A tear, Sarah Jane?

It is nine years since the passing of Elisabeth Sladen, an actor who was beloved to many as Sarah Jane Smith, the quintessential Doctor Who companion.

Elisabeth Sladen with K9 in a publicity shot for the Doctor Who episode School Reunion. Picture: BBC

Upon hearing the news, I wrote this piece for The Stage’s TV Today blog. That blog and its contents have long since faded into the past — but to mark the anniversary of her death in 2011, it is reproduced here.

The news, when it came last night, was devastating. Elisabeth Sladen, who played Sarah Jane Smith in Doctor Who and associated spin-offs from 1973, has passed away after a battle with cancer. She was 63.

When I first came to Doctor Who in the very early 1970s, Sarah was already part of the warp and weft of the series. Through her, I came to see the role of the companion as something that is taken for granted today: independently minded, funny, and for whom terror was a trigger for thought and action instead of just screaming.

Sladen’s performance did more than anything to convey the scariness of those episodes. Sarah frequently found herself in situations where she was clearly frightened, given away by the quiver of a lip, a tremble in the…