Christopher Eccleston, the ninth Doctor, purports to reveal the “real” reason why he left the successful series after only one season (pictured with Billie Piper, who played Rose).
IT SORT OF came out of nowhere, years later, in an interview with the U.K. magazine Radio Times. After a successful reinvention of the Doctor Who franchise in 2005, star Christopher Eccleston rather mysteriously bowed out at the end of the first season. The official announcement cited a grueling production schedule and Eccleston’s fear of being typecast. The BBC later retracted its statement and admitted it hadn’t spoken to Eccleston before it was issued.
And that’s where things remained until Eccleston’s Radio Times interview this week in the run-up to his role in the upcoming BBC biopic Lennon Naked. He tells the magazine he left the successful series because, “I was open-minded but I decided after my experience on the first series that I didn’t want to do any more. I didn’t enjoy the environment and the culture that we, the cast and crew, had to work in.”
Eccleston doesn’t explain what he found so objectionable about the environment and the culture, just that he “wasn’t comfortable.” He continues, “I thought ‘If I stay in this job, I’m going to have to blind myself to certain things that I thought were wrong.’ And I think it’s more important to be your own man than be successful, so I left.”
The Code That Dare Not Speak Its Name
The environment? Certain things? That were wrong? All these sound like code words for Something That Dare Not Speak Its Name. Especially when you consider that the “culture” was set by the show’s executive producer at the time, Russell T. Davies, notorious for his very gay Queer as Folk and for introducing the most overt gay references in the formerly staid Doctor Who franchise.
While it’s certainly troubling that Eccleston may have had some issues with appearing on a show that had him kissing another guy, it’s more troubling that this is topic is still Too Shameful to Discuss Openly. And not just by him. The narrative in the media is that Eccleston is “finally” revealing why he left the show.
Except he really hasn’t. All his vague terms are very “wink and a nod” in nature, and the media coverage is reciprocating by dutifully quoting him without really challenging what’s behind the quotes. Nobody — including the media — wants to simply say, Russell T. Davies made Doctor Who too gay for Christopher Eccleston.
If that’s not what you meant, Mr. Eccleston, perhaps you should clarify? That’s what Radio Times, the BBC and everyone else who’s covering the hell out of this story should be asking. But they haven’t. No one’s calling him to account for his comments and what lies behind them. And that’s a failure of the media, not just Christopher Eccleston.
Next: Up to the Fans to Discuss the Real Issue »
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