We take a look at an alternate Doctor Who history with the Doctors that never were…

 

Bernard Cribbins as The Fourth Doctor

Along with playing a companion to both the Tenth and Peter Cushing Doctors, in 1974 Jackanory stalwart Bernard Cribbins was considered as a replacement for outgoing Third Doctor Jon Pertwee.

Cribbins attended an interview at the BBC about the possibility of taking on the role and was asked what skills he had. After warning the programme’s producers that he wasn’t good on a horse, Cribbins mentioned that he had been a paratrooper and was able to fight. To which the producers responded that fighting wasn’t something the Doctor would do. Cribbins later spoke highly of Tom Baker, listing him as one of his favourite Doctors alongside David Tennant.

Children’s TV star Richard Hearne was also a possibility but clashed with producer Barry Letts by wanting to play the Doctor in the style of his bumbling slapstick character Mr Pastry.

 

Richard Griffiths as The Fifth or Eighth Doctors

One of few actors to be linked to the part three times, the BBC first planned on giving acclaimed stage actor and future Harry Potter star Richard Griffiths the keys to TARDIS back in 1980 when Tom Baker decided to step aside.

Griffiths was unavailable at the time, which led to the BBC casting 29-year-old Peter Davison, at the time the youngest Doctor and worlds apart from Tom Baker. Something that ‘Keeper Of Traken’ director John Black believes was a significant factor in his casting.

Years later when Doctor Who was nearing its end, Griffiths was mooted as potential successor to Sylvester McCoy. Who, years later, said that he likely would have only stayed on for one more season before moving on to other things.

And finally, a few years later when the time came to properly cast the Eighth Doctor, Griffiths was on the long list provided by the Hubbards casting agency but didn’t progress any further. At this time, he was also on a list of potential candidates to play the Time Lord Cardinal Borusa alongside Peter O’Toole and Christopher Lee.

 

Ken Campbell as The Seventh Doctor

Described by a Newfoundland newspaper as “a one-man dynamo of British theatre”; along with Chris Jury (Lovejoy) and Dermot Crowley (Return Of The Jedi), Ken Campbell was one of the potential successors to the unfairly ousted Colin Baker.

Despite being a more than capable actor, Campbell’s audition showed a dark interpretation of the role which was a factor in the BBC choosing Sylvester McCoy (known for light entertainment at the time) over him. Particularly since, as the Seventh Doctor’s earlier stories show, the BBC aimed for a lighter tone possibly to contrast with the less affable Sixth Doctor and the criticisms of violence in Colin Baker’s first season.

Fittingly; Sylvester McCoy was one of Ken Campbell’s protégés and although the role of the Seventh Doctor escaped him, Campbell continued to make a huge impact on British theatre until his death in 2008, at one point staging a thirty-six hour play with no script.

 

Liam Cunningham as The Eighth Doctor

During the incredibly long pre-production process of the 1996 Doctor Who film; plenty of names were thrown about as potential Doctors, including The Who’s Roger Daltry and new Top Gear host Chris Evans. But as the list of names was whittled down, future Game Of Thrones star Liam Cunningham emerged as one of the frontrunners.

Cunningham was first brought to producer Philip Segal’s attention by film producer Sir David Puttnam after a chance meeting at an airport. A recorded audition on March the 9 of 1994 followed where Cunningham read an extract from a script by American writer John Leekley in which the Doctor chats with Napoleon about military history. Segal was very impressed by his audition, describing him as vibrant and reminiscent of Tom Baker.

The film taking so long to produce led to Cunningham turning down the role twice because of other commitments but when he was available for the final shooting dates, Fox passed on him. Cunningham finally made his Doctor Who debut in 2013, playing Russian submarine captain Zhukov in Season 7’s ‘Cold War’.

 

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