In The Power of the Doctor, Sophie Aldred will be wearing the original bomber jacket that she wore as Ace in the Seventh Doctor era. And yep, there’s a gorgeous photo to enjoy!
Ace is set to return for Jodie Whittaker’s last Doctor Who as the Thirteenth Doctor, alongside Janet Fielding as Fourth and Fifth Doctor companion, Tegan Jovanka. And as Sophie revealed, the jacket she’s wearing is actually the same one she wore when accompanying Sylvester McCoy’s incarnation of the Time Lord around time and space. She told SFX Magazine:
“Back in the day, [1980s producer] John Nathan-Turner, at the end of filming, said to Sylvester and me, ‘You might as well take your costumes home with you, because you’re probably going to be asked to do personal appearances before the next season’ I kind of wonder whether he knew it wasn’t going to happen and wanted us to be the guardians of those costumes. So I took my jacket, and it’s sat in my wardrobe for all these years.
“When I had that initial meeting with Chris [Chibnall, showrunner], I said, ‘I’ve still got my jacket…’. He said [gasps], ‘Have you? We’d love to see your jacket!’ So the first costume fitting, I took the jacket down to Cardiff. [Costume designer] Ray Holman said, ‘Can we borrow this to copy?’ and I said, ‘Why copy it? We’ll just use the jacket. You might have to sew the badges on again, though.’ Because the badges notoriously always fell off.
“We super-glued them on – I had sticking plasters on the back of the jacket, they put them on with nylon see-through thread, and they’d still fall off. Anyway, that’s what he did. I don’t think there’s any way you could spruce it up, really, because you can’t wash it or anything. It must be a bit smelly!”
Look, we know it’s just a bit of clothing, but… that’s kind of special, don’t you think? Ace: still the same person we knew back in the late 1980s! And now, she’s back, to fight the good fight (seemingly against Cybermen, Daleks, and the Master, all enemies she faced before, respectively in Silver Nemesis, Remembrance of the Daleks, and Survival) as the Thirteenth Doctor bows out.
Whatever you think of the current era of the show, it’s hard not to get excited about seeing Ace and Tegan back.
The Power of the Doctor airs on 23rd October 2022, on BBC1 and BBC America.
