Sarah Sutton as Nyssa of Traken in Doctor Who. Photo copyright of the BBC.
I recently discovered several interviews I did a number of years ago that, for one reason or another, were never published. Rather than have them continue to gather "dust" in my computer, I thought I would share them with you. In this interview - Sarah Sutton talks about her career and her role as a series regular in Doctor Who.
When the fourth Doctor visited the tranquil world of Traken he was unaware that his Moriarty was waiting in the shadows for him. The renegade Time Lord known as the Master had reached his twelfth and final regeneration, and he hoped Traken would somehow provide him with a new lease on life. He found his opportunity and took over the body of Tremas, the Consul of the Empire of Traken. The Consul's daughter, Nyssa, joined the Doctor in the hopes of finding the evil Time Lord and somehow exorcise him from her father's body.
Sarah Sutton, who took on the role of Nyssa, was already a veteran actress by the time she auditioned for her role on Doctor Who. "I went to professional ballet school at the age of seven, and at the age of nine auditioned for the part of Baby Roo in a musical version of Winnie The Pooh at the Phoenix Theatre in London," recalls Sutton. "I got the part and played Roo for the following two years!
"Winnie The Pooh was performed over a couple of months spanning Christmas and New Year. So you can imagine the fun I had as a nine year old going up to the West End every day during my Christmas school holidays! It was a very happy time and I consider myself very lucky to have had such opportunities at so young an age."
Along with working on four radio plays for the BBC, the actress appeared in numerous roles in such BBC television productions as Belinda in Boys and Girls Come Out to Play, Alice in Alice Through the Looking Glass, Suzanne Wollcott in The Crucible, and Diana in The Moon Stallion. With one character so different from the next, how did Sutton prepare for each role? "The extent of research depends very much on each individual role," she notes. "Some are more complicated than others. The role for which I think I studied most was Diana in The Moon Stallion in which I played the part of a blind girl."
While on holiday in Barbados in 1980, Sutton sat under a palm tree on the beach mulling over in her mind what type of role she would next like to do. Upon returningfrom holiday, the actress' agent contacted her about a part in an upcoming episode of Doctor Who. "I auditioned for John Black, the director of The Keeper of Traken, my first Doctor Who episode for the BBC," recalls Sutton. "It was there that I met the producer of the series, John Nathan-Turner. A few days later my agent told me I had been offered the part, but I didn't know that my contract would be extended."
A very intelligent girl of noble birth, Nyssa's technical education included the study of such advanced sciences as bioelectronics. Nyssa found herself as both an orphan and a permanent traveling companion aboard the TARDIS when her home planet of Traken was destroyed in her second story, Logopolis. This shock was followed by the surprise regeneration of the fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) into the younger, cricket-playing fifth Doctor (Peter Davison). Nyssa found her technical skills invaluable when she and fellow traveling companion Tegan Jovanka (Janet Fielding) were faced with the challenge of saving the life of the newly regenerated and highly unstable Time Lord.
Sutton's character played an important part in providing the viewing audience with one of the links between the Tom Baker and Peter Davison eras of Doctor Who. In her first year with the Doctor, Nyssa helped not once but three times to save the Earth against a myriad of alien invasions. She also met her physical double when the TARDIS traveled back to 1925 England in Black Orchid. The first purely historical story since the 1966 Patrick Troughton (Doctor #2) adventure The Highlanders, this episode was Sutton's favorite. "In addition to having two parts to play," says the actress, "I also had the chance to wear some different clothes! Also, I'm not really a huge science fiction fan so it was nice to work on an episode that wasn't a pure science fiction story."
In her second and final year on Doctor Who, Suttonhad the opportunity to work on an episode with Nicholas Courtney, who reprised his role as the Doctor's old friend, Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart. The 1983 episode Terminus saw Nyssa parting company with the Doctor, deciding to remain with a plague colony in the hopes of using her technical skills to discover a cure. Sutton sums up her time on Doctor Who as "a generally happy experience for me."
Following her work in Doctor Who, Sutton toured the British Isles in a theatrical production of the murder/mystery play Policy for Murder. She also made an appearance in an episode of the BBC medical drama Casualty. "Besides working on these two productions, my husband and I also took some time out and went around the world for five months, which was wonderful!" enthuses Sutton. "Recently, my time has been taken up by the arrival of my first baby, a daughter, who was born in the summer of 1991."
Looking forward, what would the actress like to see the future holding for her? "I would love to do a feature film," she says, "but any work at all at the moment would be wonderful!"
Steve Eramo
As noted above, photo copyright of the BBC, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!
Nawwww! I love Sarah Sutton. Me and one of my best friends "adopted" her on Valentines Day.
Posted by: Shakira Habib | 12/31/2010 at 12:04 AM