Not a Rat, A Cybermat...

Picture the scene.

- Christopher Morley

As a young, virtually unheard of actor you are suddenly to be catapulted into the stratosphere of playing the Doctor. Despite impressing the show runner with the ability to be old yet young, funny and wise in your performance, the tabloids will mockingly ask ‘Doctor Who?’ The emphasis on the last part of the title. To top things off, you’ve never actually seen an episode of the programme you’re soon to be the face of. 

Given reference material by the production team, it’s all a bit of a blur. Then, among the stacks of classic serials you’ve been given as a sort of homework list in preparation for your maiden bow in front of the Saturday teatime audience at the eleventh hour, it starts to click as a strange man in a bow tie finds himself involved in an archeological expedition to Telos and its stumble across the Tomb Of The Cybermen…

The Doctor - the man you’ll be giving body and voice to - is a fellow with an unruly mop of black hair. There’s something about him that you can’t quite put your finger on, but it draws you in. You fall head over heels for the story and, indeed, his neckwear. Many still hold it in high regard, the top of the league when it comes to Cyber-narratives. Yet it’s the new boy who managed to encapsulate the essence in just a few words:

“I love Patrick Troughton. ‘Tomb of the Cybermen’ is one of my favourite stories; it’s so creepy. What I think is wonderful about Troughton is he’s weird and peculiar but he never asks you to find him weird and peculiar. He was a great actor. And I think the Cybermen are as scary as they’ve ever been in that one story.”