IT’S UNUSUAL FOR AN ACTOR TO JUMP FROM drama school straight into a high-profile television series, but Nicola Bryant did just that when she joined Doctor Who as Perpugilliam – Peri to her friends! – Brown. “Everyone was expected to get a job in rep and then build up their CV,” she tells SFX. “You might get a little role in telly. You just didn’t think that you’d get a lead role in something.”
Was she thrown into the deep end? “Definitely. Drama school was predominantly stage work, and we’d done a tiny bit of radio. The year before I’d volunteered, in my summer holidays, to hold the boom for the year above me who were doing one week’s worth of television. We never had that.”
We might venture that Bryant had jumped from the proverbial frying pan into the fire – a Planet Of Fire if you will – but she took it all in her stride. “I was so excited the whole time to be working on that nothing bothered me. You’re young and you’re constantly in that learning
