Captain Lethbridge-Stewart
In 1973, if you’d told Mark Gatiss that one day he’d play a Lethbridge-Stewart, it might well have blown his seven-year-old mind. Truth is, he says, “It still does.”
INTERVIEW BY BENJAMIN COOK
Mark Gatiss as Captain Lethbridge- Stewart in Twice Upon a Time (2017).
“I’m the Brigadier’s grandfather,” says a beaming Mark Gatiss. “It’s everything I’ve ever wanted, turning and saying casually, ‘Lethbridge-Stewart’ – it’s marvellous!”
It’s Christmas 1914 on the Western Front – or June 2017 in a muddy field near Pontyclun, South Wales – and Mark is readying himself to utter those immortal words: “Lethbridge- Stewart. Captain Archibald Hamish Lethbridge-Stewart.” So how’s he going to do it? The lines carry so much weight…
He thinks for a moment. “You have to… I mean, what I’m going to do is… well, try not to cry. But also he’s basically saying, ‘Remember my name,’ therefore he’d say it quite carefully. But he’s not winking to the audience. It’s for the Doctor, for it to impact on. So I think I’ll go, ‘Lethbridge- Stewart,’ casually. And then, quite deliberately, Captain Archibald Hamish Lethbridge-Stewart.’ Yeah, I think that’s much more powerful. Or I might do a turn to camera,” he says, chuckling.