Actor Noel Clarke accused of harrassment

Discussion in 'Doctor Who' started by Gingerbread Demon, Apr 30, 2021.

  1. Lonemagpie

    Lonemagpie Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Jan 31, 2007
    Location:
    Yorkshire
    Yes. That's exactly what has happened.
     
  2. Lonemagpie

    Lonemagpie Writer Admiral

    Joined:
    Jan 31, 2007
    Location:
    Yorkshire
    Some of them have, including at least one in the article quoted.
    Personally I don't think he's defensible, (though contextually you could say he served his punishment for it, albeit not the spell of jail time that would suit) but I also yjink he's a distraction from Clarke issus that need sorted pronto.
     
  3. TedShatner10

    TedShatner10 Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Oct 27, 2007
    John Barrowman would've got fired and fined at the least, if he pulled off his "stunt" in any other workplace, but the relative tolerance of his weird behaviour is indicative of actors (and other performance artists) being intensely weird excessive extroverts in general.

    Yee-ah-yay, ye, which is why I think many of the accusations towards Noel Clarke feels like ganging up without due process, as unpopular as this opinion is nowadays (even though I do think Clarke did enough selfish, shady shit around women to give the hysterical accusations enough weight).
     
  4. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 23, 2001
    Location:
    The Wormhole
    I should think even if we include all the women who were in episodes with Noel Clarke, that's still a somewhat limited pool, even assuming this isn't Billie Piper or Camille Corduri, that doesn't really leave very many other possibilities.
    Context is important. By the time Barrowman arrived on set, Eccleston had already dealt with a few months worth of behind the scenes bullshit, was being pressured into making a decision about returning for the second season or not, and his father was terminally ill and due to the production schedule, Eccleston wasn't able to visit him. In light of all that, can you really blame Eccleston for being grumpy?
    It means it's someone who doesn't want their identity revealed. But if anonymous screams fake to you, there is also at least one named woman who worked on Doctor Who behind the scenes back then who makes allegations against Clarke mentioned in that article.
     
    Last edited: May 8, 2021
  5. TedShatner10

    TedShatner10 Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Oct 27, 2007
    That was an unfortunate cherry on top (alongside his moderate anorexia at the time).

    Fan/crew rumours surfacing years later do mention that there WAS a degree of tension between the pervy fratboy John Barrowman and distracted professional Christopher Eccleston.

    And Chris Eccleston's career DID stall somewhat if he had a sleazy agent skimming money from his salaries for the late 00s/early 10s blockbusters he acted in (where he felt miscast) and he candidly mentioned in the last couple of years that he got "blacklisted" after leaving RTD's production crew on a sour note.
     
  6. Gingerbread Demon

    Gingerbread Demon I love Star Trek Discovery Premium Member

    Joined:
    May 31, 2015
    Location:
    The Other Realms

    No I do not think any of the accusations are fake but was just trying to guess at who that actor on Dr Who might have been and I'm thinking it could well have been Billie.
     
  7. TedShatner10

    TedShatner10 Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Oct 27, 2007
    I'm not jumping to conclusions, like most people here are doing (even it doesn't look good for Noel), and most of the reports are about lewd comments, being a generic A-hole, and showing pornographic images/recordings, which is still disappointing and uncalled for behaviour, though things people can be disciplined for.

    Sexual harassment like uninvited sexual touching and grouping, etc, is much more serious and a chargeable offence (and points to Noel being a guy with serious behavioural problems or even a personality disorder).
     
  8. TommyR01D

    TommyR01D Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Oct 28, 2011
    Location:
    UK
    As opposed to all those beautiful male actresses?

    Clarke's last appearance was in 2009, and Savile's revelations didn't really get going until after his death in 2011... or were you referring to the continued secrecy of Clarke's alleged behaviour until now?

    I also recall a segment in Ello, 'Ello, 'Ello where she complained about Tennant and Barrowman farting too much on set. I will dig out my copy of Barrowman's Anything Goes to check his account.

    It's sort of the left wing version of "take the red-pill", though literally it's closer to when conspiracy theorists of any political persuasion tell you to "Wake Up!" (whether or not they actually say "sheeple") and obnoxiously click their fingers or clap in your face.

    Occasionally I see people use "based" in a similar way. Initially I thought it was just another cry of "biased" by people who couldn't spell, but I gather it derives from "reality-based community" through a convoluted chain of inheritance.
     
  9. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 23, 2001
    Location:
    The Wormhole
    That part where you said
    suggests otherwise.
     
  10. Gingerbread Demon

    Gingerbread Demon I love Star Trek Discovery Premium Member

    Joined:
    May 31, 2015
    Location:
    The Other Realms
    No I should have explained myself better sorry
     
  11. TedShatner10

    TedShatner10 Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Oct 27, 2007
    The idiocy grinds on when when some people are calling for John Barrowman to be fired from his current show despite the fact his infantile, crude behaviour on old NuWho productions were A) already fairly well known about for years and years if you knew where to look and B) were already settled amongst the affected parties, with Barrowman apologising and his "victims" rolling their eyes or even laughing it off.
     
  12. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 23, 2001
    Location:
    The Wormhole
    Yeah, Barrowman's antics have always been publicly known. There was even a line about it in the song he, David Tennant and Catherine Tate did commemorating the end if the RTD era:

    The line in question is right around the two minute mark.

    This is quite literally making a mountain out of a mole hill. As has already been stated, the only thing we have proof of regarding Barrowman is that he is an immature goof. That hardly warrants firing him from his current show, and it's definitely not necessary to get in contact with an MP and a (former) detective to have them weigh in on the matter.
     
    Emperor-Tiberius likes this.
  13. Captain Crow

    Captain Crow Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Mar 7, 2009
    Barrowman should have been fired on the spot and reported to the police the very first time he did that crap on the Doctor Who set. You don't whip your dick out and plop it on people in the work place.


    :rolleyes: The go to shithouse excuses of "He was just goofing around so it was okay". :rolleyes:

    Sorry, making excuses for sexual assault of any kind is why these fuckwits think its A-okay to be skeevy shit bags.
     
    Markonian and Haggis and tatties like this.
  14. TedShatner10

    TedShatner10 Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Oct 27, 2007
    I wouldn't say Barrowman's behaviour was appropriate, though it seemed more like idiotic exhibition than sexual attacks.

    RTD should've threatened Barrowman with being recast/fired at the time (ie. TARDIS Rose didn't resurrect him), mind you, though at the time it could've cost the crew more time and money they didn't have in their make or break first series.
     
  15. Bornin1980something

    Bornin1980something Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Mar 1, 2020
    The new Doctor Who was actually filmed on surprisingly low budget. Alex Kingston actually said it was filmed on a lower budget than ER!

    Still, the chaotic set does not excuse the behavior that went on. If anything, it makes it worse.

    But this was a time when stories like Barrowman's attracted a far more casual response than today. Even in 2015, Noel Clarke and two of the women were having a laugh about Barrowman's behavior onstage at a convention. What is now shocking was how far Noel Clarke went in imitating it.

    Also, it's surprising to see such talk on a Doctor Who panel, as Doctor Who (unlike Star Trek) is largely aimed at a juvenile audience (which is one reason the BBC deleted some Star Trek episodes back in the '70s – they saw it as a juvenile program to run in the place of Doctor Who!).

    And the character of Captain Jack Harkness was never appropriate for such a show. He was sexualized from the very beginning. In his very first scene, he sees Rose hanging dangerously from a barrage balloon, focuses his viewing device on her behind, and says, "Excellent bottom." Now, this is indeed how some men might watch action scenes. But children should not be encouraged to see it that way.
     
  16. Captaindemotion

    Captaindemotion Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    May 26, 2001
    Location:
    Ireland
    ^I would imagine that the vast majority of BBC shows were and are filmed on a lower budget than the likes of ER, which was always one of the biggest shows on prime time American tv.
     
  17. Haggis and tatties

    Haggis and tatties Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Dec 27, 2002
    Location:
    Glasgow
    If this were Joe Public next door pulling his privates out to woman and men in any workplace or in public he would have been rightly vilified by the mob, arrested by the police or sacked on the spot as it is a criminal offence to expose yourself, but of course cult of personality back in the day meant it was all just a bit of innocent tomfoolery and high jinx, so he was very lucky the culture at the BBC at the time allowed him nothing more than a slap on the wrist and continue as normal, whereas today the same behaviour would see him sacked on the spot and the police involved, and all it took to get this point was decades of abuse exposed at the BBC to make what Barrowman was doing back then now totally unacceptable behaviour. :shrug:
     
  18. TedShatner10

    TedShatner10 Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Oct 27, 2007
    Matt Smith's opening season actually had a somewhat reduced budget than the Tennant years, though it's been reported that since 2005, adjusted to inflation, Doctor Who has an average budget of 1.5 million pounds per episode - not on a total shoestring like DW serials from many decades ago, and perhaps roughly equivalent to Berman era Star Trek, but definitely dwarfed by Star Trek Discovery and Game Of Thrones mini-movie production budgets.

    EDIT - I personally think with #MeToo we're slowly evolving into a Borg Collective of hyper paranoid prudes, but we've got the beyond imagining sexual crimes of Weinstein, Epstein, and Savile to thank for that, as purile as Barrowman was and a self-entitled creeper Noel Clarke most likely is.
     
    Last edited: May 10, 2021
  19. TommyR01D

    TommyR01D Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Oct 28, 2011
    Location:
    UK
    It frustrates me that objective numbers are so hard to come by. The comparison is imperfect, of course, for TNG, DS9 and VOY all had large numbers of standing sets which were used continually and with little change over seven years, whereas DW changes everything each week apart from the console room, and even that only lasts 3-5 years. On the other hand those series also had much larger permanent ensemble casts to employ for half the year, instead of 2-4 regulars employed for a quarter of the year who can easily be written out if they start demanding too much money.
     
    Last edited: Sep 1, 2021
  20. TedShatner10

    TedShatner10 Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Oct 27, 2007
    The engineering sets for TNG and VOY was apparently the same redressed set first built all the way back in The Motion Picture.

    The Starfleet "floating" office model in TMP got reused as a similar space station in TWoK, and DS9.

    The TARDIS console room likely gets cannibalised or redressed in a similar fashion.
     
    Gingerbread Demon likes this.