Elisabeth Sladen is perhaps the most well know and the most popular Doctor Who companion Sarah Jane Smith.A journalist the character Sarah Jane became a regular in the classic episodes between 1973 to 1976 appearing alongside Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker as Doctor's three and four.She returned to this role in 2006 in Series 2's School Reunion with David Tennant and Billie Piper. Elisabeth's popularity had not wavered and she landed her own spin off series The Sarah Jane Adventures.I caught up with her as she promoted the audiobooks to go with the series to discuss her Who career and her new show.

You are promoting Audiozone what is all this about?
Well the actual books are coming out separately that belong to the stories that we have done on camera but the CDs that are out The Glittering Storm they are not from any other source and they will not go to anything else they are just on CD. They were brilliant to, I love radio, but I had never actually done anything that was so intense with all people's different voices, and it's in the first person so you can't actually do too much except a flavour of their voices, so you just go in one day and stay the day with the cans on the head and try and get it right and I loved it.
You are most famous for your role as Sarah Jane Smith what was it like returning to Doctor Who after thirty years?

It was scary actually but it was ok with the ammunition that I had. It was very different when I left, and I walked away from it I walked away from acting when my family started and just did bits and bobs, it was somewhere I thought she would be.

When I had the meeting with Russell T Davis I thought how am I going to turn this down my agent will kill me but I really did thing it would be a couple of lines a cough and a spit, a little homage to the classic series, and because I absolutely loved doing the character with Jon and with Tom I thought I don't actually want it to end like that.

But then they put forward this story line and it was, through the years were you get letters, they don't stop they just get less, it was always a case of where you thing Sarah Jane is now blah blah blah and youngsters are looking at it for the first time on DVD so you have a new audience, so where Toby put her I thought I would love to do this I would love this to be her swan song because I really believed that she was pissed off at him for not coming back and there's another bloody person travelling around in time and space.

And it was great but I had to make her not like the Sarah that left, because she wasn't, she was kind of a bit sucked dry, but Russell is really clever, and we had a down ending actually and he said 'No that's not the way to leave her' so K9 came back in and it had this nice up ending and I thought what a lovely place to leave her.

I just never saw the rest coming. But it was very different it was a different place to be and it was David's first, he hadn't even been established as the Doctor, and Billie had so they were forming their relationship so it was kind of a lonely place to be actually, but I was very supported by Russell, Phil and Julie, you kind of didn't want to bleed on anyone if you know what I mean? And I felt god I have really got to prove this without making too much fuss. So it was quite an uptight experience to be honest.

And how did filming then and filming now compare?

Well we only had inserts we never really had filming in the classic Doctor Who we would go away for four days or six days, never depending on how much you had to do if it was a four parter it was four days if it was a six parter six days regardless.

We would rehearse two episodes, usually our of order for ten days, including the weekend but not working the weekend if we didn't have to, and then we would go into the studio to record them.

We would rehearse with the cameras all day, so whenever make-up could get hold of you you would have another eyelash put on, and by seven thirty, after evening meal, it was like curtain up until ten o'clock you know? It wasn't filming all day and at ten o'clock they pulled the plug, whether you had the programme or not so you knew whatever you did if the special effects didn't work you didn't have a programme so you could hardly ever do it again, if the stun gun worked once they would do that take and move one.

How stressful a working environment was that for you?

Well it wasn''t stressful it was just very you knew what you had to do, it was great fun actually, there was once, I think it was Pyramids of Mars, when we saw the set there was something that really we hadn't noticed, or couldn't have done when it was marked out in tapes on the rehearsal room floor, and when you are actually in the set you see what the set designers have done and if it's something you can use.

And we were offering it to the powers that be up in the gantry and it was no just it done we haven't got the time and Tom would just look at me and say 'Can we do this?' and I would say 'Yes'. And we would do it but god help us if we had been wrong but by then you knew how you worked and you just had to run with it you really did. But that was fine because you knew your territory you know?

And you were critical of the development of your character in the classic series why was that?

What did I say>

You said that she was a bit 'Yes Doctor, no Doctor' a bit cardboardy

Yes well that's really what they had had before me. It was a criticism but it was a fact because they brought me in as a very strong character. I did Time Warrior and then there was a three month break, they tagged me onto the end of Jon's last season no Katie's last season, and then there was this three month gap. And that was an incredibly strong episode, the story which Robert Holmes wrote, and I went away absolutely in my mind that that was what the character was going to be like.

I came back three months later to do the dinosaur one and you kind of had to realise that you had to fit the boots were you had to, sometimes, be acquiescent, that was the format, but that was the format that I kind of managed to wriggle out of either saying well I'm not really contributing to this scene, they sometimes think that because they have got the two leads that you always have to be there together in the scene, but if you are not adding anything it makes your character look weak.

So sometimes I would say I don't need to be in this scene and was off doing something else and quite often that would be better for the story line but quite often you would have to do the 'Yes Doctor' and the 'No Doctor'.

But if you did it in such a way that you thought he had a bigger brain than you and he was alien then you could be quite tart about it, it was actually the way that you did it, but quite often you thought oh no not again, but I understand why for the story line, and I would do it because he is my best friend so I will fall into this mud hole again and twist my ankle because I'm trying to get him out of trouble. And that kind of makes you look stronger than weaker and more kind of jump before I think and that is what I tried to do with my character.

And what do you think of the current batch of companions?

Well I think it has been amazing that they have grabbed the limelight I'm all for it.We were very much down the pecking order in my day I'm delighted.

You are currently starring in The Sarah Jane Adventures how did all that come about?

Absolutely out of the blue whether Russell had been think about it or whether it was because of School Reunion I really don't know. I read something recently that it was something on the cards much earlier than I thought. I went with my agent for a meal with Russell and Julie they had a new project they said that they wanted to discuss, I only thing I knew they were doing down in Cardiff was Torchwood, I thought I'm going to be grown up at last I'm going to be on Torchwood.

I couldn't think what it could possibly be then they came forth with the idea of The Sarah Jane Adventures one off special followed by, at the time there were six, but we ended up doing a ten part series.

And it was a new place to go it kind of shed onion layers as it went on. In School Reunion Russell put her in a place were she had made peace with why he didn't come back you then could move, I thought this is a time were she cuts her hair and you have that new kind of input in to where your life is going, so that's where we started off with the special and you think that you are kind of released and then all of a sudden you have too many children in the attic, that was not supposed to happen.

But that has allowed this character to be in another strange world, I mean they have dragged me kicking and screaming into reality, Luke is her adopted son because how could you leave the poor little mite.

It has been received really well are you surprised by it's success?

I'm surprised at the extent. We all honest to goodness love doing it and what is on the screen, and Phil Collinson was saying that we had the same look as Doctor Who, well we had the same crew so we were very very lucky. And we had good times on it, it's important when you have children around that they enjoy it, but it wasn't hard it was hard work but it wasn't hard.

Everyone wanted it to be good and I'm quite surprised, I thought it would be ok and we are flying on the flagship of Who so I though people would be kind, but the actual production values and the stories, it all starts with the script, we have good ammunition there it's not dumbed down for children it's very adult premises for them to take on board and it just shows that they like that. I'm thrilled to bits I am surprised to that extent but I'm very pleased.

And you are working predominantly with children has it been easier than working with the K9 robot?

Oh absolutely I'm blessed I mean they could have been the spawn of the devil they really could have at that age. Dan is older, but looks younger, which helps because he doesn't have to have schooling and he is a lovely kind of counterpart for Tom, who is another lad on the set, and it makes for some good chemistry.

They are so tactile I'm very tactile, and we are not in each others faces all the time they have their own life and time and things they talk about and then they have me time, they are so lovely they really are and they are enjoying it. Working with an inanimate object like K9 is it difficult it really really is, if he was a bigger part of the series decisions would have to be made to build something that is more accommodating, you can't move it for a start, but the kids they love that dog.

And do you think that Russell T Davies was the man to bring Who back because he has had some negative comments thrown at him recently?

Really?

If you look at the forums and things

I tell you in all honesty hand on heart I don't have a computer so anything that filters down to me is either through my daughter or a friend who goes on so I didn't know that.

Some have suggested that he may have outstayed his welcome or watered the show down too far.

Well well well it had turn we are British aren't we? Who is a difficult animal because everyone knows how it should be done too many cooks out there on the Internet. I don't think that we have that problem because I don't think that we are perceived in that way.

But everyone knows which Doctor is best, everyone knows what they would do, everyone thinks that something is a rip off of something else, our Planet of Evil was the same as Robbie the Robot thing Lost In Space or whatever it was, it's very difficult to answer your critics when they are not prepared to listen do you know what I mean? No I didn't know that oh well there we go.

I think that you just have to do what you think is right and the quality of what he has done, I think, is incredible because I didn't think that they could bring Who back. I was speaking to Barry Letts, who was my first producer, and he said 'I don't know how they are going to do it' brilliant. Allow a little bit of congratulations but sometimes that is not allowed and it is a shame.

There are rumours that you will be returning at the end of Series Four of Doctor Who is this true?

(laughs) I don't know someone mentioned that to me who am I coming back with?

Everyone is coming back at the end of season series 4 the kitchen sink is making a return

Oh my God as long as I don't have to act with a kitchen sink if they asked me I guess I'd be there.

And finally what is next for you?

I have just one little thing left to do and then it's Christmas. I haven't done anything you are in a different life in Cardiff you totally blank off. When we had finished and I came back I didn't realise that there was still so much to do so each week I can't quite get my books back on the shelves.

I have just had this room decorated and I didn't want the builders here while I was away because I'm quite hands on, I know best. And I need the crates that the books are in for my daughter to go back to uni so I have got to get back on the shelves before Christmas or they will just be lying in the middle of the room so I have to get back into mode,I have to start breaking my nails again.

The Sarah Jane Adventure audiobooks The Glittering Storm and The Thirteenth Stone are out now.

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw