Who's Better...?

Simon Stabler speaks to classic Doctor Who companion Janet Fielding

The late Nicholas Courtney held something of a record among Doctor Who actors, having appeared on screen with the first seven Doctors. Coming a close second – some would say eclipsing him given her involvement in the casting of Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann – is Janet Fielding. As Tegan Jovanka, companion to Tom Baker and Peter Davison’s Doctors, Janet also appeared with Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee in the 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors, Colin Baker in the Jim’ll Fix It sketch A Fix With Sontarans, and more recently with Jodie Whittaker in 2022’s The Power of the Doctor.

Born in Brisbane, Australia, Janet travelled widely as a child, due to her father’s work as a parasitologist.

“Dad did a year at Walter Read in Washington when we were kids, so he was doing research and he was working on malaria. We came to the UK in 1966 for a month during the World Cup. Dad was recruiting staff, we didn’t see much of him, he was up to Oxford and Cambridge, recruiting people for Australia. And I remember we went on day trips to things like Woburn Abbey and Stratford on Avon. It was very exciting, because we don’t have anything like that in Australia.”

Having only visited the theatre twice as a child – to see the ballet The Nutcracker in Brisbane, and the musical The King and I in Washington – it wasn’t until studying journalism at the University of Queensland that Janet realised she wanted to act.

“I started at university doing rehearsed readings in the English department. I did one with Bille Brown and Geoffrey Rush. Geoff Rush was playing my husband and Bille Brown was playing the lover, I seem to remember. Or was it the other way round? I can’t remember, it was a long time ago.