THE ULTIMATE INTERVIEW

BY BENJAMIN COOK

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?”

This is his final interview.

Last issue, when Doctor Who Magazine celebrated its 500th edition, Tom announced that “there would not be another or better occasion” to bow out of the spotlight. “I’ll be dead quite soon,” he explained, cheerfully. (Later, on Tom’s website, his wife Sue clarified: ‘He doesn’t mean to alarm the fans; it’s just Tom’s way of pointing out that he’s 82, and realistically there can’t be very many human years left for him! However, we can reassure fans that Tom is in extremely good health and very good spirits.’) “Your readers, their kindness, it takes my breath away,” continued Tom, in DWM 500. “Some of their letters and messages are so extravagant, and my feeling is of gratitude, really. I feel like… I nearly said Prospero! That’s going too far. But” – and here he quoted Shakespeare’s most famous magician – “I have been such stuff that dreams are made on.”