Tom Baker
Cultural icon; acting legend; British eccentric; self-styled oddball; former Sohoite; devoted husband; gay idol; compulsive fibber; professional faker; formidable anecdotalist; a most delicate monster; his own spin-doctor; an outré sort of genius; “too f***ing opinionated”; Doctor Who’s elder statesman, and the most compelling interviewee that the programme has ever produced. Fourth Doctor actor Tom Baker is sharp and spurious, complex and wonderful, rich and strange, and utterly convinced by his own silliness, but never, ever dull. “Life is too short to be dull,” he tells me in sonorous tones. “Be interesting. Because not very much else matters, does it?”