Features

Would Miriam Margoyles have become a Doctor Who companion?

Miriam Margolyes, who voices the Meep in the first 2023 Special The Star Beast, talks exclusively to Doctor Who Magazine about her lunch with David Tennant, her affection for Tom Baker, and why she’s the Fourth Doctor’s companion who never was.

The latest edition of Doctor Who Magazine (DWM) is on sale from Thursday 12th October. It is available to order as a subscription, either physical or digital, here.

Read on for an extract of the exclusive interview...

Miriam Margolyes

But would Miriam have been in Doctor Who before? Would her and the Fourth Doctor team up? Miriam tells us more about her first foray into Doctor Who in DWM…

“When I think of Doctor Who I think initially of Tom Baker, whom I loved and worked with. And I remember he said he’d asked for me to be the sidekick many years ago and they wouldn’t consider it. I only heard about this via Tom years later. Not at the time. He told me, ‘I really asked for you and wanted you but they said no.’ He thought I was slightly off the wall, and he wanted somebody slightly off the wall. I would love to have done it, it would have been amazing. But I wasn’t the sort of person they wanted. In those days, the whole point was to have a very conventional pretty little thing. I was never that.”

Find out more in the latest issue.

Doctor Who Magazine issue 596

Highlights of issue 596 of DWM include:

  • Meet the Meep – Miriam Margolyes, who voices the Meep in the first 2023 Special The Star Beast, talks exclusively to DWM
  • Noble intentions – Jacqueline King and Karl Collins – who play Donna’s mum, Sylvia Noble and her husband, Shaun Temple – on their imminent return to Doctor Who after 13 years.
  • Letter from the Showrunner – Russell T Davies on important dates for your diary!
  • The Beast Unleashed – go behind the scenes on the brand-new making-of show Doctor Who Unleashed.
  • Star Makers – comic book legends Pat Mills and Dave Gibbons – and two of their biggest fans, Russell T Davies and David Tennant – tell us why it’s The Star Beast’s time to shine.
  • Drawn Upon a Spin Off… – episodes of Doctor Who have inspired everything from comics and novels to audio dramas and video games. But what about those times when the inspiration has gone the other way?
  • Memory Worm – The Worm deletes your past – and it’s loose! DWM continues to test Doctor Who contributors for signs of contact with the creature. This issue: Jamie actor Frazer Hines.
  • Production Diary – script editor Scott Handcock files his latest report, direct from Doctor Who’s HQ.
  • Effective Management – Matt Nathan, VFX editor on the forthcoming special episodes and the next series of Doctor Who, reveals how he manages the magic we see on screen.
  • “Nothing in the World Can Stop Me Now!” – with an animated reconstruction of 1967's The Underwater Menace on the way, DWM reassesses at Joseph Furst’s baroque performance as Professor Zaroff.
  • Liberation of the Daleks Part Thirteen – the adventures of the Fourteenth Doctor continue in the epic comic-strip adventure written by Alan Barnes and illustrated by Lee Sullivan.
  • The Fact of Fiction unlocks the secrets of the Tenth Doctor and Donna’s first reunion episode, 2008’s Partners in Crime.
  • 60 Objects, 60 Years – the latest instalment of the series that tells the story of one object from every year of Doctor Who’s history.
  • Gallifrey Guardian – all the latest official news.
  • Other Worlds – the essential guide to new stories in Doctor Who’s expanded universe.
  • Previews, reviews, prize-winning competitions, Time and Space Visualiser and more.

The latest edition of Doctor Who Magazine (DWM) is on sale from Thursday 12th October. It is available to order as a subscription, either physical or digital, here.

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