled as though they were ever so slightly drunk.”
Fellow episode guest Matthew Sweet recently presented a Radio 4 programme about Doctor Who to mark its 60th anniversary.
On being a lifelong Doctor Who fan, the broadcaster, author and cultural historian said: “It does answer something quite deep inside those who fall in love with it. And I think, those of us who might think about what would you do if the Tardis did materialise on your street? Would you get into it? And I think if the answer is yes, you’re probably a Doctor Who fan.”
On a case of mistaken identity, Sir Tony added: “They are confusing me with a stunt artist called ‘Tony Robinson’, who apparently did a stunt on Doctor Who for which they were billed. And so it became known that a ‘Tony Robinson’ was associated with it. People then thought it was me, people wrote to me and said it was me. So in a way, I’ve been in it, although I never have.”
Cunningcast is part of the Acast Creator Network. Series two, episode 13: Doctor Who and Time Travel will be released on Thursday 2 May, available on most podcast platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music.
