1. Brian Blessed - The Trial Of A Time Lord
"DIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEE!!!!!!!" It's Brian Blessed. Obviously he was going to be number one. Blessed is a great ham, one who always seems to believe in the material even when it's beneath second rate, which is certainly the case here. Parts 5-8 of The Trial of a Time Lord (also known as Mindwarp by less pedantic fans) sees him playing King Yrcanos, but that doesn't matter. You end up watching the serial for him, for that voice, that crazed laughter, that madly expressive face. He's like a 19th century gun carriage performing Jacobean melodrama, and frankly, that's a good thing. There's nothing else going on in this turgid tale, which came at the lowest ebb of the lowest ebb in Doctor Who's history. It has all the hallmarks of that tired era- overlit, underwritten and indifferently acted by all concerned- except Blessed, who is introduced wrecking a laboratory ("Blood! Death! Terror! Kill!"). From there he escalates. As ever, it's impossible to know where the man ends and the performance begins. He adds a few new tics here and there (his warrior hand gestures seem to have been cribbed from a bad Top of the Pops routine), he's got a top knot, a pointy hat and eyeliner, but he still delivers all of his dialogue as though he was talking at Saturn. Dialogue like- "My friend, we both live, to drench the land with the blood of our enemies!!!!!!" "BE SILENT!!! I am King Yrcanos of the Krontemp!!! I am capable of making my own decisions!!!!!!" "You are a great dog of war!!!!!!" -dialogue that could only ever sound right coming from his maw (and the exclamation marks probably don't do him justice). He was a nightmare to work with- on one take he forgot his lines and instead shouted "Let's go find the F**kerons!!!!" (said alien race have never, ever appeared in Doctor Who)- but it's his boundless exuberance holding this sub-par corridor-a-thon together. You can almost physically feel his screen presence. I mean, this is a guy that's climbed Mount Everest about fifteen times, probably by shouting up it. What chance do the F**kerons stand?
Most OTT Moment: It would be easier to pick the least OTT moment, and that's the scene where the Doctor's companion Peri introduces him to the concept of love. If you've ever wanted to see Brian Blessed perform light romance, this is the place to go. He plays the line "What is that? Love?" with all the grace and sensitivity of 2000 nuclear warheads exploding on a theme park. And that's the least OTT moment.