Martha’s next move
As Freema Agyeman returns to Doctor Who, she tells Andrew Pettie about her character Martha’s evolution, saucy fan mail and her designs on Hollywood
One of the fringe benefits of owning a Tardis should be that it allows you to duck out of sticky social situations. On Saturday, however, Doctor Who (David Tennant) uses his Tardis to materialise right in the middle of one of the stickiest imaginable, as he and his new companion Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) come face to face with his former assistant Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman).
The Doctor hasn’t seen Martha since the end of the last series. But series creator Russell T Davies has kept her busy by transplanting her character to Doctor Who’s BBC2 sister show, Torchwood. Thanks to the experience, Martha, says Agyeman, is a changed woman. “Martha left the Doctor to be with her family and complete her medical training,” she explains. “But because of all the experience she had battling aliens as his companion she also works for [paranormal investigation agency] UNIT. That’s made her tougher and more independent from the Doctor. In the last series they had a kind of student-teacher relationship, whereas now she knows how to tackle dangerous aliens on her own. In a way, she’s outgrown him.”
Martha has also moved on romantically, allowing her unrequited feelings for the Doctor to fade into friendship. In fact, Agyeman reveals, “Martha’s got someone new in her life. She’s engaged - to another doctor as it happens.”
Martha Jones’s career is going from strength to strength. But what of Freema Agyeman’s? It has been rumoured that she was replaced as the Doctor’s companion because of a backstage rift with David Tennant. “Oh my God, I’d never heard that!” she exclaims, taken aback. “David and I are very different people - we listen to different music, we like different things - but I think that can be a good thing, and was part of the reason I got the job. David was always someone I could learn from, somebody I could ask questions. He made me feel completely welcome from day one. I’m really upset that people think we didn’t get on.”
Agyeman believes Martha’s transfer to Torchwood has also helped her to develop as an actor. “Although there’s obviously an overlap between the two, Torchwood is a very different show from Doctor Who - it can be much darker. As a genre, sci-fi gives the writers freedom. Playing Martha in Torchwood has given me a great opportunity to stretch my acting muscles.”
Martha has been an instant hit with Doctor Who’s notoriously obsessive - and picky - fans. “I get lots of letters from six, seven and eight-year-olds telling me how they want to be Martha Jones,” she says. “Even grown-ups shout out ‘Hey Martha!’ to me in the street. And at the DVD signings, by the time some fans get up to the desk to meet the Doctor and Martha they can hardly breathe they’re so excited. They just stand there shaking. It’s one of the amazing things about Doctor Who that it touches people on such a grand scale.”
Despite all the attention, though, Agyeman has taken overnight celebrity in her stride. Even slightly alarming romantic overtures from fans haven’t fazed her. “I’ve yet to receive a marriage proposal,” she says with a chuckle, “but I did get a rather, erm, suggestive letter. The writer was saying how he’d love to be my assistant and obey my every command, which I guess was flattering. It certainly made me laugh.” (Note to potential suitors: Agyeman has a boyfriend, Jamie. They met shortly before Agyeman won the role of Martha when her “bread and butter job” was working as a theatre usher.)
Whenever her time on Doctor Who and Torchwood comes to an end, Agyeman has designs on Hollywood. She’s a devoted fan of comic-book adaptations such as Spider-Man and the X-Men franchise. “I really enjoy the crazy action sequences and pace of those films,” she says. “I suppose in that way comic-book adaptations are quite like Doctor Who. Those are the films I enjoy watching, so I imagine I’d also enjoy acting in them.”
For now, though, Agyeman is very happy with life as Dr Jones, and delighted by her return to the Doctor Who fold. Initially, she was worried that her first day of filming would be “like your first day back at school, when you worry that everything will be different”. But thanks to all the familiar faces among the cast and crew it was “like [she’d] never been away”.
“Being part of Doctor Who is like being a member of a club,” she says. “Whether it’s sending someone a text, or meeting up to go out for dinner, everyone stays in touch. When you’re in the Doctor Who family, you stay in the Doctor Who family. It’s like a nice version of the Mafia.”
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One of the fringe benefits of owning a Tardis should be that it allows you to duck out of sticky social situations. On Saturday, however, Doctor Who (David Tennant) uses his Tardis to materialise right in the middle of one of the stickiest imaginable, as he and his new companion Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) come face to face with his former assistant Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman).
The Doctor hasn’t seen Martha since the end of the last series. But series creator Russell T Davies has kept her busy by transplanting her character to Doctor Who’s BBC2 sister show, Torchwood. Thanks to the experience, Martha, says Agyeman, is a changed woman. “Martha left the Doctor to be with her family and complete her medical training,” she explains. “But because of all the experience she had battling aliens as his companion she also works for [paranormal investigation agency] UNIT. That’s made her tougher and more independent from the Doctor. In the last series they had a kind of student-teacher relationship, whereas now she knows how to tackle dangerous aliens on her own. In a way, she’s outgrown him.”
Martha has also moved on romantically, allowing her unrequited feelings for the Doctor to fade into friendship. In fact, Agyeman reveals, “Martha’s got someone new in her life. She’s engaged - to another doctor as it happens.”
Martha Jones’s career is going from strength to strength. But what of Freema Agyeman’s? It has been rumoured that she was replaced as the Doctor’s companion because of a backstage rift with David Tennant. “Oh my God, I’d never heard that!” she exclaims, taken aback. “David and I are very different people - we listen to different music, we like different things - but I think that can be a good thing, and was part of the reason I got the job. David was always someone I could learn from, somebody I could ask questions. He made me feel completely welcome from day one. I’m really upset that people think we didn’t get on.”
Agyeman believes Martha’s transfer to Torchwood has also helped her to develop as an actor. “Although there’s obviously an overlap between the two, Torchwood is a very different show from Doctor Who - it can be much darker. As a genre, sci-fi gives the writers freedom. Playing Martha in Torchwood has given me a great opportunity to stretch my acting muscles.”
Martha has been an instant hit with Doctor Who’s notoriously obsessive - and picky - fans. “I get lots of letters from six, seven and eight-year-olds telling me how they want to be Martha Jones,” she says. “Even grown-ups shout out ‘Hey Martha!’ to me in the street. And at the DVD signings, by the time some fans get up to the desk to meet the Doctor and Martha they can hardly breathe they’re so excited. They just stand there shaking. It’s one of the amazing things about Doctor Who that it touches people on such a grand scale.”
Despite all the attention, though, Agyeman has taken overnight celebrity in her stride. Even slightly alarming romantic overtures from fans haven’t fazed her. “I’ve yet to receive a marriage proposal,” she says with a chuckle, “but I did get a rather, erm, suggestive letter. The writer was saying how he’d love to be my assistant and obey my every command, which I guess was flattering. It certainly made me laugh.” (Note to potential suitors: Agyeman has a boyfriend, Jamie. They met shortly before Agyeman won the role of Martha when her “bread and butter job” was working as a theatre usher.)
Whenever her time on Doctor Who and Torchwood comes to an end, Agyeman has designs on Hollywood. She’s a devoted fan of comic-book adaptations such as Spider-Man and the X-Men franchise. “I really enjoy the crazy action sequences and pace of those films,” she says. “I suppose in that way comic-book adaptations are quite like Doctor Who. Those are the films I enjoy watching, so I imagine I’d also enjoy acting in them.”
For now, though, Agyeman is very happy with life as Dr Jones, and delighted by her return to the Doctor Who fold. Initially, she was worried that her first day of filming would be “like your first day back at school, when you worry that everything will be different”. But thanks to all the familiar faces among the cast and crew it was “like [she’d] never been away”.
“Being part of Doctor Who is like being a member of a club,” she says. “Whether it’s sending someone a text, or meeting up to go out for dinner, everyone stays in touch. When you’re in the Doctor Who family, you stay in the Doctor Who family. It’s like a nice version of the Mafia.”
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