Clive Swift : Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

I thought Clive Swift's performance was one of the best things about the Dr Who 2007 Christmas Special; he really gave it heart.

I hope (although it may be unlikely) that he appears in the series again sometime down the track, to fulfill the promise he made...what do you think?

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

I agree, he was great. Really shone out amongst the other supporting cast.

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

What a prat the man is. Check out this interview from Doctor Who Magazine:

Hello, Clive. I'm recording this interview on tape, if that's okay.
"Don't you know shorthand?"

It's a dying art, isn't it? I find that Dictaphones are more reliable in interview situations. I want to quote what you say accurately.
"A lot of actors won't do interviews on tape."

I've never noticed that, in almost a decade of doing this job.
"I'm an actor. As soon as you switched that thing on, I'm performing. I think you'll find that proper journalists know shorthand."

I think you'll find that I'm not a proper journalist, in that case.
"Don't be silly, I'm quite aggrieved. Why should I do this? I'm not getting paid, am I?" [Awkward silence]

Right. Could you tell me a bit more about your character in Voyage of the Damned?
"You don't need me to tell you that. Have you read the script? That's what I perform. You can tell me about my character. What a silly question."

To be honest, I just open interviews like that to make the person feel comfortable, as it's not too difficult to answer. It's not working, is it?
"I don't have anything to say."

I'll try another. What was your initial reaction to the script?
"Terrific."

What qualities do you think make a script terrific?
"What would you say? I'm sure we can agree. What ingredients do you admire?"

Fast, colourful scripts, but with proper emotion...
"On Doctor Who, this is? Well, I wouldn't kno da0 w, cos I don't know any other Doctor Who scripts. But this chap Russell T Davies seems to be a phenomenon. He not only invents all these strange and wonderful creatures from God knows where, but he manages to get in a lot of humour. Unfortunately, it's the Doctor who has most of the humour. Being a comic actor, I've missed not making a few jokes. However, one does one's job,"

Mr Copper's shaky grasp of Earth culture should get some laughs.
"Well, I've become a bit of an old fuddy-duddy, as it wasn't until we'd been filming for two weeks that I realised Mr Copper is an alien! It's clever how they've got all the trappings of the 1920s or whenever the Titanic was..."

It was in 1912.
"Fine, even earlier. I thought, if I'm an alien, should I have played the part in a different way? Nobody said that. It dawned rather slowly. It's quite sweet. Mr Copper is a very appealling character. He's much older than the rest of the gang, but he's brave, he's useful in the fight against our enemies...um, and he's rewarded in the end, so the writer likes him, and there's no reason why I shouldn't. When I did this 25 years ago, it was a very different kettle of fish, although Jobel was a lovely part also. I had a very nice death, which I remember with pleasure."

Have you always wanted to act?
"I've always wanted to perform, which is slightly different. Having reached this enormously old age, and having done a great deal professionally, I now feel able to be myself. I'm happy talking as myself. I've got my own little cabaret show. Well, I say little, but I can do a whole evening. I do it with a young girl. I tell stories about my career.[Chats at length about his show] I call it Richard Bucket Overflows, because I'm rather fed up with people just thinking of me as Richard from Keeping Up Appearances, which they often do."

Do people shout "Richard" at you in the street?
"Sometimes. I tell them to **** off."

Right. One final question...
"I think that's more than enough, isn't it? How many pages are you doing on Mr Copper?"

Well, I was just going to ask...
"There's no reason why I should talk to you at all, so you shouldn't push it. I'm sure you'll write something very nice. [Stony silence] I know that you all think that this is a big world, this Who business. But it isn't. There are much bigger things than this."

Maybe, but it means a lot to a great many of us...
"Yeah, yeah. Goodbye."

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

Whoa. What the heck? Why's he being such a prick? Surely he knew this would be printed. But then again, it seems he doesn't care.

Here come the drums.

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

Most entertaining interview I've read in ages. Thank heavens for someone who's willing to treat it as job, instead of a vocation.

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

Yes, but surely there's no need for him to be so downright rude and offensive to the interviewer.

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

Unless i heard it coming from Clive's mouth or saw him saying it in interview then i do not believe that interview is genuine even if it is on a website somewhere

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Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

It was published in the official Doctor Who Magazine. Which also contained interviews with all the other cast members of the Doctor Who Christmas Special. It is a genuine interview.

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

Ok but like i said, i still won't believe anything unless i hear or see it coming from Clive himself or anyone else for that matter.

In the past, many articles in magazines have been false

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Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

Doctor Who Magazine is not in the habit of publishing "fake" interviews. The journalist who conducted the interview has said that this IS what was said during the interview and that it was NOT being said in a jokey tone, that Clive Swift was being incredibly rude.

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

Whatever

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Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

why dont you believe it? its the official magazine run by the BBC! the company that hired him! it has a foreward by RTD every month! its very very respected and i doubt it would make stuff up!

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

Because n the past i've read so many interviews in magazines and most of turned out to be false. Bad press on people and it pissed me off! Recently there was an article saying Tennant would be leaving at the end of series 4, then i heard tennant himself saying he denies the rumours of him leaving! He's not going anywhere!

Look its my opinion ok? I just don't believe what it says in the mag

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Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

yeh but there have never been any paparazzi rhumors in the official who mag!

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

Funny thing is... He did leave in the end.

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

Well if you count the specials as part of series 5 then no LOL

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Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

But they're not. They all have production codes denoting them as part of series 4.

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

Wow. What a witty, brilliant and well thought out response that was...

xx

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

Best response to an interviewer was when a young journalist went bounding up to a jet lagged Bob Dylan at an Australian airport with a shorthand notebook in one hand and a pencil in the other. Dylan smiled, took the notebook and pencil, autographed the notebook handed notebook and pencil back to the stunned journo and kept walking.

Another of our local idiots was at Mascot when The Beatles were being interviewed straigh 111c t off the plane in 1964:

Journalist: "What do you think of Australia?"
George Harrison: "The airport's nice."

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

I guess that was Jobel talking.

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

i must say i was very dissapointed with his attitude towards Doctor Who ( a production that has paid his wage on more thanone occasion!) and towards Keeping up appearances- a show that made him the man he is today!

he was so very rude to the interviewer and so what if he wasnt being paid for the interview? most actors arent! its publicity!

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

Given Britain's libel laws, I doubt it was made-up. Sounds like he was having a very bad day!

I guess it makes his endearing performance all the more remarkable!

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

Heh, loved the interview myself. Felt honest. Rude? Everything he says is true..

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

Absolutely agree. Ask a stupid question and get a stupid answer.

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

Mr Copper was supposed to have come back for the season four, two-part finale (in the scenes ultimately given to Harriet Jones) - upon hearing how rude Swift was to the DWM "journalist" RTD refused to have him back.

So no, the interview wasn't made up!

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

Well, it serves him right, doesn't it? Unpleasant individual.

xx

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This message has been deleted.

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

What a horrible man!

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

Actually, given that the journalist in question is a friend of RTD, with whom he was writing a book at the time, I wouldn't be surprised if he was annoyed with the rude Mr. Swift!

xx

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special


Heh, loved the interview myself. Felt honest. Rude? Everything he says is true..



Absolutely agree. Ask a stupid question and get a stupid answer.


I don't agree with that... it winds me up that some actors think they are so above everyone else that they believe they should only do the good bits of the job and not the boring or irritating bits... everyone has certain tasks to perform in their job that they don't enjoy, but you get on with it because that is what you're paid for...! He may not've been paid for the interview but he's paid a lot of money so I would expect part of it were for publicity!

Maybe its cos I've been working very long hours for the last two weeks trying to get a horrible, annoying part of my job done that I don't have any sympathy for overpaid pampered actors who moan about how tough they have it.

ALso, no matter what kind of day I'm having I would never try to ruin someone else's day just cos I'm in a bad mood! That actor had no right to speak to the interviewer like that and I think its great that what he said got printed!



Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

I would have liked to have heard this conversation between them.

I mean, that question about explaining the character that he plays is rather relevant to me since I don't watch a lot of Doctor Who, don't live in England, and I would have liked to have read a bit about it since I don't know when I'm going to see it. His answers have made me aggrieved.

After reading this, it really makes you wonder why he bothered playing the part at all.

Being a wannabe journo (one dayyyy...), I can understand why this article was printed as a transcript. If I were that journalist, after sitting through those responses, trying to turn that into a half-decent article would 111c be difficult.
However, I would have liked to have seen what the writer would have turned it into if it weren't a transcript. Or where it would have gone if the journo just went along and sarcastically remarked on Clive's answers. I guess he was a bit shell-shocked.

"They're so dramatic and flamboyant, it just makes me want to set myself on fire!"

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

The final page of the magazine always features a "transcript" style interview with someone associated with Doctor Who. The format of the interview wasn't changed because of Swift's comments.

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

I don't think I believe it.
The magazine wouldn't print those sorts of things. They hardly ever give criticisms let alone print full-blown nastiness about one of the shows stars!

It's the inclusion of "silent, awkward pauses" that make me skeptical. They wouldn't print that so harshly.

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

I don't get why people are having a hard time believing that the interview is real. Of all the things to make up. It was in Doctor Who Magazine #391 on page 66. Its talked about here:

http://kasterborous.blogspot.com/2008/01/clive-swift-tells-it-like-it-is.html

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=167670211&blogId=347502539

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=4701958740&topic=4384

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Cook

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=167670211&blogId=347502539

http://www.behindthesofa.org.uk/2008/01/contents-subjec.html

http://unreality-sf.net/interviews/thewriterstale.html

and dozens of other pages that can easily be found by typing "Clive Swift Doctor Who Magazine interview" into Google.

It happened people. If they had faked the interview they would have been sued for libel and the BBC would either not allow them to publish the magazine anymore or at the very least Ben Cook would have been fired and he has not. Out of the hundreds of people that have been interview in the magazine over the past 30+ years why would they fake an interview with Clive Swift? Answer: they didn't. They just reported what happened during the interview.

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

Poor Richard. Finally cracked.

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

"Mind the journalist, Richard."

"Minding the journalist, Hyacinth..."

-- Rob
http://robvincent.net

Re: Performance in the Dr Who Christmas Special

What an *beep* At his age, he is lucky to have a job at all.
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