I Am What I Am by John Barrowman (white hot kiss .TXT) 📕

of Les Mis, Catherine would like to play Madame Thénardier. In fact, Catherine’s a closet musical-theatre fan. Loves a bit of the sparkle, does our Catherine.15

Of course, changes are afoot on Doctor Who. I’ve no doubt when we look back on the new Doctor’s first exploits, we’ll all remember that we may have vented a bit about Matt Smith and how he’s just not like David, but sometime after those initial little rants, we’ll have adjusted and grown to love him, and we’ll be travelling with our new Doctor wherever he may take us. It’s the nature of the character that change is inevitable.

In my mind, Christopher Eccleston may have been the Doctor who launched Captain Jack, but David Tennant was my Doctor, the one I sailed with. Give me a moment or two, please.

The first time I met the new Doctor, Matt Smith, he’d come to the BBC Television Centre in London to meet with the public-relations department. I was in the same office, reviewing my interview schedule for Tonight’s the Night. I introduced myself and we chatted for about ten minutes. He said he’d love for his Doctor’s and Jack’s paths to cross in their futures. We laughed about a couple of our favourite Doctor Who moments, I wished him great success, and he left. As soon as he disappeared16 down the hall, I turned to the others in the office and said, ‘I feel as if I just cheated on David.’

The year between early 2007 and mid 2008 became ‘the year of awful endings’ for me. Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner announced they were stepping away from the helm of Doctor Who; David Tennant revealed he was moving on to other galaxies; and, as I’ve mentioned, three of my beloved dogs passed away.

David’s moving on made me melancholy for a while. I have to admit his leaving felt a bit like the other brother in the family leaving home. But then I realized that I love the show, I love David, and in the end every Doctor leaves us. David had lots of other things he wanted to do in the entertainment business, and I could understand and completely respect that.

When David came to see my ‘An Evening with John Barrowman’ concert in Cardiff, I made sure he was in a private box17 because otherwise he’d have been mobbed. Playing the Doctor has changed his life, as much as playing Jack has changed mine, and David’s genuineness and his compassion have never faltered.

For example, when it was announced this past year that mobile-phone numbers were going to be published, David texted all his friends who were actors, telling us which website to visit to have our numbers removed. I thought it was so sweet that he’d think about all of us in that way. That’s the kind of dish we share on Doctor Who.

I was not surprised at Russell’s announcement to turn the Doctor’s universe over to Steven Moffat, a great writer who helped me to find Jack’s voice. Russell and I are alike in many ways and one of our similarities is that we not only embrace fresh challenges, but we actively seek them out. For Russell, like David, it was time to move on to something new. I must admit, however, that the part of his news that did come as a shock was learning that his new challenge might take him to work in the US.

I’d love to be sitting at an outdoor table at The Ivy in LA when Russell takes a meeting with a group of American producers and cuts right through their Hollywood bullshit. Russell doesn’t conform to anyone’s expectations but his own, and, like his writing, he sees a metaphor in most things, and most people’s metaphors don’t fit his expansive and creative way of thinking.

Russell’s co-executive producer on Doctor Who and Torchwood, Julie Gardner, moved to the US to run BBC Worldwide, so I imagine Russell will be collaborating again with Julie.18 If you want drama that pushes boundaries and is brilliantly written, you want Russell T. Davies on your script.

I’m never surprised when people move on. When I think back to some of my closing nights in the West End, I can still see two or three people who would sit, sobbing, on the couches in the corner, or stand gutting themselves at the bar, crying floods because the show had ended and things would never be the same again. I’ve never been like that. I get emotional, but I’ll do it over a celebratory glass of champagne – not into a hanky. I’m always moving, and I’m always moving on to the next thing.

One of the newer areas I’ve moved into recently was to record a series of BBC Radio 4 Torchwood specials. The request came from BBC Radio through Gavin. Funnily enough, it arrived not long after I’d had an experience that related to the plot of the radio script.

I’d been invited to CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, by Royal Society Research Fellow, brilliant physicist, ex-D:Ream keyboard player, and really cool guy, Brian Cox, to visit the Large Hadron Collider19 – where they hope to recreate and then study the conditions of the universe’s creation. Scott and his parents, Sheelagh and Stirling, travelled with me, and each of us was able to step inside the collider tunnel itself, which is about seventeen miles long and runs deep underground along the French and Swiss borders.

On behalf of Captain Jack and myself, I planted my feet directly on the spot where the opposing particle beams will collide, recreating the Big Bang and obliterating that fixed point in space and time forever. I felt an incredible rush standing on that spot. In years past, what these scientists are now planning would have been the stuff of science fiction – only seen, perhaps, by Captain Jack in one of his futures – but yet here I was, standing on the site where a mind-blowing reality would take place.

Scott and his