In the before times, i.e. pre-60th Anniversary, the Tour had a nice little sideline in the serendipitous stumbling of Doctor Who actors outside of the friendly confines of Doctor Who. The necessary ‘detour’ into actual new Nu-Who hasn’t stopped the cordwood of ‘Who Not Who!’ encounters from piling up. In fact we could write about this quite consistently between now and Ncuti Gatwa’s first full season and still have plenty to parcel out later.
A case in point:
Anneke WIlls was in some ways perfectly calibrated for the 1960s, an ‘it’ girl who in some ways represented the forward edge of the youth movement for the decade. Although her tenure in Doctor Who from 1966-67 might at first seem to be step away from all of that, inside a Doctor Who context, from The War Machines on she was a very modern girl indeed.
‘The Sentimental Agent was a small part of the ‘ITC Encyclopedia of Adventure.’ Arguably a spin-off of ‘Man of the World’ the series only ran for 13 episodes, hampered by the ill-health of its star Carlos Thompson. But the early episodes effused an easy charm about them. Anneke appeared in the very first episode, ‘All That Jazz’ as Sarah, the ‘leader’ of a youth jazz group, and she plays a killer xylophone, unintentionally of course.
Savvy Internet shoppers might find the episode, or indeed the entire series, with a bit of careful poking around.
Whatever will Who Not Who! stumble across next?
