Although Bonnie Langford herself will confess that she actually doesn't know much about computers, she is very well acquainted with the vagaries of show business.
My intention - and, I know, my parents' intention - was never particularly for me to go on stage as a child. Certainly not to be a child performer, because they had heard the awful stories about that as well.Nevertheless, Bonnie made her television debut at only six years of age, in Opportunity Knocks. Not long thereafter, she played the obnoxious Violet Elizabeth Bott in Just William, a role which helped to kick off her long and illustrious career. Despite their reluctance to throw Bonnie into the acting world, they were supportive of her and enrolled her in the Italia Conti school as well as sending her to America for a year to do Gypsy on Broadway.
Bonnie is probably best known for her theatre work, having been "about the youngest Cinderella there's ever been" at age fourteen, and also starring in Cats, The Pirates of Penzance (with soon-to-be-costar Colin Baker), and Peter Pan.
I love the excitement and the adrenalin of theatre, and of songs and dances. I'm a high-energy person. I'm best when I'm using every bit of energy that's inside me.
Television continued to be another outlet of Bonnie's talents, and she was even featured on This Is Your Life before she had reached twenty-five! But despite all the work she had previously done in Britain, the event that single-handedly introduced her to television viewers all around the world was Doctor Who. Having met Faith Brown one day, Bonnie talked with her about her recent experiences on the show (as Flast in "Attack of the Cybermen"). "I'd love to do one of those, that'd be fun," she said. A year later, John Nathan-Turner contacted her about playing Melanie Bush, a proposal that she happily accepted.
"I was quite a shock to their system, I think!" she says. Although Bonnie hated her first episode as Mel when she viewed it at a press call, she soon warmed to the character and the show. Having worked with both Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy previously made the transition between Doctors easier, and she was not aware of having to make any changes in Mel.
Bonnie only stayed with Doctor Who for about a year, heading straight to theatre to play the lead role in Charley Girl after it was over.
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Bonnie Langford is, unfortunately, not well regarded by Doctor Who fans. Though most dislike her character Melanie Bush, Bonnie is highly regarded in Britain as a stage performer with an enormous amount of energy who always puts everything she has into her performances. Sylvester McCoy, who has worked with Bonnie onstage, blames the production staff for not taking the time to work with Bonnie to refine her character. If she had been given a bit more direction, he has suggested, and told to tone down her performance, playing to the camera instead of - overpoweringly - to the back row of the theatre, she might have done very well.
It is worth noting that at the one convention she attended in the US (Who Event '86, I believe), she was very well-received.
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