Monday, July 21, 2008

Doctor Who's assistants

The wonderful Richard Dawkins is back with a new TV series, Dawkins on Darwin, and, to celebrate this imminent broadcasting milestone, The Times went off for a chat with everyone's favourite atheist.

However, what intrigued me most in this article was Dawkins's wife, Lalla Ward:

Dawkins has a real-life connection with Doctor Who: he is married to Lalla Ward, who was previously the wife of Tom Baker, having played the role of his assistant, Romana, in the series in the Seventies. Dawkins met her at a birthday party in 1992 for the late Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Lalla floats in and out of Dawkins’s vast living room and kitchen in Oxford, smiling and bearing espressos in terracotta mugs.

Now, personally, I think it's a bit tasteless to hold a birthday party for someone who's dead, but I guess everything goes in the media world, and if it enables you to meet an ex-Doctor Who assistant who can float whilst carrying terracotta mugs, then that's the world for me. To this end, I attended Richard Whiteley's birthday party last night, and I'm happy to report that, as I write this, Billie Piper is gliding towards me with a cup of tea in a Liverpool FC mug, and a raisin-and-oatmeal cookie on a plate.
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6 comments:

  1. Joe B.4:45 pm

    Did you ask Billie about her dental work? We're all interested in knowing what she did and why.

    It makes her lisp somewhat, or at least is is currently, hopefully it will subside eventually.

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  2. Gordon McCabe6:38 pm

    I thought it best not to mention it this early in the relationship.

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  3. Anonymous10:31 pm

    I wonder if Dawkins and Lalla watche any of her old film and TV work? I imagine him critising the lack of scientific rigour in her work in Vampire Circus.

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  4. Gordon McCabe11:40 pm

    According to this review, "the sight of former Doctor Who assistant Lalla Ward, mouth caked in bright red gore, as seen from the victim's point of view is one of the abiding images of the film."

    Sounds good.

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  5. priscian2:29 am

    "The late Douglas Adams" is proleptic; Adams didn't die until 2001. (He's still dead, as far as I know.)

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  6. Gordon McCabe6:16 pm

    Nice use of 'proleptic'.

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