The experiment shouldn’t work – but Troughton sells it
It was a strange enough idea for a popular show to change its lead actor. It was even stranger to cast somebody who looked nothing like the original, and who played the part completely differently. Yet that’s exactly what happened in 1966. In retrospect, everything is clear. Patrick Troughton was a fine actor and a brilliant choice to play the part. The BBC’s Head of Serials Shaun Sutton described Troughton as being like ‘a one thousand year old leprechaun with the secret of eternal age’. It’s a beautifully apt summary. He and producer Innes Lloyd were keen for Troughton to replace the outgoing William Hartnell. Sydney Newman, who had created ‘Doctor Who’ and was still hugely influential in the BBC, hated the idea and thought Troughton completely unsuitable. “He’d better be good,” he warned Lloyd and Sutton, deferring to their expertise in casting. The rest, as they say, is history. But who can hand on heart say they would have been Team Lloyd/Sutton rather than Team Newman? Troughton’s zany performance in ‘Power of the Daleks’ as he finds his feet in the role is not his finest. It was a good idea to bring back the show’s best-loved monsters to settle in a new Doctor, but it’s a huge ask for the audience to accept the new leading man. “He looks like a hobo,” Newman is alleged to have said on seeing Troughton in costume. The actor’s eyes lit up. Unwittingly, and with a touch of serendipity, the man who was dead set against his casting had given him a hook for his characterisation. Troughton wasn’t just good – he was brilliant. And Lloyd and Sutton soon proved Newman wrong. By the end of ‘Power of the Daleks’, viewers have accepted the shock of the new and started to warm to this whimsical newcomer.
