10 Worst Guest Stars In Doctor Who History

3. Hale And Pace

Many great comedians are also great actors. Comedy requires timing, adaptability and working well with others. Tom Hanks was a stand up while some familiar faces playing straight roles on telly such as Bradley Walsh started out as comics. John Nathan Turner certainly didn't hold a background in comedy as a hindrance to being cast in Who, in fact he felt quite the opposite. Joan Sims, Nerys Hughes and Ken Dodd all had a comedy background while Seventh Doctor Sylvester McCoy used to put ferrets down his pants. However, not all comics are great actors. For every Rowan Atkinson, there's a Tommy Cannon. In the 1980s, Hale and Pace had a sketch show of occasionally amusing characters with easy to forget catchphrases. It was like watching your uncle do impressions. The novelty soon wore off. For some reason, then, maybe out of sheer desperation to drum up publicity from a media and public that no longer cared about Doctor Who, the producer cast Hale and Pace as shop owners Harvey and Len for a cameo in what turned out to be the last story of the classic show, Survival (you can't not love the irony of that title). Even though they're only on screen for about five minutes, the pair are so bad that their presence is enough to make the story less likeable. For a pair of comics, their poor timing telling the joke about a lion (which drums home the 'survival of the fittest' message of the tale) is telling and they're even out acted by the animatronic cat prop.