SHOWBIZ IS BRUTAL
HE is best known among fans for playing the eighth timetravelling scientist in the 1996 Doctor Who TV film and starring in the British cult classic, Withnail and I.
And we can expect to see a little bit more of Paul McGann on our screens this summer after he has recently landed a role as a different kind of doctor in the BBC One soap, Holby City.
The 57-year-old Liverpool actor will play Professor John Gaskell – the latest surgeon to tread the wards at Holby City Hospital.
But McGann, who is set to visit North Wales next week for a stage appearance in Gabriel at Theatr Clwyd, revealed how playing the iconic Time Lord or starring in a soap was “never a big ambition” of his.
“Doctor Who was unlike any other thing I’d ever worked on – Peter Capaldi and David Tennant were the biggest fans ever, and I never was,” he revealed.
“As a kid I remember watching Will Hartnell playing the first ever Doctor. When there was only three channels on the TV, everybody watched it even if you weren’t a fan.
“But by the time I was an adult and into the 80’s, Doctor Who disappeared off our screens so I was never really a huge fan. I never followed it, I was just like every other kid who knew it was there.
“Being in a soap has never been a big ambition of mine, neither was being in Doctor Who – these are the things that just came up and I was lucky and available
“I’ve never set out a plan and told myself when I’m big I’ll go on to do that. I’ve never known what I’ll be doing more than six weeks ahead and yet I’ve made a living and raised my family.”
Despite going on to reprise the role as the Doctor in more than 70 audio dramas and star in the 2013 mini-episode of The Night of the Doctor – part of the show’s 50th anniversary celebrations – McGann admitted how he feels “a bit of a fraud” when he compares himself to others who have played the Time Lord.
“The likes of Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi who played the Doctor have worked their socks off doing months worth of series and years of this and that,” he added.
“I feel a little bit of a fraud when I compare myself to them.
“I just seem to arrive for five minutes here and there, steal the glory and go home again.”
But McGann, who played Marwood in Bruce Robinson’s Withnail and I, has also experienced the harsh reality of show business.
During rehearsals, the star was fired after Robinson decided his Liverpool accent was wrong for the character, although he quickly won back the part.
He explained: “Robinson gave the job to somebody else and that person didn’t want to do it so I had to audition again for the job he had already given me the week before.
“We laugh about it now, but at the time it was a little bit hairy.
“Show business is brutal, it’s one of those things but one should be proud of what one achieves rather than what one is. I had no say in the matter, but I am happy to be Scouse.”
Turning to his stage appearance in Gabriel, a touring production set in Nazi-occupied Guernsey during 1943, McGann will play the terrifying Commander, Von Pfunz.
The story follows widow and mother Jeanne, who does whatever it takes to keep her adolescent daughter Estelle and daughter-in-law Lily safe on an island filled with danger and fear during the Second World War.
But her toughest test arrives in the form of German army major Von Pfunz, whose romantic advances may be the only way to keep her family alive.
McGann says: “The play is set in the middle of the German occupation, the year the Germans were ahead and looked like they were going to win the war.
“He weirdly takes an immediate shine to Jeanne and she tries to keep him at arms length, not quite knowing what to do for the best without quite provoking him.
“He’s a little bit unpredictable and weird but I really like my character - I’ve played a lot of soldier boys and doctors and in a way, they’re all a gift as an actor.
“He is cultured and educated and speaks perfect English but he’s a bit cracked and I love playing that type of character.”
Gabriel, starring Paul McGann, Belinda Lang and Robin Morrissey will run at Theatr Clwyd from Tuesday, April 18 until Saturday, April 22.
For more information and to buy tickets, visit theatrclwyd.com or call the Box Office on 01352 701521.