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I have been enjoying the summer at Baker Towers - a rare experience for me as I am usually dashing around on tour somewhere.Ìý Work has not been abundant I must confess, although i have turned some stuff down because of my enforced car-lessness due to my speeding carelessness.

However I am doing an episode of the BBC series Doctors next week in Birmingham which I am looking forward to as I haven't done a telly for a year (which is when the episode ofÌý Kingdom screened last week was filmed in Norfolk - some people told me that they felt that they could 'smell' Mr Dodds - that animal loving yokel with a bitch of a daughter!)Ìý A different kind of character in 'Doctors' - a smug sexist git of a University lecturer. Hopefully it isn't type casting! Well I may be a 'git' but I would object to 'smug' (as I have nothing to be smug about!!) and to sexist!Ìý As a father of daughters I wouldn't dare be remotely sexist.Ìý I'm the one who argues for a female Doctor. - perhaps the next one eh?

But I have been able to watch most of Wimbledon so far - and Queens - and the French Open Tennis - which has been fun - as I haven't been able to do that for a few years either.

I am doing another Big Finish in a couple of weeks too - one of the missing stories - but I have learned now not to say which one as I know the lovely guys at Big Finish like to announce these things themselves!!

I went to see The King and I last week at the Albert Hall - courtesy of some good friends who have a box there - and it was very good indeed.Ìý It was that musical that I was watching when I was 19 years old and said to my mother 'I'd love to do something like that' and was overheard by the man sitting in front who was President of the local amateurs and persuaded me to turn up the following week and audition!Ìý And that's where it all started really.Ìý So it was nice to see another live production all these years later.Ìý Maria Friedman was superb as were the young lovers and Daniel Dae Kim (from 'Lost'?) as the King.

I have been enjoying watching my favourite TV programme currently being shown - Dexter - which just gets better - and am eagerly awaiting any news about more Heroes.

My daughters are all about to return from university, school and drama school respectively for the summer - so it will be nice to have a house full again - until I start getting cross about mess and noise.Ìý Fathers eh?Ìý Never satisfied!

Otherwise, oh loyal Colin watchers, I have nothing much to report.Ìý Hopefully the autumn will bring some interesting work - it had better, given the demands upon my shrinking purse of my daughters!!!

Enjoy the summer!

Back to the tennis!!!

Old Sixie - aka Colin

Well it's Spring at last and the bluebells are abundant in the woods around our home,Ìý I can see a blue swathe of them out of the window of my study as I write this blog.Ìý I also see my car.Ìý Nothing surprising in that you may say.Ìý But two weeks ago I had a jolly trip up to Northallerton where I appeared before the magistrates of that North Yorkshire town because a man with a radar gun - and more importantly a uniform - a police uniform - decided to point his gun at me, one sunny October afternoon in 2008.Ìý The radar gun told him that he could stop me and tell me I had broken the speeding laws by travelling at 90 mph on a dual carriageway.

Oh dear - guilty.Ìý And the annoying thing is that I wasn't in a hurry.Ìý I was taking my daughter Bindy up to South Shields where we were doing a concert (her singing - me compering) for my friend George Hastings, conductor of a new orchestra which is trying to get the northeast interested in music by playing full orchestral versions of accessible music like film scores, and classic pop.

I was watching the road and not the speedometer. My generation of drivers got used to judging our speed by the road conditions and not the speedo.ÌýÌý The road was empty and straight and wide and we were both in a good mood, chatting and looking forward to the concert.Ìý Now I know the speed limits are there for a good reason - but all the times I have been caught there has been no danger whatsoever.Ìý I was radared twice in two days a couple of years ago - one going up to Scotland and one coming back the next day.!Ìý I was doing another compering gig, funnily enough.Ìý This tiime for the Royal Air Force band - what is it with me and orchestral music?

I was apparently doing 85 on the way up and 86 on the way back - as radared from a bridge in Midlothian on the A74.Ìý Six points in one fell swoop.Ìý The other three?Ìý Doing 40 mph in an underpass in Canary Wharf on a Sunday morning at around 7am.Ìý Again empty road.Ìý In all three cases - completely empty roads.Ìý And my Northallerton trip added the three pointsÌý that disqualified me from driving and turned me into a pedestrian - or at least a passenger!.Ìý I had a lawyer who tried to tell the court that I needed a car for my work and my busy life!Ìý I have earned my living principally from touring over the last ten years.Ìý And when I am touring I only take the jobs because I can commute or get home regularly.Ìý There are no buses or trains that can be get me back home to the remote area in which I live after the curtain comes down in Guildford, Milton Keynes, Cheltenham, Bath, Woking, Birmingham, Cambridge or Canterbury.Ìý But they are all commutable for me by car in around two hours maximum each way.Ìý But the lady with a decided plum in her voice and steel in here eyes (which never met mine once) who was chair of magistrates decided from the word 'go' that she wasn't having any truck with sympathising with my plight if she were to give me the full six month ban.Ìý She referred to me several times as a 'serial offender' - which made me feel likeÌý mass murderer.Ìý It is at times like that when you are completely at the mercy of a strager who has no idea ofÌý the effect they are going to have on the life of someone else - that you realise how lucky we are most of the time in this country.Ìý There are places in the world where you are at the mercy of a ruling few the majority of the time - not just when the traffic police feel your collar.Ìý

Anyway, now I cannot take any touring work until I am mobile again in October.Ìý I know I could stay in all those places and just not come home but the cost of accommodation these days combined with my desire not to leave my girls alone in the country for weeks on end means that for me (and indeed them!!) this is going to be a belt tightening year!

Fortunately Big Finish rides to the rescue.Ìý The missing season stories have meant that I have plenty to do.Ìý I have done three of them already - having last week completed Paul Finch's adaptation of the splendid story his father wrote for my first season - Leviathan - which was never done.Ìý And great fun it was too.Ìý I can only imagine that the expense of the sets and spaceships required made it too expensive back in 1984 - no such problem with radio!Ìý It LOOKS stunning!Ìý I have been able to do a couple of Conventions too - a great day in Barking for 10th Planet - loads of guests, loads of attendees and a good day all round. I got to meet for the first time one of my heroes of tv comedy - the great Richard Briers - who turned out be every bit as delightful as I had hoped.Ìý A fund of funny stories and a very sweet man. I heartd a bit of his panel and he had the fans enthralled. And I sampled the joys of the tube going through West Ham when there was a football match on at Upton Park.Ìý Thank you Northallerton Magistrates.Ìý I would love if it the ice queen who dismissed my appeals for a lesser sentence to enable me to work - were to be caught herself!Ìý Mind you she probably has a chauffeur!!

I also went to Memorabilia at the NEC for two days and met quite a few chums.

I have been up for a few jobs and not got them.Ìý A couple of West End musicals decided that they could re-cast without troubling me - sadly. And a TV programme similarly got made without enduring a contribution from me.Ìý They didn't even bother to let my agent know that I was surplus to requirements.Ìý Welcome to the real world, Colin.

So I have cleared out my shed.Ìý Cleared out the attic.Ìý Done my back in, gardening.Ìý And endured the agony of watching Wycombe Wanderers nearly slide out of the automatic promotion spots in League Two and into the Play-Offs from whichÌý they have failed to progress for the last two seasons now.Ìý This time however, despite losing on the last day to Notts County - I was there, squirming with nervesÌý we have gained promotion to League One

to meet Norwich, Southampton and Brightonnext season.Ìý Bring it on.Ìý I think?

My wife and I were diners at Hell's Kitchen too.Ìý That was great fun.Ìý Superb food - and because we knew before the show started to air that were going to be there one night, we watched - and got hooked on - the whole series.Ìý I never watch cookery shows normally - as the process of preparing food is for me a chore - not a subject for entertainment.Ìý However Hell's Kitchen is of course more about the journey of the people and less about the ingredients and processes.Ìý Loved the series, loved Marco Pierre - and really loved the food! I could happily dine there nightly!Ìý No disrespect to my wife.

Two daughters birthdays this month.Ìý Lally last weekend.Ìý Rosie this weekend.Ìý She is now old enough to drive - so here comes the expense of driving lessons!Ìý But she is the last thank goodness.Ìý It could come about that I will be supporting them and their cars - all of them - and not be able to drive myself if Rosie passes her test before October!Ìý That would be ironic I suppose.

The only plus for me is that when we go out now - my wife is the one who can't drink not me!Ìý Another glass of wine Mr Baker?Ìý Yes, why not!

Have a good Spring!

Ìý

If ever I post blogs on this site regularly, you should worry for my well being.Ìý It will mean that I have time on my hands and am not working.Ìý And not working, while I have two daughters at University and one still at school is, believe me, bad news!
Anyway not only am I largely at liberty right now, but I am also labouring under a chest thing that has followed the virus I picked up either in America or on the plane home ( I am very suspicious of the ill effects of the air circulation systems on long haul flights. Virus redistribution systems if you ask me... anyway!)Ìý I am trying to shake it off so that I can go and strut my stuff out there and get some work - so staying in the house and answering the huge pile of fan mail that I always receive while doing a panto season - seems to be the order of the day.
Panto ended well - ironically I was literally the only member of the company who did not fall prey to the annual panto bug that caused various absences, understudy panics and cut songs.Ìý Foolishly I thought I had escaped scot free - but at least I didn't have a repetition of last year when I was prevented from doing the last two days of my panto in Norwich, which was a source of great regret for me.
I had a week to catch my breath and then headed off to New York and LA for conventions for Gene Smith, who runs the annual Chicago Dr Who event in November every year and who also sells the Big Finish stuff in the states at doctorwhostore.com.Ìý We had an amazing reaction in New York at Comicon at the Javitz Convention Centre.Ìý I lost track of the number of fans who were amazed and delighted that there wasÌý a Doctor Who actor in New York.Ìý Apparently, none of us have been brought there for quite some time.Ìý It was good to meet so many people who seemed genuinely delighted that we were there.Ìý I even managed to get a couple of days free on this trip too. Gene and his amiable assistant, Jeff, and I went to see a recording of the Letterman Show, which was quite interesting, apart from the interminable queueing that preceded our entry to the studio in Broadway... and the enthusiastic young man whose job it was to get a bunch of people to start behaving like children and doing all that whooping that TV audiences are called upon to produce!Ìý But Naomi Watts was an enchanting ( although size zero) guest and Letterman is a very accomplished presenter.Ìý I wouldn't want to queue up for an hour again to see a TV show being recorded though - and I am amazed anyone does.
That night we went to see Chicago - Chicago in New York eh?Ìý It was a magnificent production of a great show - and there was added value, as on our arrival there were flash bulbs popping - not for your blogger I hasten to add - but for Sully Sullenberger - the pilot who landed his plane so brilliantly on the Hudson River without anyone being hurt.Ìý He and his crew were invited up onto the stage at the end and were given a well deserved standing ovation.Ìý One of those " lucky to be there" moments.
My daughter, Lucy,Ìý was in New York with her friends at the same time, so when the hotel I was staying at finally acknowledged that I was there (Lucy and I spent 24 hours searching for each other in New York due to the Hotel's inefficiency!!) - we met up for breakfast at a local diner a couple of times.Ìý America does know how to breakfast - despite the difficulty in obtaining vegetables with meals later in the day!!Ìý And the portions defeat even my appetite!!
Then on to Gallifrey, in Los Angeles.Ìý I was a guest again of Gene Smith and the Doctor Who Store, so spent my time very pleasantly sitting in the Dealers' Room signing stuff, while Nicola, Frazer and Phil Collinson did all the hard work.Ìý I got to meet Kai Owen from Torchwood too - who it seems is also a Manchester United fan and therefore a good bloke - and we shared a drink or two in the hotel bar. Also Keith Temple, an old friend and writer of the great Oood story of the last series of Doctor who, was a guest and it was great to catch up with him. although to my HUGE embarrassment I failed to recognise him for ten minutes of our conversation because he had lost so much weight since I had last seen him. I am so used to taliking to people who know me but whom I don't know at Conventions that I had uncconciously put him in that bracket. What an idiot!Ìý And I caught up on all Nicola's news, too not having seen her for several months.Ìý She is looking even younger than she did last time a I saw her - I suspect that there is either a picture in her attic or my eyesight is getting blurred!Ìý I know she must be more than 35 but she doesn't look it!!. Anyway... all in all a very pleasant time.Ìý And in addition I got time off to visit friends, including Michele and Randi who took me to visit their respective places of work which was particularly fun because she works at Disney (legal department) and he works for Warner (props and furniture) - so see belowÌýfor pictures of me at those places - and on the Friends set!!Ìý Michele also runs a cat rescue charity, currently looking after 42 of our feline friends - so I had very pleasant couple of hours visiting her and them.

All that and travelling Virgin for the first time added up to a very enjoyable trip.Ìý I am definitely a Virgin fan now - a distinct improvement on the American airline I will not name that I flew when I went to Chicago in November.Ìý Service, films, food all good.Ìý And I love that advert too!!!
Quite a downer to return to a chest infection but at least the snow had gone.
Sadness at home too as we have lost both our fat deaf old Dalmatian - organ failure - and our top, alpha male cat Billy Bagpuss in the last month.Ìý Poor old Billy picked up some poison somewhere and we found him under my daughter's bed, fitting.Ìý Rushed him to the vet but too late.Ìý Not a nice way to go - and he was such a stylish and sleek tabby that he deserved a better end.Ìý Our old ginger cat, Tigger, who in her decrepitude sees the whole world of indoors as her lavatory is still with us. Ironic really - not that I wish her any harm....Ìý Honestly.
Bindy, daughter no 2, was 21 last weekend and we all went out to TGI for a celebration (her choice) on the day.Ìý Then she drove off back to her musical theatre course in the new car she had received.Ìý I told you I needed to keep working!!!
My agent for the last decade, Jan Evans, announced to me over Christmas that she was retiring and closing the agency, so I had to find new representation.Ìý I decided to re-join Barry Burnett, my agent for the decade before that, whom I had left in order to test whether the grass was any greener on the other side of the agent fence.Ìý Actor insecurity!Ìý In fact they are both very good agents and the work pattern remained essentially the same.Ìý Employers either want me or they don't. Anyway Barry very generously welcomed me back into the fold and I am looking forward to picking up where we left off - and I wish Jan, who has also become a good friend - a long and happy retirment.
And now back to finishing the musical I am currently writing on commission - more of that in my next blog.

Having arrived home from Bath at 10pm on Christmas Eve before wrapping my presents I just wanted to say a very Happy Christmas to anyone who is mad enough to want to log on to my blog over the Christmas period!Ìý When I say "mad" - it is a flattering 'madness' that you should even think about me at Christmas!Ìý I have been panto driven for the last two weeks having gone straight from Noises Off, via Chicago, into rehearsals for Jack and the Beanstalk - but I wanted to be sure to thank you all for your support and interest over the last few years and a special thank you to the wonderful, uncomplaining and diligent Rob Cope for keeping this website so informative and interesting even though I am not always that good at keeping him informed. To Rob and to all of you - thanks and have a very HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

Come and see me in Bath until the 25th January if you have the chance - it is a fun panto and everyone in it is both good and lovely!

More after Christmas - I promise!!!

Colin

Gulp - is it really July since I last blogged on!?Ìý Well, dear friends, I must explain that the process of rehearsing Noises Off, with which I am currently touring, was a very time consuming business and the weeks have just flown by.Ìý And then I have been away for three weeks in Brighton, Newcastle and Glasgow (last week) which has also hindered my ability to communicate with you all.Ìý Enough with the excuses....
I rehearsed in Wimbledon for Noises Off, just behind the dog track, where the set had been constructed in a vast studio normally used by TV companies and for advertising shoots.Ìý In fact, there seemed to be an endless procession of glossy cars and young scantily clad females into the studio next door where they seemed to be making back to back car adverts!Ìý We were there for three weeks and anyone who has seen the play already will testify that it is a complicated piece, particularly the manic second act, where there are virtually two plays going on simultaneously - the one we do in Act 1 (but this time behind the set and audible and visible through the windows) - and the "backstage" antics that dovetail with what is going on behind the set "onstage".Ìý You have to see it - it's impossible to explain!!Ìý
Anyway the cast is, without exception, superb.Ìý Maggie Steed is an actress I have long admired from her appearances in Fox many years ago - and Shine on Harvey Moon and more recently Pie in the Sky and Jam and Jerusalem.Ìý Her Dottie is divine, as is Ben Hull, a young actor of Hollyoaks and Casualty fame, who drives the play frenetically and with an enviable energy (he has lost several pounds during the first few weeks) - and is a great bloke too.Ìý We are having a fantastic time doing the play and I would urge anyone to come and see it if it is at a theatre near you between now and Christmas.It really is the funniest play ever written.Ìý Official!Ìý Alas, the spring tour has now been cancelled, as they couldn't get all the dates they wanted to schedule a viable tour without lots of empty weeks.
As I write this, I am at home for the first time in three weeks, as we are in Oxford (sold out apparently!) and next week, I shall be at home too as the play will be in Woking - a lovely big theatre; so a good one to try and catch it at, if you're in that area.
Life has been made even more hectic in Baker Towers as my middle two daughters have both vacated the nest for University in the same week.Ìý Bindy, my second daughter, has gone off to the Bristol Academy of Performing Arts in Somerset to do a musical theatre course and Lally (No 3) is at Warwick ,reading Literature and Film.Ìý A very exciting time for both of them but quite strange for those of us left behind, as the noise level and family activities have dwindled dramatically.Ìý I have heard parents before saying that it is a bit like a bereavement; and I know now what they meant.Ìý It is very strange indeed for those left behind.Ìý For them it is fantastic though and they are both enjoying the new experiences and challenges.
My car, if you're interested, which had been giving me lots of hassle in the water and oil department for ages is now sorted (at great expense) after the head gasket etc was replaced.Ìý My car is vital to me as I regularly commute vast distances and it is a relief to have it working properly again.Ìý Though I would like to get my hands on the "expletive deleted" who smashed my passenger window, when I was in Newcastle, in an attempt to get my sat nav, which mercifully was not in the car, although its cradle was sitting on the dashboard as an inducement to the ungodly.Ìý Two other cars were similarly attacked in the same street in the wee small hours of the morning and the third yielded the required booty - a sat nav!
Apart from that and my falling through (rather than stepping through) the window on stage one night and damaging my right knee a tad - life has been fairly incident free.Ìý
On the plus side Heroes has started again and I am looking forward to seeing the opening episode which has been recorded for me.Ìý And I have been enjoying the wonderful dexter too - though I wouldn't advise it for the squeamish!!
The grass has grown humungously in the garden and as it is now sunny - gosh there's a novelty - we had to wait for October to see the sun!! - I will now go and try to mow a bit of it!
I promise to be a more diligent blogger in the future.
To any of you who live in Manchester come and see me at the Fab Cafe in Portland Street on 14th October!
Enjoy the Autumn and let's hope the sun visits us all a little more regularly.