Holby City star Hugh Quarshie (Ric Griffin) has swapped his stethoscope for rags in a Doctor Who two-parter starting on Saturday. He plays Solomon, a homeless war veteran in 1930s Manhattan and told whatsontv.co.uk about the experience... Why has the revival of Doctor Who proved so popular? "I remember [ITV chairman] Michael Grade on Room 101 once, and he took Dr Who to task and said, 'Come on, in the age of Star Wars and all this fantastic sci-fi stuff you can't have guys in dinosaur suits and upturned saucepans on their heads pretending to be Robomen'. But Dr Who has come roaring back and it's not just about the technology - it's also in the adults themes you have now. There was a strong sexual attraction between the Doctor and Rose for example; now there's a pretty new black girl and you think, woah, where's this going to go?! The Doctor's one of a kind, but you think are they going to reproduce, what's stopping them, his two hearts? What else has he got there! "But we can't really get into that territory can we, it's pre-watershed!" What can you tell us about this two-parter and your character? "It's set in Hooverville, in the shanty towns that sprung up all over the States in the Depression. My character is called Solomon and he's called this because he has to adjudicate in a fight between two guys, one of whom is accusing the other of stealing a loaf of bread. So he makes them break it into two, hence the judgement of Solomon. He's a natural leader, people look to him to resolve disputes, a veteran of the First World War. "That's a bold move, to have a black World War One veteran in a shanty town in New York 1930s against the backdrop of the construction of the Empire State Building, then [the writer] Russell T Davies introduces elements of a 900 year old white guy with two hearts, travelling around the universe with a pretty black girl. That's the kind of bold move he takes; it seems to me what you've come to expect and admire from him." It sounds an ambitious production, even by the standards of the new Doctor Who... "Given the constraints on the BBC budget for any drama, the director's done fantastically well. In my mind it's down to the prosthetics department and the art department, who created the shanty town in a park in Cardiff. "Some of the homeless people are being abducted from the shanty town and we work out they're being abducted for nefarious purposes. And of course the police aren't interested, so we form a kind of self-help group, to look out for each other. The Doctor walks into this and we naturally greet him with some suspicion, but the group eventually hand him their trust and respect. It's the first time we encounter the Pig Men. It doesn't take too great a leap of imagination to realise the people who're being abducted are being genetically modified and are re-emerging as porcine personalities, you might say." Manhattan, 1930s, CGI - There are echoes of King Kong there... "Wisely, they don't take King Kong on... that'd be like Watford against Real Madrid! But what they can do with CGI they do very well and the prosthetics in particular. The first time I saw the Pigmen I had to take a photograph of it - they look fantastic." You're no stranger to sci-fi roles are you? "Not, not at all and I'm pleased to say I had an action figure made for the character, Captain Panaka, I played in Stars Wars: The Phantom Menace and I have an action figure as Solomon in Doctor Who, so I have to keep on doing sci-fi and get a little collection together. It's also quite interesting, you see a lot of the Star Wars actors go to conventions and make a career out of it, so that's something to look forward to in retirement... Star Wars conventions AND Doctor Who conventions." What attracts you to sci-fi generally, and Doctor Who in particular? "I've really come to recognise the power and importance of popular TV. In a society that's in danger of fragmenting, institutions like the BBC have an even greater responsibility to broadcast shared values and cultural values. "A show like Doctor Who becomes even more significant. It's a 900-year-old guy wandering around the universe in a police box, but at the same time if it's going to appeal to a modern audience you need a lot more than a long scarf and scientific gobbledegook. I don't want to sound too Soviet, but art can entertain and also have some social responsibility." Did you ever aspire to playing Doctor Who yourself? "If I'm honest, if I ever had the chance to play Bond or a Bond villain, that would be great. I'd like to be the guy who says, 'Good evening Mr Bond!' I'd love to be a Bond villain and I wouldn't mind being Dr Who's nemesis or his antagonist. I'm not sure I'd have the stamina to do what David Tennant does." Will Holby fans recognise you in this role? "Oh yeah. I'm a little bit hairier and a little bit grubbier and have a different accent, but my true and loyal fans will have no trouble spotting me pretending to be someone else!"
