Street Who

Fri, Sep 29, 2006

Former Coronation Street actress Thelmaw Barlow will play one of the baddies in the third season of Doctor Who, says the BB of C. Barlow, who has more recently been seen in the (in my opinion utterly dire, old-fashioned and unfunnny) comedy Dinnerladies is probably best known for her role of Mavis Riley in the long-running soap opera (which now boasts Red Dwarf star Craig Charles among its cast); viewers of a certain age may recall her “I don’t really know, Vera” line being pastiched as a dreadful whine by Les Dennis back when he was an up and coming impressionist. Although the old Who had a long tradition of attracting a lot of well-known British actors for guest roles (to protect his curmudgeon image Bill Fraser famously took on a guest baddie role on the condition he got to kick K-9) I have to say this casting doesn’t fill me with confidence; let’s hope it isn’t as bad a mis-cast as the dreadful Peter Kay episode in season two. Better news is the League of Gentleman’s Mark Gatiss (who has previously written two episodes of the show) will also guest-star.