Sylvester McCoy played the seventh Doctor in Doctor Who from 1987 to 1989 and in the 1996 TV movie. He has reprised the role for many Big Finish audio titles such as Valhalla and Frozen Time. The actor chats to Paul Simpson about his history with Who.

This has to be about your 20th audio as the Doctor. Are you still finding new aspects to the character?

Yes. It’s amazing really. It’s all to do with the writing: Doctor Who has always been to do with the writing. Each writer brings their own individual story, and with that their own take on the Doctor.

Nick Briggs mentioned you wanted to do some stories on your own – emphasising the need for a companion. That loneliness was more a part of the TV Movie rather than the series itself – was it an element that you would have liked to explore more?

Not really. The Doctor developed. Partly it was because in the film I was by myself, and it was quite interesting to explore what would have happened a bit longer. There was a nice kind of melancholy which I think everybody liked about those scenes. We didn’t realise that when we did them, but when we saw them, we realised it works.

But also, doing it in audio, you feel that when you’re playing the Doctor you can get right inside his head. On television you can’t, because it’s a visual thing. He can tell you what he’s thinking – he can speak – but with the audios, you’re listening, and you could be right inside his head.

That’s what I’m looking for: I don’t think we’ve quite got it yet. It’s not that I want to be companionless, but I want to explore that area where you’re right inside, you’re with his thought process most of the time.

Did you ever anticipate still being involved with Doctor Who 20 years later?

No. When it finished, I thought, “Been there, done that, job finished, on to the next.”

Fandom was still quite strong at that point...

Yes, they were around, and I thought that maybe the conventions would go on for a little bit and then that would slowly die off. And then it was only slowly you realise that because of the fans, they weren’t prepared to let it die off. So they started things like Big Finish, and Bill Baggs started his things going, and others were doing their stories. They’ve kept it going.

Survival is very much a template for the new show – would you have liked that to have dictated the style of your fourth season if it had happened? Or did you prefer the more outlandish stories like Paradise Towers or The Greatest Show in the Galaxy?

Funnily enough, I didn’t like Paradise Towers very much. I didn’t like studio set stories, working in the studio too much. The Greatest Show in the Galaxy I loved because it was all filming outdoors.

I don’t know really. I think having seen Survival for the first time recently since it went out, it’s a really brilliant story. It was brilliantly written, and it turns out Rona Monroe is one of our greatest writers now.

It’s let down by some of the costumes, and the cats. That was unfortunate: they had real cats who were supposed to be trained, and, of course, they said to the cats, “Move over there!” and they ran away. We never saw them again. We had to suddenly rely on the animatronic. And that was only designed to be seen in a flash, for a moment…Little things spoil it, but if you can watch it with that forgiveness in your heart, you’ve got a really great story.

That applies to a lot of the show...

The Daleks one does as well.

Are you playing the Doctor as the same person he was on screen, or as an older and more experienced person?

I suppose I’m playing him older and more experienced – the way I wanted him to go. Sometimes I’m just responding to the scripts: they’re sometimes darker. The last two scripts I’ve done (Valhalla and Frozen Time) have been lighter but with moments of darkness in them. I like the various shades, painting the various shades of the Doctor. It’s great fun, I really enjoy doing that. I’m still searching for that one that’s right inside his head.

We’re trying to do one called The Silent Movie. They asked me what I wanted to do, and I said, “A silent movie!”

Have you ever thought of writing one yourself?

No, I haven’t got the patience.

Or directing?

I don’t know - I have directed plays, and bits of telly. I don’t know what I’d be like. I quite just like doing it at the coalface, rather than being in the management.

Is there anywhere else you’d like to take the Doctor, or anything you’d like to go back over and redo slightly differently?

Yes – I’d like to do the opening story, Time and the Rani, again. I had no idea what I was doing then. And they had no idea! It wasn’t written for me really. I was wearing Colin’s costume and it didn’t really quite fit! I’d like to do that. But I’d still like to go for that area where it’s completely inside his head.

You now have two companions with Ace and Hex. Ace has become more of a professor to Hex...

Yes, she’s teaching him.

How has that affected your relationship with Ace?

He’s still the mentor, really. He will be, and he’ll always be the Professor to her. Originally when we started out, I had the idea that this was her university, and by the time she left the TARDIS and I brought her back from her adventures, she’d be able to become Prime Minister or do something great in the world...She would come back and do that and the Doctor would always be her mentor.

You also had a very different take with the Doctor in Death Comes To Time...

I liked that. I know a lot of people got upset because it killed off the Doctor, but I thought it was rather good.

The soundscape was interesting…Lots of classical music. The idea then was to try to bring back Doctor Who but in a different guise – let’s kill him off and bring him back but call him something different, and the BBC won’t notice that it’s still the same thing.

The BBC was still very negative about it then. It’s changed now – how lucky they are to be working under it now. There was always that negative feeling when we went into work – not from John [Nathan-Turner, producer], but those above him.

There was always a battle going on. They didn’t really want it. They were keeping it on because it was there and they couldn’t really figure out a way to get rid of it. John was leaving and they didn’t know how to replace him really. This time he had said he was, and that was it – it didn’t carry on. They couldn’t find anyone to volunteer to take it over. They could have asked me!

Doctor Who: Valhalla and Doctor Who: Frozen Time are both out now from Big Finish.