Peter: 'Why must all good ideas turn into soaps?'

Peter: 'Why must all good ideas turn into soaps?'
Peter: 'Why must all good ideas turn into soaps?' (Image credit: PA Archive/Press Association Ima)

Peter Davison has slammed TV producers who 'turn every good idea into a soap'. The former Doctor Who star appears in the next series of Law & Order: UK (ITV1, Sunday), and revealed he was already a fan of the series, which follows cases from the perpetration of the crime, through the police investigation and court proceedings. He said: "It's a series that's about what it's about. There's no nonsense. You don't see their private lives, so there's more time to go into detail about the convoluted way cases work, and the twists and turns you go through to get a guilty verdict. "I think there's a terrible tendency to turn every good idea into a soap. For instance, you have a series set in a hospital, but it's not about who's working in the hospital, it's about who's having an affair with who." He's enjoyed the chance to work with Freema Agyeman, who he'd met at various Doctor Who events. "It was a bit like being back in the Doctor Who family," he said. The family has been extended now as his daughter, actress Georgia Moffett, is engaged to David Tennant, who played the 10th Doctor. But while there are nuptial plans afoot, Peter is very reluctant to give anything away. "There is definitely a plan," he said.

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.