From 15 July to 4 August “Inside the TARDIS” made stopovers in most capital cites in Australia, and Wellington and Auckland in New Zealand. Colin Baker (The Sixth Doctor), Sylvester McCoy (The Seventh Doctor) joined Katy Manning (Jo Grant) and host Tim Ferguson on stage where they shared their experiences and revealed some secrets of the phenomenal 42 year-old BBC show.
 
Adelaide Festival Centre, Saturday July 23rd 2005
 
The theatre was approximately three-quarters full in the main area with some of the audience up in the balconies. The stage was empty other the than two chairs, and a TARDIS mock-up off to once side through which Katy Manning came on stage.
 
Things got started as Tim Ferguson came on stage and did a bit of stand-up routine to get the audience in the mood, and some clips from Doctor Who over time were shown.
 
The First Half
Katy Manning, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy each got a one-on-one with Tim in a sort of interview situation, each running about thirty minutes, with clips used to illustrate various facets of their time on the show.
 
First up on stage was Katy Manning - or “Katy Grant who played Jo Manning” as Tim put it. Her section covered her relationship with Jon Pertwee (it was apparent that they were very close during their time on Doctor Who), experiences when filming (her first day's shooting was notable for managing to break her ankle when performing a stunt). Katy talked about how Jo went full circle on the show, starting out ruining the Doctor's experiment but growing as the show went along, and how she ruined Dr Jones’ experiment in the “The Green Death” and at the end was engaged to him, ready to head off down the Amazon (Katy was also engaged to Stewart Beavan who played Clifford Jones).
 
Colin Baker was on stage next and his talk covered his very interesting experiences when filming “Mark of The Rani” - between contaminated dirt and being abandoned while suspended from a carrying pole it was a bit of adventure. Colin also talked about his costume which came in very handy for shooting in cold weather as Nicola Bryant would snuggle inside the coat when her costumes weren't adequate for keeping warm between takes. Other topics covered included his red boots that he wears only for special occasions, experiences working in the theatre and how he enjoys doing the audio dramas where he still has lots of curly hair. Also mentioned was the situation when the show went into hiatus when they had a producer who wanted to leave and actors who wanted to stay.
 
Last up before the interval was Sylvester McCoy, who talked about his experiences with filming, and the desire to bring back some of the mystery of the Doctor particularly with reference to “Remembrance Of The Daleks”. The audience learnt the secret of making a Dalek climb stairs and that the ending where the Doctor talks the black Dalek to death was not as originally scripted. It had been intended that the Doctor would blow the Dalek up but this was felt to be too out of character, so a re-write took place. McCoy also touched on the notion of sci-fi as an analogy to modern society, citing “The Happiness Patrol” as a reference to Britain when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister.
 
The Second half
After the break all the guests came on stage to do a silly radio play skit, where Katy proved she can still do something the female companions have been good at – scream :)
 
This was then followed by a Q& A session. Apparently there was a book that the audience could write questions in, but Tim forgot to mention it. Instead he had a few questions and then took some from the audience. One person asking a question had a very appropriate name for a Doctor Who fan: Romana.
 
During the question time some of the answer revealed:
- Details of the costume that Colin Baker wanted – it would have been black with a long leather coat. He said they were “saving it for bloody Eccleston”.
- The cat lapel pin Colin Baker ended up wearing was his own suggestion. It was inspired by Kipling poem of  the cat who has been everywhere and seen everything.
- Katy Manning managed to catch up with Jon Pertwee a little while before he died and she is very grateful to have had that chance.
- Michael Grade, who canned Doctor Who in 1989, is back at the BBC but in a position where he poses no danger to the series.
- Katy hasn't seen the UNIT actors for sometime though believes John Levene is now living and working in the US, having changed his name again (Levene was actually the name of a shop).
- Both Colin and Sylvester disagree with current events involving the Iraq invasion.
 
The Q&A finished off with a major “aawww” moment when a little girl at the front asked if she could get a hug. In true Murphy's law fashion her mum's camera wouldn't work but they got the picture in the end.
 
Afterwards they were available to sign autographs and I think just about everyone there lined up to get them. Initially a bit disorganized, one things started flowing it went well.
 
It was apparent all the guests enjoyed both their time on Doctor Who and their time on stage and especially the welcome they got from the fans. The audience also enjoyed what was a fun and entertaining afternoon.