Interview by PAUL KIRKLEY
‘‘It’s extraordinary, really”, says Sophie Aldred, reflecting on her enduring and – on the surface, at least – unlikely friendship with John Nathan-Turner. “You probably couldn’t get two more opposite people. I didn’t drink, I didn’t smoke, I didn’t particularly party that hard, but somehow… I guess opposites attract.”
Not at first, they didn’t. By her own admission, Sophie got offto a rocky start with her producer when she joined the TARDIS as the incendiary, bovverbooted teenage misfit Ace. “I don’t think he understood me very well, initially”, she says. “I’d been to Manchester University, I was quite political, I had hairy armpits… I was quite feisty, I guess. I don’t think he got me at all. He was much more ‘eyes and teeth’ – Kate O’Mara, Joan Collins, Bonnie Langford… I don’t think I fitted into his idea of what a woman was, really.”