In this special issue, DWM brought together Jo Grant actress Katy
Manning with one of her biggest fans, Doctor Who writer and actor Mark
Gatiss. Mark remembers the first time he saw Katy on screen in her début
adventure, 1971’s Terror of the Autons…
Mark: “I remember it as if it were yesterday. I have
very, very particular memories of those first few stories. I was so
frightened of that little troll doll –”
Katy: “It’s still pretty ghastly. (Shudders) It had pointed teeth, and the way it walked –”
Mark: “I was four years old. Your early memories tend to be either
something amazing, or something very traumatic. Usually traumatic.”
Katy: “But it was an extraordinary episode. I loved it as an
introduction, because Jo was quite different. She was just ordinary,
really. She had no special talents. You watch Jo, literally straight out
of school, saying, ‘I didn’t say I passed,’ [in response to the
Doctor’s ‘I thought you took an A-level in Science?’] – which I thought
was a great line to give anybody!”
Mark: “It’s absolutely true to say that everybody has their Doctor
and their time, and I just can’t remember there not being a time when
Jon and Katy were it for me. I revisit them often, especially in trouble
times – or on wintery afternoons. Like I did the other day. ‘Ooh, I
think I might have a glass of sherry and a mince pie, and watch Planet
of the Daleks, because it’ll make me feel good.’ I know I sound like I’m
about a hundred years old –”
Katy: “Leave that to me. (Laughs) But she was very young, Jo, which
was so lucky, because I got to grow up. The writers were very clever.
They saw I was growing up, so Jo grew up with me.”
Mark: “And I grew up with Jo.”
A FREE Doctor Who comic, *Sub Zero, featuring the Third Doctor and the Daleks, originally presented in 1972!
