“Acquaintances to the stars…”

“Acquaintances to the stars…”

We’ve never been at the centre of ‘Doctor Who’ fandom, more sort of hanging around on the sidelines. As such, our encounters with those in front of and behind the cameras have been the exception rather than the rule. But occasionally, we’ve been lucky enough to spend some time with some very lovely people.

Fans tend to project their obsessions onto the actors of their favourite shows and can be surprised when the objects of their attentions do not necessarily share their detailed knowledge of individual stories.

Social media has allowed us all to connect with more famous folk and if we’ve enjoyed someone’s performance, we think it’s only polite to say so on occasion. What’s interesting is when you send someone a screenshot of something recorded 40 years ago and they reply: “Oh, is that out on DVD?”. The late Sam Kelly recalled being directed by Voytek in ‘Crown Court’, Lord (Michael) Cashman recognised his very young self in ‘Gideon’s Way’ and Colin Baker still hasn’t added ‘The Mind Of Mr J G Reeder’ to collection, as far as we know… Seriously, buy it, Colin, it’s a wonderful series!

Once or twice, though, we have plucked up our courage and asked whether someone would mind being interviewed. We’ve chosen people who we know have a sense of humour, and will therefore be tolerant of our noticeable lack of professionalism.

So, a big thank-you to Terry Molloy and John Challis. Two fabulous blokes who provided us with some excellent material.

Terry was our first victim at the ‘Regenerations’ convention in Swansea, 2016 and the interview was conducted after we’d all arrived knackered following an exhausting slog to get there. And we were driven there by Warren, so we had no excuse, really!

As an incentive, we’d cobbled together a Goody Bag of tea and biscuits, Terry being a tea connoisseur. We have a cupboard devoted to tea, so we already had some common ground.

We try not to go down the obvious line of questioning, so were very pleased when we ended up talking about Terry’s appearance in Jacob Bronowski’s definite documentary series ‘The Ascent Of Man’.

Subsequent events have revealed Mr Molloy’s memories of watching the overlooked and seriously strange series ‘The Corridor People’. If we ever cover that show, we’d like you to do the article, Terry!

Similarly, when we tracked down John Challis at the Food Festival in Poundbury, near Dorchester, his work on ‘Z Cars’ was our first port of call, rather than ‘Only Fools And Horses’. We seem to have evolved a tradition of bribing John with something made of chocolate whenever we’re in his company. So far, the list consists of a Chocolate Gnome and a Chocolate Penguin, neither of which lasted more than 24 hours in his company…

We really appreciate the help Terry and John have given us with making ‘Round The Archives’ that bit more interesting. Fine fellows both!

(Terry can be heard on Episode Four and John is on Episode Thirteen)

(By Andrew Trowbridge)