The Young Doctors

(That title is only going to mean anything if you know your Australian soaps, and are an ardent follower of Alan Dale.)

Anyway, Gareth spotted this on Facebook.

Bless ’em, they all loook so youthful! Hartnell is perhaps the biggest shock, given that when we met the First Doctor he was already an old man – it’s tempting to think that in his younger, wilder years he might have resembled the fiery pinup of the photo. Troughton and Pertwee are instantly recognisable thanks to their noses – which, by the way, is one of the most interesting things about Smith’s picture, suggesting that in more recent years he’s had it done (although it’s hard to really concentrate on the nose, because he appears to be wearing a ferret on his head).

Eccleston – who reminds me here of his performance in Shallow Grave – still looks like he’d rather be somewhere else. Davison is presumably en route to a Magnum audition somewhere, while Tennant has been listening to a little too much Joy Division. And McCoy resembles the love child of Albert Einstein and Frank Zappa. “Which, of course,” says Gareth, “he is.”