I can still remember Sue’s first words after I told her I planned to take a PhD in Doctor Who – her first words after she stopped laughing, anyway.
Sue: I tell you what, Neil, it’ll be worth five years of hard work just so you can tell people at dinner parties you’re a Doctor in Doctor Who.
For this reason alone, she still hasn’t forgiven me for jacking it in.
I first suspected that I might not complete my PhD during the training day I was forced to attend a few weeks into my studies. As part of an obligatory icebreaker session we were told to turn to the stranger sitting next to us and explain to them what our PhD was all about and what its impact on society at large would be. I was sitting next to a budding scientist and he went first. I couldn’t follow every detail of what he was saying but it definitely had something to do with enzymes and finding a cure for cancer.
When he was finished, he turned to me.
Him: So what’s yours about?
Me: Well, in a nutshell, and this is quite tricky to explain to a lay person, I am looking at the ways in which metatextual, erm, texts, impact on the parent text vis-à-vis the complex relationships between the, erm, semiotic thickness of the, erm, oh dear, text, and the burgeoning use of converging technologies, which have quantifiably altered the ways in which the audience interact with the, erm, text.
Though I had skilfully avoided two important words beginning with D and W, the scientist clearly wasn’t too impressed with my waffle and with good reason. I had made my PhD sound like a complete waste of time.
I tried to ignore the warning signs and ploughed on with my studies. I got as far as being published a couple of times. However, it could take anything up to two years between the completion of a paper and its eventual publication. In my field of study, the subject could regenerate in the amount of time it took for my research to see print – sometimes twice – so when my work did appear, it already felt woefully out of date. In the age of the internet, where information was instantaneous and accessible, academic research felt strangely archaic and limited. It was careful, methodical and deeply frustrating.
It was around this time that I started to branch out into teaching more theoretical subjects, and as luck would have it, most of the modules I taught on were run by my friend and former student John Paul. Just like me, John Paul didn’t know what do with the rest of his life after he graduated and, just like me, he enrolled on an MA. And then, after a short stint as a technician in the drama department, he started working as a visiting lecturer in the same faculty as me, and by the turn of the millennium he was responsible for running several modules on the history of broadcasting. And that’s when he came up to me one day with an exciting proposition: how would I like to be paid to teach Doctor Who?
Big mistake.
*
‘It’s very slow.’
‘Are all the old episodes as boring as this one?’
‘The actors didn’t know their lines.’
‘That was Doctor Poo.’
‘It looked like it was a rehearsal.’
‘Was the Doctor really wearing a wig?’
‘What a load of old shit.’
Enthusiasm is supposed to be infectious, or at least that’s what they told me when I was training to be a teacher. What nonsense. It didn’t matter how passionate I became when I talked to my students about early episodes of Doctor Who, their response was always the same: sheer indifference. In fact, the more passionate and animated I got about it, the more determined they seemed to wear me down. It’s as if they had sensed my weak spot and they instinctively knew how to exploit it.
Timetabling the screenings at 9 a.m. on a Monday probably didn’t help. Who wanted to watch a black-and-white episode of Doctor Who first thing in the morning? Even I didn’t want to do that. So I’d sneak off for a cup of tea after I’d hit the Play button in the lecture theatre, but when I returned a few minutes later, it was always the same story: students checking their email; students tweeting and texting; students updating their Facebook statuses (‘dr who … its SO BORING … LOLZ …’).
I wouldn’t have minded so much if their criticisms of early Doctor Who had been in any way constructive or perceptive, but more often than not they simply focused on the show’s less-than-special special effects. When I told them that criticising a television programme for not including any computer graphics when computer graphics hadn’t actually been invented yet was an untenable position, they shrugged their collective shoulders and asked me how long it would take before we got to Stargate SG-1.
And after a day of this, I would return home to the prospect of watching Doctor Who and writing about Doctor Who and thinking thoughts about Doctor Who that no one had thought before for a PhD that I knew in my heart would increase the sum of human knowledge not one iota.
Each man kills the thing he loves, wrote Oscar Wilde in one of the books I still haven’t read. But the combination of simultaneously both studying and teaching Doctor Who was proving almost fatal; I started to feel like the thing I loved was killing me.
Every time a student completes a module, they are invited to send anonymous feedback to their lecturer, just in case their apathetic silence in the seminars hasn’t sent a clear enough message. This is just a small selection of responses from the students who took my Science Fiction module:
Too much Doctor Who and not enough Third Rock from the Sun.
More vampires please.
I couldn’t find the reading list until the day after the deadline past (sic).
Change the time of the screening. Some of us have lives.
Only one episode of Red Dwarf? Smeg.
Neil Perryman is a sad wanker who watches far too much Dr Who.
It was that last one that did it. For the final time, it isn’t Dr Who – it’s Doctor Who!
I stopped teaching on this module the same day I packed in my PhD. I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
Then I wondered what the hell I was going to do next.
* Strictly speaking, this is untrue. I had read at least five novels penned by a woman, specifically the five New Adventures written by Kate Orman, the lone female contributor to the series.
† Happily, the institution became a university when Sunderland was awarded city status in 1992. A polytechnic lecturer doesn’t have quite the same cachet.
Doctor Who and the Woman from
Hartlepool
Wednesday 7 February 2001
Sue loves a good television-shopping channel. When I suggested that we watch QVC together that night, she must have thought her luck was in. It was only when she realised that Tom Baker was plugging a Doctor Who book for two solid hours that the scales fell from her eyes. Still, she attempted to make the best of it.
Sue: Should I get this book for you? It sounds like a good deal to me.
Me: According to you, everything on QVC sounds like a good deal. We’re still paying for that Pilates machine you never use. And those paint rollers. And the apple-corer.
Sue: Go on, you should order it. They might let you speak to Tom Baker.
Me: I don’t want to speak to Tom Baker.
Sue: You do, Neil. What would you like to ask him?
Me: Nothing. You know I don’t like speaking to celebrities. Just thinking about it makes me uncomfortable.
Sue: Go on. There must be something you’d like to ask him.
Me: I don’t know. I’d probably ask him why he hasn’t agreed to make a Big Finish audio yet.* Even Paul McGann has done one, and he barely counts.
Sue: I’m just popping out for a smoke. I’ll be back in a minute.
Sue leaves me to enjoy another rambling Tom Baker anecdote. While Tom’s stories are entertainingly louche, they are also impeding QVC’s ability to shift enough copies of the book he was sent there to promote. The shopping channel’s male presenter has to keep steering things back on track.
QVC: I know, Tom, let’s go to one of our callers. Let’s talk to Susan on the phone.
Tom: Susan?
QVC: Susan’s just bought the book and she’s phoned through.
Sue: Hello, Tom? Is that you, Tom?
I feel like my stomach has just dropped through the floor.
Tom: Is that Susan Barrett?
Sue: No, it’s Susan Perryman.
Tom is confused and disappointed. I am confused and horrified.
Tom: Oh, hello, Susan.
Sue: Listen, Tom, I’m going to ask you a big question on behalf of your fans.
Tom is clearly nonplussed. He can’t decipher Sue’s thick regional accent and the QVC presenter has to repeat the question.
QVC: Susan is going to ask you a big question on behalf of all your fans.
Tom: Oh. Go on, then.
Sue: Would you ever consider coming back as the best Doctor ever?
Tom: Would I WHAT?
QVC: Susan wants to know, would you ever consider coming back as the best Doctor ever?
Tom: Well, I would if you were in charge of it, Susan. If the fans were in charge, of course I would.
Suddenly I get it. Tom thinks my wife is some sort of super-fan. But of course he does. Only a Doctor Who fan would telephone a shopping channel for the chance to quiz an actor about something that is obviously never going to happen and over which they have little or no control. I notice that Tom has segued into a very familiar – and very long – anecdote, so I seize the opportunity to rush upstairs. I find Sue in our bedroom, giggling down the phone. She holds up a single finger to hush me and I stand there in impotent silence, watching my wife nodding along with Tom Baker on the other end of the line. And then I realise that even standing in the same room where this phone call is taking place is making me feel sick with nerves, so I race downstairs again, just in time to witness Tom suggesting that he could play the Doctor’s arch-enemy, the Master. Sue laughs politely and pretends to know who the Master is.
Sue: That would be wonderful. Maybe one day, eh? My other question … If all the other surviving Doctors have come back to do these new audio adventures, why haven’t you?
Tom shifts uncomfortably in his seat.
Tom: I don’t know, really … (to the QVC presenter) What have the other Doctors been up to?
QVC: I have no idea.
Sue: You know, Tom … the … erm … new audio adventures?
I grab a pen and hurry back upstairs, scrawling the words BIG FINISH on my palm as I go, which I then wave frantically in Sue’s face. She thinks I must be telling her to wrap things up with a gesture everyone will remember – a song maybe – and emphatically shakes her head. Thankfully, Tom has finally remembered something about the audio adventures.
Tom: Ah yes, I know! It’s because they haven’t produced a script that I like. And if they do produce a script that I like, I’ll do it. I can’t speak for the other fellows. Who are they? I only found out recently that there were other Doctors. I didn’t know that.
Sue: Well, Paul McGann’s done it …
Tom: Oh, really?
Sue: Yes, and you have a much better voice than him.
Tom: Oh Susan, who knows what to say!
And finally, to my huge relief, Tom unleashes one of his trademark toothy grins.
QVC: Well, Sue, thanks so much for taking the time and effort to call through to talk to us tonight.
Tom: Goodbye, Susan! Goodbye!
Sue comes back downstairs and sits down.
Sue: Did you enjoy that, Neil? I did.
And the thing is, I have to admit, I had quite enjoyed it. Sue was brilliant. Instead of being intimidated, she just went ahead and did it. It’s one of the reasons I married her – or she married me – her determination to get on with it and make things happen.
Which brings us back to the caravan.
* Big Finish is a company that produces new, officially licensed Doctor Who stories on CD and download.
Caravan of Love
February 2004: County Durham
Me: OK, so where is it?
Sue: You’re standing in it. Just think, this could all be ours. All you have to do is say yes.
Me: But it’s a cowshed. Is the property on the other side of the building? Is it through this door?
Sue: No, this is it. What do you think? Do you like it? Please say yes.
Me: You must be joking.
Sue: You need to use your imagination.
Me: My imagination? There’s nothing here but cow shit and dead chickens. And I’m pretty sure that roof is made from asbestos.
Sue had wanted to build a house since I met her. She tirelessly searched for the right location for several years until she finally found the perfect property fifteen minutes down the road in County Durham. But there was a twist. Building a single house would have been too easy for Sue. Anybody could do that, she told me. No, Sue wanted to build five houses.
She made it sound straightforward enough: the enormous cowshed would be divided between us, Sue’s two brothers and her younger brother’s best friend. The fifth property would be finished and sold first, which would help us to fund the completion of the other four. And even though it sounded like a huge undertaking, with considerable risks involved, Sue assured me that the building work would take a year at most.
I wasn’t that keen, to be honest. I enjoyed my home comforts too much. We’d just installed something called Sky+ at home – you could rewind live TV and everything – whereas this location was so remote, it didn’t even have a phone. The nearest shop was twenty minutes away by car (I still didn’t drive), there was no water supply (we would have to drill for it) and, worst of all, I would have to live in a static caravan for twelve months.
Still, it was only a year. And I owed Sue so much. She had given me a family, a home and a life to be proud of. She’d humoured me when I’d thought the world was going to end and consoled me when it hadn’t. Whenever I needed them, she’d put up more shelves. As we navigated our way through the cowpats and chicken entrails, I couldn’t say no to her. How could I?
Me: OK, let’s do it.
How hard could it be?
*
We put our home on the market and prayed for a quick sale. A consortium of professional developers had taken an interest in the cowshed and our window of opportunity was closing fast. And then the sale of our house fell through, thanks to somebody being gazumped further down our chain, and it looked as if Sue’s dream would be over before it could even begin. But Sue didn’t give up. She picked up the phone and she didn’t put it down again until she’d made a series of offers, counter-offers, deals and complicated promises. The paperwork was signed forty-eight hours later.
The next day, we bought the Lyndhurst 2000. It had two bedrooms, an en-suite toilet, a modest kitchen and a decent-sized living room. It seemed quite spacious when we paid for it, though once it was filled with two adults, a teenager, a fully grown Labrador and a cat it was a little on the cramped side. Or, as Sue insisted, ‘bijou’.
We moved into this caravan on 18 July 2004, the same day the BBC began principal photography on a brand-new series of Doctor Who. Experts believe the four most stressful situations in life are bereavement, divorce, moving house and making a new series of Doctor Who, so let’s just say the day was rather tense for all concerned.
And then everything started to go wrong. In our rush to complete the sale, we – and by we, I mean Sue – hadn’t checked the paperwork properly, and we discovered that there was a right-of-way issue with one of the farmers which meant we wouldn’t be able to transport any raw materials onto the site to build our houses until the dispute was resolved.
That would take more than a year.
*
We were driving to work one morning when Sue hit me with a spectacularly unexpected question.
Sue: Do you want to hear my theory about Rose Tyler?
No, I did not. How would she like it if I suddenly had a theory about bathroom fittings or the dimensions of our still-theoretical new kitchen? That was her domain. Doctor Who was mine.
For ten years, I kept Doctor Who and Sue apart – unless you include The TV Movie fiasco and that time she rang Tom Baker on QVC. Doctor Who was my thing. And while it’s true that I was on the cusp of giving it up for dead when the BBC suddenly decided to bring it back to life again, I still felt very possessive and protective of the programme. I suppose this is what it would feel like if Tangerine Dream had a Number One hit record and overnight everyone started using it for ringtones and adverts. So when my wife suddenly starting asking complicated questions about the Doctor’s past, it felt awkward. She desperately wanted to know who had started the Time War and why the Doctor had to destroy Gallifrey. If I hadn’t stopped reading the novels, I might have had an answer for her.
For the record, Sue’s theory was 100 per cent correct: Bad Wolf was Rose Tyler all along. I was hoping for the Master myself.
At least Nicol’s indifference was consistent. One Saturday she walked in on me when I was blubbing my eyes out over the episode where K9 is blown to smithereens (and I don’t even like K9).
Nicol: Mam! Mam! Neil’s having a nervous breakdown.
When Rose Tyler left the programme under tragic circumstances a few weeks later, I paid Nicol to go to the cinema so she wouldn’t have to witness a grown man weeping again. It was becoming embarrassing. You were compelled to cry only very occasionally when you watched the old series (e.g. Adric) but the new series tugged at the tear ducts every week. If Rose’s dad wasn’t being run over, the Doctor’s girlfriend was dying of a broken heart. Yes, his girlfriend. Things were different now.
John Paul was the only person I could talk to about Doctor Who without feeling self-conscious and odd. The plaudits from the press and the public surprised him as much as they did me. Everything seemed too good to be true. Even though Christopher Eccleston resigned the day after his first episode was broadcast, his successor was a self-confessed fan-boy named David Tennant and people couldn’t get enough of him. I would meet John Paul for a cigarette between our university classes to discuss the latest developments and we would shake our heads in disbelief. I told him that I’d heard the Cybermen were coming back and we both snickered like schoolboys just thinking about it.
Adventures with the Wife in Space Page 11
