Profiles Javic Piotr Thane aka Captain Jack Harkness

 

The Early Years and The Time Agency 

Javic was born before the year 5094 in the 51^st Century and came from a ‘tiny little place’ called the Boeshane Peninsula. He lived there with his Mum, his Dad Franklin, and his younger brother Gray. He lived near the beach, and would often spend evenings with his father and brother playing cricket and sitting around the camp fire, laughing and singing. 

The Peninsula lived under the threat of invasion. Normally the enemy would pass overhead, but on the day of Gray’s abduction, they didn’t. ‘They came without warning…their howls travelled before them.’ When the creatures came, many inhabitants of the Peninsula ran for shelter. Franklin, instructed Javic to run for shelter with his brother Gray, while he would run back for his wife. Unfortunately, Franklin never made it, and the family lost their father that day. Javic had further news for his mother when he returned to the homestead. In the dash for safety, Gray had tripped and Javic had let go his hand. Thinking that Gray would still be behind him, he ran for the shelter of the trees, but was panic stricken to learn that his brother was nowhere in sight. Many more inhabitants lost their lives that day. 

Jack confessed to ‘Adam’, an entity that had forced its way into the Torchwood Hub, convincing the entire team that he was and always had been, a member of Torchwood, that he searched years for his brother but never found a body. 

In the years that followed, Javic joined the Time Agency around the age of 15 - 20 years old. He was the first citizen of Boeshane to sign up and was the poster boy for the Peninsula.

‘The Face of Boe, they called me.’ 

Thane encouraged a friend to join up with him and fight an enemy he described later to the real Captain Jack Harkness, as ‘the worst possible creatures you can imagine.’ They were captured and because his friend was weaker, tortured him and made Thane watch, later releasing Thane, to bear the guilt of his friend’s fate. I wonder if these were the same creatures that captured and tortured young Gray? 

Around the age of 20 - 35 years, and still working with the Time Agency, he was partnered up with Captain John Hart, a rebel in his own right. They once spent five years trapped in a two-week time loop, and became the equivalent of a married couple. Hart confessed after an ongoing row that he was a good wife, proving that the pair had more than just a professional partnership. 

Unlike life in the 21^st Century, the 51^st Century was so much more diverse and the attitudes towards sexuality was a lot more acceptable. 

During further missions with Hart, the two agents faced off against a horde of Weeping Angels. 

On one of his Time Agency missions, Thane fought the Navigators, and visited a black market on Fluren’s World where he bid on a Monstrom Time Destroyer. He lost out to a pair of Wrightosaur mercenaries, whom he later had a sexual encounter with. 

Thane had two years of his memory removed while working for the Time Agency, a fact that Hart knew about but refused to discuss with him. I wonder if the truth of this will ever be revealed? Shortly after this, he left the agency to become a time travelling con artist, running scams using his knowledge of future events. He preferred schemes which involved payment for items that he knew would later be destroyed. 

He was sentenced to death for unknown crimes, and ordered four hyper vodkas as his last request. Thane woke up in bed with his two executioners. ‘Lovely couple. They stayed in touch. Can’t say that about most executioners…’ 

At some point in Thane’s life, he travelled to the 17^th century and lived as a priest under the alias ‘Father Julian Horst.’ 

At the estimated age of 35 Earth years, while operating as a Con Man Thane stole a Chula war ship from a beautiful woman and used it to head to Earth where he hoped to trade with two Time Agents that he’d located in wartime London at the height of the Blitz. Unbeknownst to him, they were the Ninth Doctor and travelling companion, Rose Tyler. He’d picked up a battle ambulance, dropping it down in Lime Street Station, unaware of its cargo, and expected to be paid handsomely for it, and seeing it destroyed much later by a German bomb, that was destined to land on that very spot. It fell on a child, Jamie, who plagued the area surrounding it, making anyone who touched him, become like him, a gas mask zombie. Nanogenes had fixed him, but assuming that the mask on his face was an actual part of his genetics, had made everyone else who touched him, become the same. 

He rescued Rose Tyler as she desperately clung to a barrage balloon, wearing a Union Jack t-shirt while German and British planes had dog fights around her. Drawn into the tractor beam of his Chula ship, Jack brought her to safety and fixed her burns with saved nanogenes trapped in his ship. 

Thane assumed the identity of American volunteer of the 133rd Squadron of the Royal Air Force – Captain Jack Harkness, who he was later to meet in Cardiff, when he stepped through the doors of The Ritz Dance hall, with Toshiko Sato, during a temporal shift sending them back to 1941. He knew all about the real Captain Jack Harkness, and explained it all to Toshiko that he was undercover and needed a name. He explained that the name was convenient, as the real Harkness died in battle. ‘They go out on a sortie and are surprised by two formations of Messerschmitt's. He destroys three of the enemy. His men listen to his whoops of joy over the radio. Then it all goes quiet. He can't bail out because his whole plane is on fire, but his men all make it back to safety.’ 

Rose was quite taken with the time traveler, the Doctor less so. Jack was introduced to the Doctor some time later, who was disgusted to learn that it was Jack’s fault that people were succumbing to the gas mask invasion, due to the broken medical transporter. Jack learned that the medical transporter wasn’t empty at all. It contained billions upon billions of nanogenes, all set to fix the world, and the first thing they fixed was the dead child wearing a gas mask. 

Eventually, the Ninth Doctor managed to convince the nanogenes that Nancy, the boy’s mother is who the boy should resemble and not the gasmask that is a permanent fixture to his face, in much the same way as all other zombie patients in the hospital, and those protecting the bomb site. The Doctor is joyous when the nanogenes return the patients to their normal state, including giving a woman back her missing limb. 

Jack, using the Chula war ship, captures the German bomb destined to destroy the medical transporter for good, and transports it in his Chula warship, away from Earth and into space. Unfortunately for Jack, his ship has no escape pod. He is literally stuck with the ship and can only face the countdown to oblivion, unaware however, that the TARDIS is parked at the other end of his ship. He closes the doors to avoid the blast and travels with the Doctor and Rose, for many adventures until…one adventure changes his life forever. 

Travels with the Doctor & Rose Tyler 

The Doctor takes Rose and Jack to the location of the planet Excroth, only to discover it’s not there. The TARDIS is taken aboard a Lect spaceship which Jack and the Doctor escape from after it is attacked by Unon. Rose unfortunately is blasted into the Time Vortex but is protected from the time winds by the tachyon inhibitor she finds. After a battle between the Lect and the Unon which triggered the emergency protocol, Fluren’s World was no longer protected by the time bubble. Jack, who managed to locate Rose at a Temporal Bazaar on Fluren, subsequently is separated from her and is taken in the TARDIS to the Unon’s Perpetual City where he is once again reunited with the Doctor who he believed dead. The Doctor is tricked by the mother superior of the Unon, Arnora and Rose tricks the Doctor into giving the co-ordinates of the Perpetual City to the opposition – the Lect. Jack is taken into the sub-dimensional void and is shown what the future would look like without the Doctor around. Not a pretty sight. The Doctor is saved when Jack is released from the void, and after discovering that the Doctor cannot prevent the entropy engine from overloading, saves as many Unons as possible, and takes them to another world so that they can start again. 

The Doctor discovers a giant ziggurat and the Hanging Gardens of Slarvia. He uses his sonic screwdriver to locate a ship in orbit that had transmatted them aboard, and comes face to face with the Taggani, a famous geohacker. Jack, Rose and the Doctor had stopped the geohacker from using the Doctor’s memories to recreate the Last Great Time War. They discovered that the geohacker was none other than an art historian from the Braxiatel Collection, who is subsequently handed over to the Judoon. ‘Justice is swift’ 

While on the planet Clix, Jack and the Doctor disguise themselves as Slitheens in a bid to find Rose, who has been kidnapped by Slist Fayflut Marteveerthon Slitheen. 

A darker Jack journeyed with the Doctor and Rose to the Novrosk Peninsula and encountered Russian Special Forces, nuclear submarines and something that predates the stone circle on the cliff top, that is waking, hunting and killing. Jack finds a girl of 19, whose life has been sucked clean from her, and that only her memories survive, but she cannot talk about it, and can barely walk.

‘I used to think I was scared by death. Or by facing death – by combat and action and the uncertainty of the battlefield.  Not any more.  No, now what scares me is the possibility I might live to grow old.  I might wake up one day tired and wasted and unable to even open a beer.  I might need crutches and a hearing aid and help getting dressed.  When and if I get to that point, it’ll be my memories that’ll keep me going.  The fact I’ve lived through so much, survived so much to get there.’ 

During another journey with the Doctor, Jack spends a month in Bromley in the year 2006, babysitting a Neanderthal who can no longer return to his own time and helps him integrate into life in the 21^st century. 

When the TARDIS needed to refuel, they stopped off in Cardiff and settled the ship over the Rift, a scar that ran through the city of Cardiff. Jack was introduced to Mickey Smith, Rose Tyler’s boyfriend and earned the title of Captain Cheesecake. The Doctor discovered that one of the Slitheen still existed on the planet after the attack on 10 Downing Street and had now become the Lord Mayor. He set his sights to capture her before she caused any further trouble. The Doctor and Jack discover that beneath the plans for the new Blaidd Drwg nuclear power plant is an Extrapolator, which once the power plant goes into meltdown and destroys Earth, Margaret Blaine will ride aboard the extrapolator and escape. 

In a bid to hasten the speed of the refueling, Jack attaches the extrapolator to the TARDIS console. Instead, the device causes a massive earthquake in Cardiff, which instead of feeding the TARDIS from the Rift, does the exact opposite. It is a clever trick by the Slitheen, known as Margaret Blaine as she enters the TARDIS and takes Rose hostage.

When the Heart of the TARDIS is revealed to Blaine, she is hypnotized by it and when Jack and the Doctor finally close the Rift, and disable the extrapolator, all they find of Margaret Blaine is a Slitheen egg. They take Margaret’s egg back to Raxacoricofallapatorius, where she is given a second chance at life. 

Jack journeys with the Doctor and Rose, to the Colony World of 4378976 Delta-Four in the year 2775, where Jack finds himself committed to a lunatic asylum called the Big White House, for telling fictional stories. Inside the asylum, he faces the possibility of being experimented upon by a nutty surgeon called Cal Tyko. 

Jack, the Doctor and Rose also visited New Vegas in the 23^rd Century, where they helped detective James McNeil investigate The Whisper, a strange vigilante that was terrorizing the city’s underworld. Jack worked undercover as a reporter for the Daily Galaxy, where he befriended Daisy Hewett, but some gals are not to be trusted, and Jack found that out to his peril, when Cyrus Wolfsbane kidnapped him, in order for the Doctor to lead Cyrus to the Whisper. 

In 1336, Jack, the Doctor and Rose visit Japan but find themselves transmatted to different areas of the Games Station, where each member of the TARDIS crew awaken to find themselves in certain doses of terror, although at first, none of them see it that way. 

When Rose is zapped by the Anne Droid in the Weakest Link Game show, the Doctor and Jack are distraught but after Jack finds the TARDIS stowed away in the back of a unit, soon discovers how the trick reveals that Rose is not dead at all. What he and the Doctor uncover however is a secondary signal, into an empty location of space, where the losers wind up. Disabling the signal, the Doctor discovers that his worst adversaries, the Daleks have been playing an extremely long game, and promises to destroy them once and for all, when he flies his TARDIS into their Mothership and rescues Rose from their clutches. 

Thus, ensues the battle on the Game Station that subsequently kills Captain Jack Harkness, in a battle he knew he could never win. Facing down three Daleks, he empties his weapons on them, but already knows he’s a dead man, when they open fire. When Rose returns in the TARDIS, she has the power of the Time Vortex inside of her and destroys the Dalek’s, wiping them from existence. She was also able to bring Jack back to life, making him a fixed point in time, and immortal. The Doctor knew that the power would eventually consume her, and absorbed the Time Vortex himself. This would mark the end of the Ninth Doctor. 

When Jack gasped back to life and returned to the TARDIS, it was already dematerializing. He was stranded on the Game Station, orbiting a Dalek devastated Earth in the year 200,100. Rose suggested that the Doctor should go back to find Jack, as he might be able to help them, but the Doctor, having regenerated, couldn’t tell her the truth, that if Jack entered the TARDIS he would cause a temporal paradox and threaten the TARDIS’ proper operation, and insisted he was too busy rebuilding the Earth. 

Having been left behind by the Doctor, Jack was distraught and sought solace in a small cabin near the ruins of the Black Country Dome. He wanted to be left alone but was approached by an aspiring journalist called Silo Crook who was as intrigued as Jack, to know more about the Hope Foundation, a charity founded by Vortia Trear, which took surviving humans off Earth and gave them new and better lives. Jack and Silo discovered that Trear was a rich elite and was intending to exploit the humans below them, which naturally lead to a revolt. With the satellite station now left to fall to Earth, Jack scrambled to interact the live cables to ensure it landed safely. As Jack came around after being electrocuted, he saw an abundance of resources that could be salvaged from the fallen satellite that would enable humanity to rebuild itself.

 Jack and Torchwood

Harkness eventually set his Vortex Manipulator for Earth and Cardiff in the 21^st century, to the site of the active space-time rift, in a hope that he would reconnect with the TARDIS and the Doctor with Rose, when it refueled. Unfortunately, his wrist strap device burnt out somewhere in the 19^th century leaving him stranded in 1869. 

Jack remained in Cardiff, and after visiting the Little Girl with the Tarot Cards, and learning that it would be some time before he would reconnect with the right Doctor in his time line, decided to work for Torchwood Three. 

Jack learnt that after his third death and resurrection after being shot in 1892 during a fight on Ellis Island, that although he was immortal, he still aged, albeit very slowly. He could recover from any physical harm, almost immediately, although his legs were always the last to knit back together.

Jack eventually became the Head of Torchwood Three, after succeeding his boss, who after shooting all of the Torchwood Three agents in the Hub, turned the gun on himself, just as Jack re-entered the building, and was unable to stop him. His boss had seen the future after opening the Pendant that was known as the Bad Penny! 

On Earth and assuming the role of Head of Torchwood Three in 2006, Thane, now Harkness lamented about contraceptives in the rain. ‘You take the pill, flush it away, and it enters the water cycle. Feminizes the fish. Goes all the way up into the sky then falls all the way back down onto me. Contraceptives in the rain. Love this planet. Still, at least I won't get pregnant. Never doing that again.’ Which begs the question, which con did he and Hart work on that produced a pregnant Thane? 

Jack enlisted a new team of agents. Suzie Costello, Toshiko Sato, Dr Owen Harper, Ianto Jones and eventually, when memories of her experience returned, Gwen Cooper. Each had a unique ability that was paramount to their role in the Hub, and after the death and re-death of Costello, the team became a closer-knit bunch of agents who had each other’s back, right up till the end. 

When the alien known as the ‘456’ returned to Earth for another hit of ‘children’, Harkness knew he had to stop them, but secrets of the past encounters with them, to save the planet against Spanish Flu in the earlier decades, would drive a wedge through not only his team, but also his family. At the risk of saving millions of children, Jack sacrificed the life of his grandson, alienating the connection he had with his daughter, Alice Harkness. 

He left the Earth once the threat of the 456 invasion was put to an end, his heart broken further by the death of Ianto Jones, a death that could have been avoided – but nearly all Torchwood agents die young. 

Jack returned to Earth many years later to discover a new threat to Earth. Nobody was dying. Even the dead weren’t dying. Worse still, Jack was now mortal. To find out who was behind it, meant Jack had to dig deep to find what the connection was between him and The Family. 

When the world was put right and many sad farewells were made, Jack remained on Earth and we had a new immortal being – that of Rex Mathison. 

Much of the chaos in Earth history seems to bear some connection to Jack Harkness but surely, it can’t be all his fault, can it? 

Beyond these findings, I can find little more to write about this incredible character, who has seen more death, and more destinations than an ABTA travel brochure. 

Jack’s life is anything but straight forward. There is more than one version of Jack Harkness out there. Harkness has helped and worked with three of the Time Lords known as The Doctor, his latest was in the exploit of rescuing the Doctor from a prison planet, and stopping another invasion of Daleks, this time partly commissioned by idiots running the UK government – no surprises there. 

Although Torchwood has no physical home in Cardiff, or indeed the world, as far as we can see, Captain Jack Harkness, as he goes by these days, will be out there somewhere, monitoring the skies above and when the call to arms is made, he and the remaining Torchwood team will come out of the shadows, and defend the Earth once more, with or without the help of the Time Lord known as the Doctor. 

 

References:

Audio: Month 25

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Adam

The End of Time

Last of the Time Lords

Utopia

Captain Jack Harkness

(COMIC: Weapons of Past Destruction)

(COMIC: World Without End)

(COMIC: Slaver's Song)

(COMIC: Secret Agent Man)

The Empty Child

(TV: Children in Need Special)

The Parting of the Ways)

(AUDIO: The Year After I Died)

Boom Town

The Stealers of Dreams

Bad Wolf

(AUDIO: Night of the Whisper)

Audio: Uncanny Valley

 

 

 

 

 

Who Reviews Boom Town by Tony J Fyler

 

Boom, boom, Tony’s shakin’ the room. 

A lot of the stories in the first season of revived, 21^st century Doctor Who were designed specifically to move away from the somewhat casual Classic style of storytelling where there were no long-term consequences. 

Tardis errors lead to Rose being reported missing for a year and her boyfriend Mickey being the chief suspect in her murder, for instance. The plan of the Slitheen leads to a change of government in the UK, and so on. 

Boom Town more than most though is a tale of the consequences of the Doctor’s rather lazy approach to tidying up until now. 

Six months after the Slitheen-in-Downing-Street debacle, one of the family is left both alive and free to start another chapter in her life. Blon Fel-Fotch Pasameer-Day Slitheen – better known by her human alias, Margaret Blaine - has become mayor of Cardiff, and has plans for a new power station. It’s an intentionally flawed plan, which will open up Cardiff’s space-time rift, turn the planet into slag and allow her to power a kind of space surfboard out of Dullsville, Milky Way. 

In the fundamentals of its plot, it’s deeply ropey – perhaps understandable as it was a Davies replacement for another story by a different writer that got SNAFU’d by a scheduling conflict. Intensely plotted, it is not. There’s also rather too much comedy teleporting at the front end of the story, which becomes tedious in a hurry, especially as the Doctor and Rose have picked up Captain Jack Harkness since they last met the Slitheen, and Mickey Smith’s along for the ride too. Crowded Tardis alert, despite Mickey’s attempt to draw Rose off for a hotel bunk-up. 

But here’s where having a genius running your show pays off. 

Because while the plot elements are sketchy and mostly recycled, Russell T Davies manages to turn Boom Town into an intense, sweaty, claustrophobic examination of good and evil, upbringing and free will, while also bringing in the responsibility to deal ‘humanely’ with people who, if extradited, will be killed. It stops short of expanding into discussions of the rightness and wrongness of a state death penalty, but for the majority of Boom Town, Davies more or less plays 12 Angry Men And 1 Slitheen. 

The genius about that is that you start off more or less expecting to know the moral ins and outs of the case, and your position on it. But Eccleston’s Doctor is perhaps more of an angry man than you might be expecting, and he is relatively unsympathetic to Blon’s position as a child of a family of thieving, disreputable space-gits. Siphoning some hardcore Sixth Doctor moral indignation into his post-time war persona (a trend which of course continued with David ‘one chance’ Tennant’s Tenth Doctor), he feels more inclined than many viewers would be immediately comfortable with to lay a sentence on Blon which, while keeping his own hands technically clean, amounts to death at the hands of her peers on Raxacoricofallapatorius. 

As the long night trapped in the Tardis continues while the time machine refuels, various viewpoints are chipped in by all the Tardis travellers – making the most of the full Tardis scenario by at least giving them something useful to do within the claustrophobic micro-drama. Blon herself is a strong advocate for mercy, but also a strong example of desperation – taking every potential advantage, trying every potential tactic – including seduction, flattery, the moral high ground and venom-injection. Slowly, the tone shifts. We begin to see Blon in the light of some criminals in our own society, who are not mad, but just habitually, incorrigibly bad as a result of their upbringing, circumstances or just because they like it. What do you do with people who will absolutely take compassion as weakness, show you no mercy and would happily kill you if the chance arose? Does their fundamental ‘badness’ make it alright to extradite them to a place that will absolutely kill them? Would they always have been bad, irrespective of their upbringing and circumstances? 

That’s a question that ends up being important, because of course, in a science fiction show you can sometimes dodge having to actually answer the hardest questions you pose for yourself. After a long, dark and somewhat uncomfortable night of the sole for all concerned – especially the people who want to believe the Doctor is a force for good, always, in the universe – what we get as an answer is a slightly cop-out reset button, with Blon being returned to her foetal stage as an egg, and given the opportunity to grow up all over again, with a different family, not the Slitheen. 

In itself that creates an interesting idea for a second sequel, but eleven series later, we have yet to revisit a grown-up one-time Blon in her second life, so we’re left more or less to assume she’s been saved from the programming of her family, and allowed to live a healthier, less planet-destroying life on Raxacoricofallapatorius. 

Is Boom Town the best Doctor Who story ever? No, there are very few fans who would claim it as even really in their top ten. But what it does deliver is a tight examination of various moral positions over life, death, crime and punishment. As such, it draws us in and makes us come to better terms with several members of the 2005 Team Tardis. Most crucially, it allows us an unusual amount of time sitting still with the Doctor, and interestingly probes his positions on all these fundamental questions in this incarnation. This incarnation, which is still scarred following the time war, is quicker to jump to judgments than either earlier or later Doctors, and more ready perhaps to justify his harsher stances than might be comfortable for some fans. 

The whole Ninth Doctor era is the story of the healing and rehabilitation of the traumatised Doctor under the improving influence of Rose Tyler. By the time of Boom Town, he’s become less rigid in his positions than he was, for instance, in Dalek – but it will actually take all the way until The Parting Of The Ways for him to realise how healed he is. In Boom Town, we see him still not taking any nonsense – but perhaps, given the ending, prepared to accept that not all things that rub him the wrong way are nonsense, and that even if he still thinks they are, they’re worth trying because they make the people around him happier. The Doctor who’s learned how to dance again, how to take joy in simple things with Rose, and even Jack, is beginning to unbend his rigid moral judgments by the end of Boom Town – and he’s becoming noticeably more like a Classic Doctor as he goes.

Interviews Gavin Brocker by DJ Forrest

The interview with Gavin Brocker was a much more confident piece, in the sense that for once I remembered the Post it Note over the camera and I wasn't over explaining my questions. Gavin was a wonderful guest and you could tell from his responses regarding 'George' that he really enjoyed playing the role and he LOVED sci fi, especially the 'Realm of Who'.

I began by asking him how he'd got into acting, be it through drama school or talent scout?

Gavin: It was through drama school. I was originally at secondary school and wasn't particularly interested and classes didn't hold my interest other than Drama and English. I had an interview at North Kent College in Dartford for a computer course because my Dad suggested that would be good for me, which I wasn't really interested in. I went for this interview for the computer course and the woman who interviewed me looked through my NRA which is my National Record of Achievement and she could see that there was lots of things to do with acting, loads of reports, certificates and she suggested I go and have an audition at a place called the Miskin Theatre which was the course at the North Kent College.

So, I went home to my Mum and Nan and said 'this lady said I should go and act, and that's what I really want to do' and they said 'absolutely, you should go for it' and so I phoned up the Miskin Theatre and said 'I know it's late but are there any more auditions?' And the woman that I spoke to, Laura White, she actually said to me, 'We've got an audition in two days’ time, it's the last audition day but you're going to need to prepare a monologue.'

I said, OK great, fine. Got off the phone really excited and then thought - where do I find a monologue?

So, I went and found one and learnt it and went in and did a workshop, did my audition and the guy on the panel Dominic Power said, 'You need to follow this because you've got a raw ability' and that was when I was 16 and from then I never looked back.

From there went to audition for a drama school. There are 22 accredited drama schools around the country, RADA is obviously the most well-known but it was a place called Arts Educational Schools, London or Arts Ed and they auditioned there. And got in there and studied for three years and from there left with an agent, but my training, my acting training was six years in total, three at the Miskin College and three at Arts Ed. and those six years were brilliant. So that's how I got into acting.

So, you've not had any breaks, you know, two or three months where you've not had any work? Have you been able to support yourself through acting or have you had to take other jobs to keep a roof over your head?

Gavin: The acting industry is a very tough industry and when I first left drama school, my first two years I was very lucky and had solid work and then things dried up a little bit and you do have to start looking.  It's just life in general.  I'm thinking what am I going to be able to do if I don't get another acting job? So I, funnily enough went back to the place where it all started for me - the Miskin Theatre, who the directors that I'd worked with there became friends and they said, 'Look why don't you come and direct here and work here in education and if you get acting work you can go and do the acting work. So, I did that, and I had a trial period and loved teaching acting and I am still there to this day. So, when I'm not acting, I teach and when I'm not teaching I'm acting. So, touch wood it's a real fortunate position to be in.

What is your favourite type of role - modern day or period?

Gavin: I love every part that I get the opportunity to play. I mean period drama is really fun and certainly when I got cast in Torchwood and realising that the part I was playing in the episode was back in time - that's really fun because it's an era that I'm only accustomed to through either books or old period dramas because I didn't grow up in that time so when you get to go back in time and play those parts, they are really fun.

In terms of preference though, I think if the script is a great script I kind of genuinely love any script I get, that captures my imagination. Maybe that's not the answer you were looking for but period dramas I think, are great fun.

In the scene where George throws a punch at Torchwood's Captain Jack do you ever feel very conscious about when you throw a punch that it might connect with the person you're aiming for? I don't know how far the distance is from the camera angles as to how close you are to the other person.

Gavin: That's a good question. It's where you get your training - you do stage and screen combat and both are two very different disciplines. On camera, you have the camera angles to help you out and of course the sound effect - the punch effect will happen post production which they will add the sound effect of the punch. When you're doing it on the day you kind of feel, this feels a bit rubbish then you watch it back and go 'Oh my god that's amazing.' That's down to the edit. 

I never worry about it. However on this particular one when you get cast in a part and end up having a fight with the Lead and it happens to be Mr John Barrowman, at first you go, 'oh please don't hit him, please don't hit him' (laughs) but what's great is that John first of all is great to work with that when we got to that scene, when we filmed it, the fight choreographers came in, you rehearse it a few times, both actors have to feel comfortable and trust it. We both did, and I never really worried about it after you rehearse it because it's done in a real thoughtful and considered way and both actors just before you're ready to shoot - everybody feels comfortable with it and we all did.

Did you have to learn the dance moves before you danced Toshiko across the dance floor?

Gavin: Yes, I did! (grins) I assume you are a Torchwood fan, Djak

('Oh totally' laughs).

Gavin: It was great, man, it was real good fun. My Mum is a big fan of Strictly Come Dancing, so of course when I got given that scene, as much as I did dance at Drama school you go, 'I'm meant to look like I know what I'm doing.' I went up to Wales two days earlier than everybody else, so I could have a rehearsal with the dance. I believe there's a Torchwood Declassified episode of Captain Jack Harkness and you see some of the Behind the Scenes footage of us rehearsing the dance. It was great fun. I think there was a few times where I might have been treading on toes, literally (both laugh). That's one of my favourite things about being an actor, you get to do that stuff and that was what was great playing George in that script. I got to fight, got to dance, got to flirt, got to kind of be a little bit drunk and wear a great costume and that was all in that one episode, so the dancing was great fun.

Did you have much of a background story about George?

Gavin: I, as an actor I like to create a backstory. Your biggest part though is to start with the script. It's easy to make up all these things that can sometimes lead you down a different track and you end up performing a different character that is way out there. So starting with the script is the key point and I was very, very lucky to work with a great group, you know there was four of us, and Matt who played the real Captain Jack, we all stayed in the same hotel with each other and we all got on so well the four of us, so me and Matt after work we met up for the read through which was a day before we started filming and we would have a chat and we would talk about our character's previous relationships, and what they would be like and what they would do and the respect they would have for each other. 

So for example, in the scene where all of a sudden I punch John Barrowman, there's a kerfuffle and eventually going to be a fight, and Matt's character, the real Captain Jack, says something like 'That's enough, kiddo.' and there's an automatic respect there, that we spoke about, that because of the respect that George has for the real Captain Jack it's that absolutely what he says, goes, because of what they've been through and what they've seen, and that's what I loved playing about it. That was really helpful.

(We talked a little about Matt Rippy, the actor who played the real Captain Jack, about the character he played, the interview we had and how much Gavin enjoyed working with him.)

Gavin: He was great, man, he was so great to work with and a real lovely generous actor that was really happy to speak. It was really important I think for the four of us just to speak and bond off screen, so it could come across on screen when you're playing this character. So that's where that becomes really useful when you talk about back story and relationships.

Who were your acting influences growing up?

Gavin: It started as Robert De Niro. Robert De Niro and Marlon Brando. I grew up in a very working-class family background so most days it was watching soap and that's what I thought was acting. It is a part of acting but the films that I'd go and see were as a kid, were Ghostbusters and great, great real films that I love but never really watch it for the acting, I'd watch it for the entertainment value of it, which again is nothing wrong with it, because I loved film and I loved TV but I didn't look at it from a point of, 'oh that person inspires me or influences me'.

When I went to the Miskin and my friends now, an actor called Neil Maskell, he introduced me to a load of De Niro films and Scorsese films, Brando and Gary Oldman and suddenly, watching these performances where it kind of really excited me and wowed me and I thought (gasps) 'Oh WOW, who are these writers, who are these filmmakers? How are they creating that? I started to watch TV and watch films as an actor - I don't mean that to sound pretentious in any way, it just got my juices flowing, just excited me. I wanted to watch more. That was important, so Robert De Niro, Marlon Brando were massive inspirations.

Do you come from an acting family?

Gavin: No, I don't. I am the only actor in my family. There are characters in my family (laughs)

I think there's one in every family isn't there? (Both laugh)

Gavin: There's a few in mine but my Nan was a real massive support for me. She always called me her little actor when I was a child. If we would go on holiday and there was someone who had to go up on stage and dress up I would go and do that. So my Nan was always really supportive and always said 'You'll be an actor one day, you'll be an actor' and bless her, she was right. I come from a really supportive family and again I'm very fortunate.

Are you naturally a private person?

Gavin: Yeah. The reason why I enjoy acting is because I get to play loads of different people and different characters. Social media for example, I'm not one that gets into or particularly understands social media. I do it because now it certainly, in 2018, it's a part of my job so - the sort of things like Instagram, I'm involved in it but do it from a point of - this is what I'm up to, in terms of work and work environment. But personal stuff and private, I value that because that's my life and the people that know me personally. I'd say that I'm fairly private, yes.

(I explained a little about the reason for the privacy question - it had come from an IMDB posting that only listed his year of birth rather than the full date, so now having talked a little more, I can post that Gavin celebrates his birthday with Paul Rudd, Asa Butterfield and Pharell Williams. Have you guessed it yet?)

You also played a character in The Sarah Jane Adventures.

Gavin: Do you know why I was so excited about being cast in Torchwood? One of my brothers, Nick, my closest brother is twelve years older than me and I was born in 1983 so a lot of my childhood and my brother Nick is probably, well one of the biggest Doctor Who fans. I grew up watching Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Colin Baker, Peter Davison, I watched all of the Doctors, so I kind of grew up watching Doctor Who, and loved it.

So flash forward and obviously taken off the TV and my brother was gutted and lo and behold and flash forward I don't know how many years it was for Doctor Who to air back on TV he was super excited as was I. When they were doing the spin off of Torchwood and then I got the phone call 'would I like to go in to audition for it' I was super wowed by it.

 And of course, really excited and it was a no brainer that I loved the script, and of course after that, the same casting directors were casting Sarah Jane and they called me and it was actually the same director, Ashley Way that directed it, and directed Captain Jack Harkness, that was doing this episode of Sarah Jane Adventures so worked with me before.

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So, they got me in and said 'do you want to do this part?' and I said, 'Absolutely' and again, loved that, and obviously a very very different script, more designed for children, Sarah Jane Adventures, but to work with Elisabeth Sladen was a great honour. She was my favourite companion and I used to watch her as a kid so, you know I don't normally get star struck when I work with actors but with her I was like 'hello' (laughs). She was great to work with and so to do Torchwood and to do Sarah Jane, I keep saying to my agent, I'd really love to do Doctor Who because I think that would make me one of maybe nine actors who have done all three. I've done two out of three - that would be great fun.

Can you tell us anything about your latest roles. Clipper in In Fabric?

Gavin: The film In Fabric is a British film by director Peter Strickland who has done various low budget and is a very artistic director and has been backed by BAFTA to make this film. Again, one of my friends, Leo Bill is the lead in the film.  I can't say too much about it now as it's post production. It's a psychological thriller/horror. It was a fun script to read but because you get told what you can and can't say I don't know how much I can talk about that. I believe that's coming out at the end of the year.

What I can talk a little bit more about is I've just been in Bulgaria filming a film called Doom.

Isn't that a remake of the old video game Doom with Dwayne Johnson?

Gavin: It's not a remake of the film, it's based on the video game. There was the film with The Rock in which was about ten years ago it was made. They're not calling it Doom 2. It's going to be called Doom and it's like a strapline, a working title, so it's a different entity which was cool. I'm playing a character called Harry who is a Space Marine from New York and I am on a spaceship (Gavin grins excitedly) which again is great fun. And again, anybody that knows the computer game of Doom I'm sure people out there will know in terms of what it's going to be about. There's some great aliens and demons in it which was great fun and lots of guns lots of shooting and I had a great time on it. It was really, really fun to shoot.

So, was there a lot of moving about looking at the tennis ball in the sky as in, that'll be the aliens and stuff coming towards you, so you've got to kind of improvise?

Gavin: Well there was actually people in prosthetics that were running down towards you which was scary especially when you've got a big AK47 type gun which I think people assume, you know,  I'm a six foot guy from London who will kind of go 'Aye, I'll give you a gun and you'll be fine with it.' I was petrified. I didn't know what I was doing, of course that's where all your research comes in. But it was great fun to play and anything growing up, as I say, my brother Nick being a massive sci fi fan and I grew up with Doctor Who, Blakes7, Space 1999, so anything that was sort of Space related, it was so fun to do, so to get cast in Doom was a real great experience. Doom comes out I think at the beginning of next year.

Have you voiced any audio dramas for Torchwood or any audio dramas at all? 

Gavin: I've not done any Torchwood audios or Doctor Who ones. I've done radio before, but I know there's Big Finish Productions - I'd love it if they called me up and said 'Do you want to bring...I've always thought that maybe George could come back in it. It would be great to maybe find out more about that backstory. Even to play other characters, I'd love to. I'm a big fan of Doctor Who, Torchwood, Sarah Jane Adventures, those producers, that world is a very special world. I've not done any of those dramas, but I'd certainly be up for it, if they were interested.

Which role would you love to get your teeth into?

Gavin: That's a tough question! (I punch the air as I finally have a question Gavin has to think about...for quite a while :D) There's so many. There's so many I can't name one. I've always been, I suppose fascinated with my love for De Niro with kind of gangster, Mafia and a massive music influence for me is Frank Sinatra. That world, that kind of 60s, 70s America fascinates me - Italian/American.

Yeah, I'd love to find a story. The problem is the heyday of these films was made in the 70s so to try and recreate that - I would love to find a new story and character that you could explore more with. Any sort of period drama as well. I would say that sort of Mafiosa world I'd love to be up there for one of my dream roles but there's so many parts.

If you could go back in time, as in the dance hall scene in Torchwood, what era would you feel more at home in or explore in, but still be able to step back into present day at any time?

Gavin: Ahh that's a great question! (Ha, that's two now, I'm on a roll) There's so many people out there thinking - why don't you take this era? (laughs) If I could only choose one it would probably be, (laughs) this probably sounds boring, but the 60s. Just because I think it was a great time, it looked a fun time for music and fashion. That's being safe!

If I got two choices I think medieval. That sort of time that's always fascinated me just to see if I could survive (both laugh). I'd maybe do virtual reality just in case I didn't. I think maybe medieval times would be good fun.

Do you prefer to play roles where you're in uniform as going through your credit list, more than a few of your roles put you in either police, military or other? I saw you were in Holby city but wasn't sure if you were medic or...

Gavin: No, I was in Holby City twice, when I played a patient and then an obsessed lover to a patient. The second when I did play a patient I had an arrow through my mouth, which was a lovely scene to play.

I think it is strange that I've been cast in uniform for period dramas and police officers. There's a strange responsibility when you put on a uniform. There's a strange aura of authority when you stick it on. I wouldn't say I had a preference to it but for example when you again in Torchwood and when I was in a short film called Dip where I played a police officer, you do your preparation at home and you're rehearsing it and stuff. You learn the lines and do the character work and you break the character down but there's something unique when you put that costume on the first time, it just changes you physically. It really does make you feel different which then adds another element to what you've prepared when you play a part. But that isn't just the uniform, that's with everything I've done. I wouldn't have a preference. I have been cast in a lot of period dramas where I've played a chauffeur. I played a chauffeur in Mapp and Lucia and recently in the remake of Howard's End. Again, that just does something to you, it changes your physicality which is helpful as an actor, but I don't have a particular preference. I don't sort of phone my agent and say, 'only police officers and pilots please!' (both laugh).

I think there is sometimes. It's how you look and what you've done and whether you feel comfortable wearing costume and the thing is with your period drama those uniforms, they were heavy (laughs)

(They'd be itchy too I'd imagine, weren't they made of wool?)

Gavin: Yeah, when I was dancing on the dance floor, it took various amounts of takes and different shots, it's a good afternoon. I think it was a full - it was a few days but the dance scene, there was a big scene to shoot and it's very easy to get really, really hot and that's when the makeup department come on and fan you down straight away ready for the next shot. They look, and they feel great.

Also, I've got a beard and a moustache at the moment, but I've always had I suppose a period looking face, which people have cast and people have told me before. 'Oh yeah, really.' I don't know what that means it gets me work, so great.

The film 'Doom' I know you said you were filming in Bulgaria, but did you have to go to America for any of the scenes or were they all filmed in Bulgaria?

Gavin: There's a great studio over in Bulgaria called UFO but Universal do a lot of work over there and the studio is great, and Bulgaria is great if you ever get the chance to go, I'd really recommend it. But the sound studios that we worked in you go and you're not sure what to expect when you walked in on all the different sets, it was a real WOW factor for me, so all of it was shot there. At the moment they're doing all the post production over in L.A., so things left to do in ADR, you know if you add extra dialogue. We'll be travelling over there but a lot of the actors were European or British based, or any Americans that were cast I think were living in Europe and stuff. Again, I'm not sure, there was action all over. The studios in Sofia were great.

Do you still live in the East End or are you based in America or elsewhere?

Gavin: I'm a bit further out now from the East End, I'm more towards Kent but I am still in England. A lot of work is over here, and a lot of castings are still in London, so I am at the moment, I don't want to be too far away from London, but there's obviously a lot of things still happening in the States and all around and that's what you do, some self-tapes

What did you enjoy about playing George, the airman?

Gavin: First, I thought when I read the script, I just loved the story. And when you read it I thought that the fans out there would really enjoy the episode, and so when I read that, that was first, just as a fan of stories, I was like, this is a really cool story.

What I loved I think with George is inside of that world there needed to be someone who had a vibrant energy that was happy to joke and happy to insult and to let rip and to say things and be a bit boisterous and to just have fun. That's what I loved playing about him but also as an actor you can't just do one thing because as humans we're three dimensional so it was to find that other stuff so when you marry that stuff, that boisterous fun side but with a discipline and respect for the uniform and for his colleagues, that becomes really appealing though and that's what I loved about playing George. He wasn't scared to get into a fight, he wasn't scared to just walk up to a girl and to drag her on the dance floor.

(He was very brash)

Gavin: Yes, he's not like me at all. I'd be petrified of going up to her. He wasn't scared to do that. He wasn't scared to have a fight but on that absolute flip side what we spoke about earlier, the respect for the uniform, the respect for the job and the respect for the people that he was in battle with made him completely disciplined. So, you've got both sides of that character and that's what I loved playing with. That's why I loved playing George.

I'm a big supporter of the fan base, of certainly Torchwood. I mean, when did I do that episode of Torchwood, was it 2008? (2007 - It was eleven years ago!!!) Scary! But from everything I've done I still to this day, I still get letters in the post and fans that send cards and send photos or just write a letter to say they really enjoyed the episode and I genuinely really appreciate that because I get as I say, as a kid when I grew up watching Doctor Who, the way people care about the characters and care about the programme I kind of wish Torchwood went on. I thought it was a great success, so I am a massive supporter of that fan base.

Thank you, Gavin for an awesome interview!

Photos courtesy of Torchwood Declassified, Mapp & Lucia & Sarah Jane Adventures