The New Doctor! A Doctor Who Alternate History Story

Part 52 - David Burton, on Comedy - 1995

North London Science Fiction Society, 1995. David Burton

Ladies, gentlemen, aliens, time-travellers, children of all ages. I want to thank you for having me here at this convention. I'm having a wonderful time, and it's been grand meeting all of you. The Convention Organizers have invited me to give a talk on the subject of humour in Doctor Who, a subject which was an important part of the New Doctor.

Humour was an important part of my show, but it wasn't without controversy. I remember, when we started up, Paul Bernard, my Director, he was completely against it.

Now Paul had worked with Jon Pertwee. Not many of you may know this, but Jon was a very talented comedian. He'd been in Carry On, he'd done Worzel Gummidge, he was very sharp with comedy. But when he became the Doctor, he played it absolutely straight.

Paul said to me, "David, the material is outrageous. The only way to play outrageous material is straight on, if you want the audience to believe in it, then you have to believe in it. The minute you wink at them, then they stop believing, and then it's over."

You look at Jon's performance, and that's how he does it. Jon dressed like Dracula, with his red lined cape and his ruffled shirt, a 19th century dandy, he drove an antique car and did something called Venusian Karate. I think in his first serial, he had a wheelchair chase, that's straight out of the Marx Brothers. But Jon played it all dead serious, and so the audience did too. They went along with it. I give him that.

Paul wanted me to play it that way. But I'm not Jon. I just couldn't. I wouldn't. That wasn't who I was, and I knew if I was going to make my Doctor work, I would have to do him my way.

We had some huge rows about it, Paul and I, about how to play him. Paul came around, but I don't think he was ever completely comfortable. Ian, though, I don't think Ian ever forgave me. He thought I ruined the show.

But Jon's approach, the way he played it, was only one way. You see, it's all about getting the audience on your side. I'm mainly a stage man, you play with a live audience every time, you know right away if they're with you or not. The audience has to identify with you, with your character. I was keenly aware of that. They have to like you, they have to see some of themself in you. They have to be willing to buy you, and the story you're telling them.

Now, the Doctor, here's this man, and he's travelling through space and time, and he's doing all sorts of outrageous things, he's punching out hitler, and he's wrestling with alien invasions, and monsters and parallel dimensions. Outrageous stuff. And to sell it, you had to be absolutely serious about it.

And I was - that stuff, the key stuff. Watch the episodes, you never saw me joke about any of that. That was serious. I had to buy it, and the audience had to buy it, and that couldn't be mocked. That was the framework.

So when I made jokes, I didn't make jokes about the framework. I made my jokes inside the framework. I never say 'oh, time travel, that's ridiculous' or 'a phone booth is my spaceship - crazy.' No, that gets taken seriously, it just is. When the Doctor meets aliens, he doesn't mock the idea of aliens, he mocked a particular alien, and not the alien itself - its foibles.

You don't just throw jokes in anywhere. You have to pick your spot. It has to be where it's going to work. With comedy, timing is everything. Judgement is everything.

When it's outrageous, then you have to sell it, to go along with it. But sometimes you can't do that.

If it gets too absurd, then you have to acknowledge it. Remember, you're always representing the audience, they're identifying with you. If you have a ridiculous situation, and they see it's a ridiculous situation, and you don't accept that it's ridiculous the audience can't identify with you. They think you're a fool.