Feature by JACQUELINE RAYNER
T om Baker tells a beautiful story about a man stopping him on Oxford Street: “He said, ‘Tom Baker?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ And he looked at me and in his brain he catapulted back in time, and he said, ‘When I was a boy, I was in a home for children; nobody wanted us, you know? It was terrible. And you made Saturday night good.’
What can a television show do when the world’s in crisis? Nothing, some people might say. But there’s something special about the programme we love. It can unite us. It can take us away, let us escape for an hour or two to a place where problems can be solved, where the good guys always win. Where, above all, there is hope.