Adam Kendrick continues his reports from the guest panels at Bedford Who Charity Con 2025.

Doctor Who has always been part of Neve McIntosh’s life, ever since she grew up watching Tom Baker as the Doctor and hiding whenever the Daleks appeared onscreen. Her older brother used to collect Doctor Who comics and Target novels, which she kept borrowing from his bedroom without asking for permission. However, she didn’t think about becoming an actor when she grew up, and instead wanted to become a vet or an international showjumper. She even considered going to art college (although she still occasionally sketches to this day), before eventually attending the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. While they didn’t offer any classes on how to play prehistoric reptiles, she recalls an improvisation workshop where participants pretended to be animals by adopting their physical characteristics – she chose a rhinoceros, a creature which is significantly different from a human due to the enormous horn right in the middle of its face.

Neve’s first appearance in Doctor Who consisted of playing two Silurian twins called Alaya and Restac in The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood (2010). These performances led to her being cast as Madam Vastra, who first appeared in A Good Man Goes To War (2011) and allowed her to play a “more human” reptilian. To prepare for these roles, she studied the behaviour of Komodo dragons and monitor lizards by watching David Attenborough’s Life in Cold Blood (2008), and watched the Silurians’ debut serial, Doctor Who and the Silurians (1970). Peter Halliday’s vocal performances as the original Silurians inspired her to give Vastra a “posh” voice, and she relished the challenge of performing while speaking with Received Pronunciation rather than her natural Scottish accent. Like many long-term Doctor Who fans, she was somewhat disappointed when she discovered that the redesigned “sexier” Silurians wouldn’t have the third eye which fired lasers on their heads. However, she was delighted when she saw the sword that Madame Vastra would be carrying on her back!

It took three to four hours to apply Vastra’s makeup and prosthetics to Neve’s head and neck, during which she would usually nap or swap jokes with her co-star, Dan Starkey while he underwent his own transformation into Strax. She has undergone the process so many times that she eventually became used to it and now finds that wearing Vastra’s make-up and costume helps her get into character. On the other hand, these prosthetics present her with several problems, such as finding something suitable to eat – anything greasy or messy such as spaghetti would ruin the latex mask around her lips. Moisture would also collect underneath the mask, which was particularly unpleasant if she had a cold or was sweating in the heat. And despite the lengths taken to change her appearance, she still gets recognised as Vastra while browsing for clothes in TK Maxx.

While she doesn’t often get to see Catrin Stewart nowadays, she still regularly meets up with Dan Starky to chat over beers. They share a sense of humour and even write their own stories about Vastra and Strax, some of which they’ve pitched to Big Finish. Out of all the times they’ve appeared on Doctor Who, their funniest moment was when they filmed Songtaran Carols to promote The Snowmen (2012). This short feature was suggested by Dan himself and consisted of Strax performing a trio of Christmas Carols, each given a Sontaran twist, while the rest of the cast struggled to not break character and start laughing.

Even though we haven’t seen the Paternoster Gang on television since Deep Breath (2014), Madame Vastra, Jenny Flint, and Strax’s adventures have continued thanks to Big Finish, who have so far produced eight anthologies featuring the trio. During one of their recent escapades (Merry Christmas, Mr Jago (2020)), they were fortunate enough to meet Henry Gordon Jago, played by the late Christopher Benjamin. Neve thinks that The Paternoster Gang and Jago & Litefoot should encounter each other more often, considering how much time these characters spend in Victorian London. Fingers crossed that Big Finish will commission some of Neve and Dan’s pitches in the future!