#Colum Sanson-Regan

[denimbex1986]

'Saving Kylie Minogue from a bridge was not in Colum Sanson-Regan's plans when he turned up as a Doctor Who extra.

But David Tennant was not around, so someone had to do it, and producers thought Colum looked like the doctor.

"I've saved Kylie, flown the Tardis, held the screwdriver and had Billie Piper look deep into my eyes and tell me how much she loved me," joked Colum.

"I asked the producer 'Why am I putting on the doctor's suit? They replied 'Well, David Tennant isn't in'.

Now a father of two, Colum was earning some extra cash before his first child was born.

"I didn't know what was going on," recalled Colum of when he arrived on the set but was ushered past the "cold bus" where the extras usually hang around and was shown to a posh trailer.

The 10th Doctor had to leave the set for the 2007 Christmas special Voyage of the Damned, and producers needed a Tennant-alike for some extra shots showing his back.

So they improvised and Colum, then 31, stepped in to the suit synonymous with the Doctor since the world's longest running sci-fi TV show rebooted on the BBC in 2005.

Colum, now 46, had been asked by producers to be on set early but he had no inkling that his time (lord) had come.

"All of a sudden I was standing with the suit there, and I was handed a script and told 'You're gonna need this'," recalled Colum. "I was thinking pinch me, what's going on?

"Then I went for a haircut and a little Australian lady passed me dressed in a French maid outfit and said hello. I did a double take and realised I was there with Kylie Minogue."

The Australian singer and actor was a Doctor Who superfan and had asked for a part, which was humanoid waitress Astrid Peth, a one-off companion of the doctor.

"I was a bit star struck, for sure," he admitted.

His first work in Voyage of the Damned - where a starship replica of the Titanic is on collision course with Earth - was an action-packed scene where killer robot angels launched a deadly attack.

"There was a bridge, and the killer robot angels were trying to shoot, so I had to stop Kylie from falling over," recalled Colum.

"I had to hang on to her and pull her back from a precipice. That was the first thing I had to do in the morning."

The author and musician had a gig with his band that weekend in Leicester. As Kylie almost sang, he couldn't get it out of his head that he had worked with her - and we should all be so lucky.

"We got in the car and I said to my bandmates, guess who I've been working with this week?" said Colum, who lives near Cardiff.

"We'd been driving for almost two hours and had nearly hit Birmingham and they still hadn't guessed. I had to tell them! They're like 'absolutely no way'. It was so bizarre."

To Colum's pleasant surprise, producers were so happy with his work and lookalike skills, they asked him to play the Doctor again in the 2008 episode Journey's End - this time as his clone in the final episode of the fourth series.

That meant he had to be in the same scenes with Tennant, Billie Piper, John Barrowman and Catherine Tate, making her final appearance as a regular.

"I got to fly the Tardis in Journey's End," recalled Colum, who is originally from the Republic of Ireland.

"Everybody was gathered around the central console of the Tardis. We all had to have our hands on the machine and flying controls. Everybody was on that episode. There was a real buzz.

"I got to hold the screwdriver - they were very protective and kept taking it off me."

Colum was then involved in an emotional scene where Rose Tyler, played by Piper, had to say her final goodbyes to the doctor.

"It was an amazing and surreal experience.

"The nicest thing I have to take away was getting to work near David Tennant. I loved it. He was a thoroughly lovely, lovely guy and so professional. I think that was my favourite thing about the whole crazy time."

This weekend sees Tennant and Tate back together for Doctor Who, reprising their roles as the Doctor and Donna Noble in The Star Beast on BBC One on Saturday evening - but Colum will be back on his sofa with his family at home.

Husband to Kerry, singer and guitarist of band Goose, a creative writing lecturer and author of books like The Fly Guy, The Tall Owl and Other Stories, Colum has limited time for more extra work - especially after having his own trailer as the doctor's double.

"I'm looking forward to the show on Saturday with the return of some fantastic actors," added Colum.

"As a fan, working on the show was incredible and it's only strengthened my love for Doctor Who."'

[mizgnomer]

A collection of Ten and TenToo

Excerpts from Doctor Who Magazine #398, as reported by Benjamin Cook:

It’s Monday, 20 March 2008.  A man who looks like David Tennant paces around the Dalek Crucible.  This man is Colum Sanson-Regan.  He’s Irish, not Scottish, and he only looks like David from behind, really.  But that’s good enough.  He’s sporting the brown pinstripe suit, while David - the real David - wears the blue suit.  All day long, the lead actor and his double have been dashing off every half hour or so, to swap costumes.  Each scene is shot once with David in the brown suit, and then once again with him in the blue.  Colum likewise.  Logistically, it’s a nightmare. How is David keeping track of which Doctor is which?  “Well, obviously, the colour-coding is a clue,” he laughs, “but I know what you mean - are they two distinct performances?  Well, slightly.  There are different thought processes going on.  And I’ve underlined them in different colours in the script, which is a big deal.  It shows I mean business!  They’re different characters, but they’ve both got to be the Doctor.  It’s the same character, but it’s not.  It’s a tricky one, because Rose, at the end, you want to feel that she is left with the person that she loves, but also that she isn’t.  It’s quite a subtle, ambiguous ending for Rose.” Which suit does David prefer: the brown or the blue?  “I change my mind, actually.  The blue suits are getting a bit baggy,” he says, “but we’ve got some new ones coming in, which is great.  If you look at the brown suit now, it’s beginning to get a bit tatty.  But I don’t mind that.  I quite like a bit of tatty.”  And did he enjoy getting naked in the TARDIS in Journey’s End? DWM can’t imagine so.  “No, not really,” he confirms.  “It came at the end of a long shoot.  You don’t exactly have a chance to go to the gym when you’re filming Doctor Who every month, so it wasn’t ideal timing.  But it was very quick.”

Bonus: David Tennant and Colum Sanson Regan, David's stand-in for whichever Doctor he wasn't currently playing

[thegannette]

Book review : The Fly Guy by Colum Sanson-Regan

Book review : The Fly Guy by Colum Regan

  My Thoughts:

***3.5 stars***

  The Fly Guy is the debut novel of musician, actor and now, author Colum Sanson-Regan. He writes a sinister thriller that explores the creative process and questions how much control artists have over their creations.

Martin Tripp is a struggling writer who appears to strike gold when he creates Henry Bloomburg, a private investigator. Henry has solved a lot of…

[mizgnomer]

Behind the Scenes - The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End (Part 10)

Excerpt from Doctor Who Adventures:

With two Doctors in the story, everything had to be filmed in a completely different way, after all, there is only one David Tennant!  Producer Phil Collinson said that only a few special moments could feature the two Doctors together because using a CGI David would be too expensive!  When two Doctors were in the same scene, but you only saw the side of one of them, a David Tennant double called Colum Sanson-Regan was used.  A scene would be shot over Colum’s shoulder, focusing on David, and then they would swap suits and positions and shoot the scene again.

Colum has doubled for David before in other episodes. Sometimes, when you see the back of the Doctor’s head, it’s Colum, not David!

Link to [ Part One ] of this set (or click the #whoBtsStolen tag for all parts)

[mizgnomer]

Behind the Scene of Turn Left (Part 2)

Excerpt from DWM 397′s feature on Turn Left, by Jason Arnopp:

Why doesn’t the Doctor regenerate when he dies in Turn Left?

Russell T. Davies (writer/showrunner): “Well, you won’t have seen this in the script,” he reveals, “but there’ll actually be an ADR line added to that effect. Notice that Private Harris is out of vision when he says, 'Must have happened too fast for him to regenerate.’ cos that line will be added! It’s fascinating, that, cos I think some new viewers of Doctor Who assume that regeneration means that the Doctor can never die. But that’s never been the case! If he’s dead, he’s dead. Bullet to the head, flattened by concrete, thrown into a compost machine, no more Doctor. It’s only if he’s dying that he stands a chance. I think, as a long term fan, I’d taken that so much for granted that I forgot to say so in Turn Left.  It was only when I was watching the final, online edit of the show, that it clicked - some kids might be expecting a regenerative glow, underneath those ambulance blankets!  So right at the very last minute, we got the actor, Clive Standen, to add that line. I imagine, by the way, that the Doctor died because half the Thames Flood Barrier fell on his head. It’s not pretty, under those blankets. But then, when is it?

Also, David Tennant from Doctor Who Confidential:

I just want to know who played my hand in the scene with the stretcher.  Because it wasn’t me.  I read it in the script but I never got called on set.  I’m gonna study that hand, and if it doesn’t look exactly like that hand [ holding his hand up ], I’m gonna have words.

(Note:  The deceased Tenth Doctor on the stretcher was played by Colum Sanson-Regan, David’s stand-in on Doctor Who

Bonus:

Link to [ Part One ] (or click the #whoBtsTurnLeft tag)