Wendy Padbury: “Would Kill” For One Line With Peter Capaldi!

Chris Swanson is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Wendy Padbury is best known to Doctor Who fans for her role as Zoe Heriot, companion to the Second Doctor. Zoe was a scientist from the far future. She was young, intelligent, and more than capable of handling herself in a fight, thus making her quite a bit different from a lot of the previous female companions. Alongside Jamie McCrimmon, she fought the Cybermen, the Dominators and many other nasty critters. These days, she’s also playing Zoe for Big Finish audio.

Kasterborous recently caught up with Ms Padbury, and she kindly gave us an interview.

KASTERBOROUS: How has it been coming back to play the character of Zoe for Big Finish?

WENDY PADBURY: It’s excellent. I was struggling to start with, trying to make Zoe-because I play Zoe as an older woman. Of course it’s much easier for me, seeing how my voice is now considerably deeper than it was back in 1968.

K: Now that you’ve reached 29?

PADBURY: Exactly! Trying to make Zoe sound like Zoe then is a bit of a struggle, but now, with the wonder of modern technology, they can tweak it slightly so that my register is up a little. But actually playing the character is brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

K: It’s nice that they’ve been able to explore the character a little, and more with her than they did on the show.

PADBURY: Yes, I’ve always felt there was more to her that we never saw on the show. And I know I left with memory wiped, but hey! It’s Doctor Who. So they’re trying to retrieve that memory in several of my early stories. And it’s fascinating.

K: I understand you’ve got something coming up soon with Frazer Hines and Colin Baker.

PADBURY: I have! It goes without saying that I love to work with Frazer, but I don’t get to work with Colin very often, and that’s an absolute joy because he’s so wonderful. And Frazer does the best Patrick.

K: It is absolutely astounding how good he is with that.

PADBURY: He is, and I don’t know quite how he does it, actually. I stand in the booth next to him, and when he’s doing Pat as the Doctor, he physically turns into Pat. He does all Pat’s mannerisms, which I imagine helps him to become Pat. He does it all. He’s fairly manic in the booth next to me. Sometimes he’s having to play two or three pages of dialogue where he’s the narrator, Jamie, and Patrick, all talking to each other. It is impressive. Please don’t let him hear this. I would hate him to think I was praising him in any way.

K: Don’t worry, I won’t sully your reputation.

PADBURY: Thank you, thank you.

K: Have you been watching much of the new series?

PADBURY: I have not, because I don’t get it in France. But I did go to the screening of Peter [Capaldi’s] first episode in Leicester Square, and I think he’s going to be amazing. I mean, I know he’s amazing; he’s an amazing actor. For the first few minutes, I think I felt he was trying a bit too hard, which is perfectly normal when you’re taking on a role such as this, to try and make it different. But ten minutes in, and I was completely hooked. And I think he’s going down well with the fans.

K: With the new series episodes that you have seen, what do you think of the portrayal of the female companions now as opposed to how they were portrayed back in the 1960s?

PADBURY: I think it’s totally different. I think back in the 60s, the companions were there more as the audience; to ask the Doctor a question so that he could explain and move the story forward. I think now the characters are much more rounded, much more grounded, much more interesting, much more depth to their characters than we had. I think we did slightly suffer from the generic writing of “The Girl”, “The Boy”. Although obviously Zoe was completely different from Victoria, and that’s how that was written. But there was never a chance to really progress.

K: From what I’ve seen of 1960s television, it does seem like Zoe was written as a bit more active and assertive than most women of that time on TV.

PADBURY: Yes, she’s often likened to Emma Peel from The Avengers.

K: The catsuit probably helped.

PADBURY: Yes, and throwing the Karkus over her shoulders probably helped as well. She was strong. “Humility” was not a word that was in her vocabulary at all. She was, at any given moment, able to tell the Doctor what she thought of him and how stupid he was being, and that she was far, far superior in intelligence than he was. What’s not to love about playing that?

K: Most of the best companions are able to call out the Doctor when he’s being a little tetchy or a little bit full of himself.

PADBURY: Absolutely. She used to be infuriated with him because he couldn’t get things right, and she knew what she was doing. She could blow up computers! Hey! By talking to them!

K: It had to have been very nice to have all the DVDs released, and to be able to watch them and do the commentaries and the like.

PADBURY: Oh! Commentaries! I love doing the commentaries! They used to ask me if they should send me the series, but what we don’t generally do is sit around on a Sunday afternoon and watch our own episodes. “Shall we send them to you so you can refresh your memory before the commentary?” And I’d say no, because it would be much more spontaneous because I haven’t seen them in so long. And the other fascinating thing about the commentaries was meeting people that I haven’t seen–like directors–that I haven’t seen since 1968. And hearing about their side of things the show was being made. Just basic things like budgetary restrictions, set design, how the sets came about. Just really interesting stuff that, at the time, we didn’t really have anything to do with, because we were very much there as the actors.

And I’ve heard a lot of people, Terrance Dicks for instance, talk about a shortage of episodes, panicked writing to redo something, and we were very sheltered from all that. We were just handed scripts, eventually, but we were unaware of all the pandemonium that was going on behind. So the commentaries are great.

K: If you were offered the opportunity to appear on the new series as Zoe, or even as a different character, would you?

PADBURY: Yes!

K: So, note to the BBC’s casting.

PADBURY: I gave up acting years and years ago, and became an agent. But I would kill to have one line—listen everybody—one line with Peter Capaldi, as Zoe.

K: Looking back, of the existing episodes or even the missing ones, or even of the Big Finish stuff, which one stands out as your personal favorite?

PADBURY: I don’t know about Big Finish. They’ve all got something that is so completely different, so with Big Finish, I don’t think I could give you a favorite. Of the series, when I was in it, my favorite story was The Mind Robber.

K: That…you know, that is one of my favorites as well. It’s just so overflowing with 1960’s strangeness.

PADBURY: (laughs) Yes, absolutely!

K: There was that inspired bit of writing with Frazer being out sick and they did that bit with the other guy’s face.

PADBURY: I know. At panels I say that’s why it’s my favorite story! Because Frazer wasn’t there for two weeks! I don’t mean it. And you had to be slightly literate. You had to have read some books.

K: You have to know who Gulliver was.

PADBURY: Yes.

K: You have to know who the Karkus was.

PADBURY: Exactly! I loved it. I loved the wackiness of it.

K: It does seem to be one that divides the fans a bit.

PADBURY: When I get asked, on panels, about my favorite episode and I say, The Mind Robber, there’s about five people that go, “Yay!” So, yes.

K: One last question. What would you like to see Big Finish do with Zoe from this point? Is there anything special you’d like to her to do? Go somewhere, meet someone. Hang out with the Master?

PADBURY: (evil chuckle) Hang out with the Master!

K: I think she’d break his brain pretty quickly.

PADBURY: I think she would! I think she’d be far superior. Oh, yes. That’s actually a brilliant idea. Yeah, I’ll go with that. Hang out with the Master.

K: Excellent. Well, thank you for your time!

PADBURY: You’re very, very welcome.

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