Torchwood just refuses to die, with mentions of it in this year’s Doctor Who, the surprise reappearance of its lead, and ongoing audio dramas from Big Finish. Gareth David-Lloyd and Kai Owen played key roles in the show as Ianto and Rhys, and they explain to Nick Joy why they continue to wave the Welsh flag for the popular Doctor Who spin-off.

Gareth and David are at Sci-Fi Ball 26 in Southampton and have just spent 75 minutes in front of an appreciative crowd who have quizzed them on everything from on-stage nudity to visiting your own shrine.

Kai, Gareth, you did great there with a crowd who were asking you literally anything. Literally no filters.

Gareth David-Lloyd: We’re old hands at it now really.

Kai Owen: You expect the usual sort of questions.

GD-L: This time I didn’t get asked what it’s like to kiss John Barrowman – which is a bonus

KO: People are genuinely interested in whether Torchwood will come back, so there’s an interest in it there. We have great fun doing panels.

GD-L: What you don’t usually get with a popular TV show is that one-on-one interaction with the fans. With theatre you get that relationship with the audience.

KO: And the fans are so knowledgeable. They know so much more about the show than we do. They’ve watched every episode several times whereas we might not have even seen the episode – only filmed it. We have to go back right in our recollection to when we filmed it.

I guess that when you’re in the heat of filming you’re getting ready for your next script and not having the luxury to reflect on what you just filmed?

GD-L: When you’re in it, you experience it in a different way. You’re telling the story rather than hearing it. Some actors don’t like going back and watching it. I do. I think it’s important if you want to hone your craft. The fans get a very different experience of the show to us.

This year on Doctor Who we were told by Stephen Fry’s character that Torchwood had been shut down, and then we had a surprise appearance from Captain Jack. It seems like Torchwood is still in our psyche. When you first took on your roles in Torchwood in 2006, could you ever have assumed that it would still have such an after life, 14 years later?

KO: Didn’t have a clue.

GD-L: When you’re doing a spin-off of Doctor Who you’re taking a massive risk. We all knew that there would be a lot of Whovians in the world watching with judging eyes. It was very exciting, but we knew it could go one way or the other. I don’t think any of us could have guessed what sort of impact it would make or to the extent that it would stay around in this popularity. There’s a shrine to Ianto’s character in the [Cardiff] Bay, which is mental. It’s great to see that John [Barrowman] has been allowed at last to put the coat back on because he’s been gagging to do it for years. Hopefully it will encourage more fans to go back and watch the show and we’ll get a whole new wave of them. Maybe one day it will get back on telly.

The show has been living through a series of audio dramas by Big Finish. Is that a very different experience for you?

GD-L: It’s lovely to be able to step back in to the skin of a character that you’ve played years ago and would be far too old to play again on screen. The fact that it has kept it alive is great – I’ve had the opportunity to write a couple as well, which has been great fun. I’ve been able to write the characters I love and go in directions I always dreamt them going. The fact that it’s still got an audience 13 years after it started is lovely.

Kai, your character really developed after the episode Meat where you confronted Gwen and she told you what she really did for a living. Did you have your fingers crossed that they’d evolve Rhys like this, or did you actually ask?

KO: I certainly didn’t ask for any more, though I would have liked more. At the very beginning the producers told me at the read-through that they weren’t sure yet what he would be doing. Semi-regular partner of Gwen was the initial idea, with six eps in the beginning. Which was great, because it was a job. And then it just built and built and built. At the beginning of season 2 they told me that they’d made the decision for Rhys to find out about Gwen, but he still wasn’t going to part of the ‘team’. He was an ongoing character and they could do as little or as much as they wanted with him. He doesn’t have to be in each episode, just the odd scene. He’s Gwen’s rock and he’ll always be there for her. He could be in just one episode of the whole season if you wanted to. He’s also a very killable character and it would work well for Gwen in that way as well. I’m very grateful that they’ve kept him alive and that he’s still around. He’s grown into that role of giving Gwen a hand when needed.

Rhys is Gwen’s rock, but he also serves as an anchor to reality for the audience members.

GD-L: I thinks it’s great that Rhys stuck around because he was the reminder of where Torchwood worked so well. It took these very very normal people and put them in very extraordinary situations. Rhys is Gwen’s anchor to humanity and realism. He’s part of that background of realism that makes the escapism so fantastic.

Going back to what you said about the showing being a risk. On a professional level, did you see it as a risk?

KO: I think the word spinoff is always a word you dread. Only successful shows get spinoffs, they have to be well established and have earned it. Spinoffs don’t work a lot of the time. I went into it so naive about the world we getting ourselves into. I remember John telling us in the early days that we’d probably get invited to Comicons and conventions. I didn’t have a clue what was going on, or what potentially was in store.

And was it also gratifying as a Welshman putting Cardiff and Welsh actors on the stage in a context that wasn’t just about Wales.

GD-L: It really helped in the way that Cardiff was written and portrayed – as it is, rather than as a romanticised version. It was a real and dangerous backdrop to the show.

KO: it looked beautiful, but after hours it had all its quirks. It nailed Cardiff in that way.

Some of the landscapes are amazing and it looked great on screen.

GD-L: I hope that if it does ever come back that Cardiff is a character that comes back with it. Cardiff is as important a character as the principals.

And I think for me that was part of the problem with Miracle Day, because it was flitting between Wales and the States.

GD-L: Yes, not enough Cardiff. I think that what gave Torchwood a lot of its charm was the fact that it was set in Cardiff.

The show could never be accused of standing still. Each series did something different.

GD-L: In a way, that gave it some freedom as well. It could come back as a film, another five-parter, another ten-parter.

KO: Torchwood could come back with totally new characters as well.

GD-L: Absolutely. And at any point in history as well.

Are you enjoying watching your screen wife Eve Myles’ success in shows such as Keeping Faith?

KO: Eve’s our great mate. We love her. She deserves all the success in the world. She’s smashing it and quite rightly so. Again, it’s amazing for Wales.

Gareth, Will you be on the road again with your metal band, Blue Gillespie?

GD-L: I’m being sent ideas and I’ve written some lyrics, so it’s getting together to do it. There are things bubbling away, and I think it’s going to be less a metal band and more prog rock, with a different name.

Chris Chibnall is running Doctor Who at the moment. Do you think that because your characters are so well-established in that shared universe that you couldn’t appear in the show as a different character?

KO: I don’t know. I’d love to go back as an alien, heavily made up. Why not? Chris is a lovely bloke and when I heard that he got the Doctor Who job I thought that if anything of Torchwood was coming back it would be under him. He did so much with Russell [T Davies] and us in seasons 1 and 2.

Remind me, did you ever wear prosthetics on Torchwood?

KO: Just shot and stabbed really. Cuts and bruises.

Gareth, it would be remiss of me not to mention your heartbreaking death scene in Children of Earth. How did you first find out about it?

GD-L: The game was given away when I got the call to say that there was going to be a third series. ‘It’s pared down to five episodes and one story. You’ll be needed for three or four of the episodes.’ At that moment I thought ‘Ah, right’, considering the mortality rate on Torchwood. But, having said that, I felt lucky to get as far as I did. I expected to die in the first season and then I expected to die in the second season! Then I got taken out to lunch and knew what they were going to say. Peter [Bennett], the producer at the time, and Julie Gardner explained that Ianto died and how exactly it was going to happen. It was a sombre moment but also it was a good place to leave it.

I’m guessing it’s every actor’s dream to die in a spectacular way rather than fade into obscurity?

GD-L: Absolutely. Dying in your lover’s arms is the way that actors want to portray a death scene, so I was very lucky.

Was this a fear that you had too, Kai, that Rhys would be killed?

KO: Rhys was a very killable character in that way. It helped Gwen’s character putting Rhys in danger and he was going to die at the end of season 1. In fact, he did die, and then they opened the rift and reversed it. So, yes, there was that idea that he was going to die.

GD-L: I remember getting the memo. ‘Here are the rewrites for episode 13. This happen, this happens, and Rhys lives.’ Hurray!

KO: They would let you know if they were going to kill you off for good. You wouldn’t just read it in the script. The producers let you know if that’s the plan.

GD-L: They take your feelings into account

KO: They don’t go ‘Read that. Enjoy it!’ and then on page seven.. oh no! They gave Burn [Gorman – Owe] and Naoko [Mori – Tosh] warning that they were going to die.

I guess that when they took those characters out of the show it proved that anyone was fair game?

GD-L: Oh yes, no one was safe. We were gobsmacked when Burn and Naoko told us, because that came out of the blue. ‘Look, guys, we’re going. They’re killing us off.’ What, both of you?

Had the jungle drums started that John was going to be in Doctor Who this year, or were you as surprised as we were?

KO: I didn’t have a clue.

GD-L: I had an inkling. I thought he was going to turn up in the New Year’s Day special.

It’s amazing that such a big secret was kept in this time of spoilers.

GD-L: I bet those shoot days were closed. That the security was more than the Houses of Parliament for those scenes.

KO: He would have loved all of that. Because he would have been the man of the day – his day. He would have loved that, and quite rightly so.

Do you manage to keep in touch with your Torchwood colleagues, or is it difficult with all the different jobs you’re now doing?

GD-L: We see each other quite a lot on the convention circuit. I was speaking to Naoko recently about meeting up.

KO: Eve messaged me just last week. (Pause)… But we’re not allowed to message John. We have to got through a lot of people to get to him, and when we do, it’s usually a one-word text [laughs].

I don’t believe a word you say! Thanks for the chat.

 

The Sci-Fi Ball raises money for Teenage Cancer Trust. Visit them at https://scifiball.com  Thanks to Scott and Anna at the Sci-Fi Ball for arranging this interview