Mark Gatiss (born 17 October 1966, in Sedgefield, Durham, England, UK), once credited as Sam Kisgart and also Rondo Haxton[1], has been a major creative force in the production of Doctor Who fiction since the 1990s. Given his accomplishments as a Doctor Who author, screenwriter, audio writer, audio actor, screen actor, documentary narrator, and documentary subject, his contribution to the Doctor Who franchise is unique.
Televised Doctor Who
In terms of televised Doctor Who, as of May 2013[update], Gatiss has contributed six scripts to the BBC Wales version of Doctor Who, made four guest appearances, and been a narrator and a subject of Doctor Who Confidential. Although other writers had enjoyed small roles in the 1963 version of Doctor Who, he was the first to have a large speaking role — much less a part the size of Professor Richard Lazarus, the titular villain of The Lazarus Experiment. Later that year, the Richard Lazarus prosthetic was used in Voyage of the Damned to stand in for the actor playing Max Capricorn in some long shots. (PCOM: Voyage of the Damned)
He later returned to make two brief, uncredited appearances during the Matt Smith era as a Spitfire Pilot in Victory of the Daleks and A Good Man Goes to War. He then made a credited return to the programme as Gantok in The Wedding of River Song. As of series 5's Victory of the Daleks, Gatiss became the only person to have written and starred in the same episode of Doctor Who, and he claimed that it also made him "the first and only person so far to write for the series and be in it twice".[2]
This episode also gave Gatiss the opportunity to write for his seventh different Doctor. This surpasses the number of different Doctors for whom Paul Cornell has written (but they are on level ground as of May 2013[update] if the Shalka Doctor is counted). As of May 2013[update], both writers are, however, behind Terrance Dicks, who has written original stories for eight different Doctors — and has written for nine different Doctors, if one counts Target novelisations.
With his role in this episode, Gatiss also achieved something of another Doctor Who record. As of June 2012[update], he has acted with nine of the eleven actors to have played the Doctor, though not always when that actor was playing the Doctor. Matt Smith was the sixth different Doctor he had encountered in a piece of performed Doctor Who.[3]
Doctor Who work in other media
Outside the programme proper, he has written various officially licensed novels, televised spoofs and audio plays, and has sometimes lent his voice to Big Finish Productions. Counting BBC-made spoofs and these audios, he is alone with Sir Derek Jacobi in having played both the Doctor and the Master.
Gatiss also wrote the docu-drama An Adventure in Space and Time. A dramatised account of William Hartnell's tenure as the Doctor, it was produced and broadcast as pat of the show's 50th anniversary celebrations.
Work with Doctor Who personnel outside of the programme
Gatiss also has significant relationships with Doctor Who luminaries that extend beyond the programme itself.
For instance, he is a frequent collaborator with Steven Moffat, with whom he created and produced Sherlock, a TV series which started airing in 2010. He also played Robert Louis Stevenson in Moffat's Jekyll.
He has had some form of professional or semi-professional contact with every actor to have played the Doctor except William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton. David Tennant is his most common acting partner amongst people who've played the Doctor. They've been on screen together on several occasions — most prominently in The Quatermass Experiment and the episode "Drop Dead" of Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased), which also featured Jessica Hynes. He's also been alongside Tennant in Bright Young Things, which also co-starred Fenella Woolgar, Stephen Fry, Bill Paterson, Richard E. Grant, and Jim Broadbent; and the English-language cast of the Norwegian animated adventure Free Jimmy, with Simon Pegg, Jim Broadbent and Steve Pemberton. He and Tom Baker have occasionally crossed paths, through their mutual connection to Matt Lucas. Gatiss script edited several episodes of Little Britain, on which Baker was the regular narrator, and fellow Doctor Who Confidential narrator, Anthony Head, played a leading role. Later, Baker and he both appeared as actors in Lucas' The Wind in the Willows. Christopher Eccleston once appeared on an episode of Gatiss' show, The League of Gentlemen. Peter Davison and he were in several BBV productions at the start of Gatiss' career, but following that, as of 2010, they have only acted together in the Big Finish Productions audio story Phantasmagoria. By virtue of his participation in The Zero Imperative, he's acted on-screen alongside Caroline John, Jon Pertwee, Sylvester McCoy, Colin Baker, Louise Jameson, and Sophie Aldred.
References
- ↑ The Wedding of River Song
- ↑ "Mark Gatiss on Victory of the Daleks". sfx.co.uk. 11 April 2010.
- ↑ Although Elisabeth Sladen appeared alongside nine incarnations of the Doctor, one of "her" Doctors is Richard Hurndall, and she never appeared with William Hartnell, Paul McGann or Christopher Eccleston.