From Dreamwatch Issue 109 (October 2003).

Blake’s 7 star Gareth Thomas recalls life – and death! – as the resistance leader Roj Blake. Words: Sharon Gosling

How do you look back on the making of Blake’s 7 today?

It was enormous fun. It was exciting, we all got on very well together and it was a period of time when one was young and one enjoyed oneself, and it was great fun doing that sort of thing.

It became a cult programme, although we really weren’t aware that was going to happen at the time. But in retrospect, it was just good fun. Hard work, but good fun!

Why do you think the show made such a lasting impact?

There are a variety of reasons, really. The scripts were fairly good. Second, we all got on very well together and I think that showed on screen. And thirdly, of course, because it was finite – unlike Star Trek or Doctor Who or whatever that just goes on and on and on... They will never make any more Blake’s 7 – not with the original lot anyway. That’s all there is. So it’s gained a cult following.

Blake’s 7 is obviously much darker than shows like Star Trek. How do you think that affected its popularity at the time?

I think people preferred it. I remember saying to a newspaper reporter once – and I said, “If you quote it, quote it correctly,” and of course he didn’t, but anyway – he asked me, “What’s it like doing Blake’s 7?” and I said, “It’s like a farce: it’s real people in an unreal situation.” And that’s where the similarity ends. But that, I think, was the point – Blake’s 7 was about real people, and we played them as real people. And so the audience could recognise the darker sides of the characters in themselves. In a bizarre way, it was more realistic as far as the human people were concerned.

The show is infamous today for its low budget. Was that frustrating for you at the time?

The costs were ludicrous. I believe I’m right in saying – or it’s something very close – we had the same budget as Z Cars. But of course, Z Cars had no special effects, no explosive effects, no electronic effects, so our budget ought to have been much, much larger. So yes, there was a shortfall in budget.

We made the best of it. And yes, you could see it occasionally, but I think on the whole the production went over that. At least, the public thought we did, on the whole!

Nowadays, of course, it would be totally different. It would be interesting to see, if we had a full film budget, what you could do with, for instance, the last episode of Blake’s 7. It would be quite fantastic – it would make a great movie, actually!

Do you think a Blake’s 7 movie is ever going to happen?

I don’t know. There’s talk of it, isn’t there? I honestly don’t know. If it does it’s got nothing to do with me anyway, because I’m dead! [Laughs]

Why did you decide to kill off Blake?

For a variety of reasons. One, I thought that the story had to come to an end – with the battle between them and us, one group eventually had to win, because otherwise it would have gone off into the realm of fantasy. It would have become boring. So I felt that it had to end. Secondly, I wanted to go on and do other things, and thirdly, I just thought we were running out of stories. It was becoming a bit like “With one bound they were free…”, and I thought no.

Did you ever regret leaving the show when you did?

No, I didn’t regret it. I’d always moved on, in other things I’d done. I was always trying not to get tied up. I also felt that it was going off the rails and not being what I wanted it to be, and I had no power to do anything about it. So I just said I’d like to leave. [Blake’s 7 creator] Terry Nation, of course, wasn’t happy, but at the end of the whole thing, when I met Terry a number of times, he understood my reasons and thought, “OK, that’s perfectly fair enough, I understand and accept that.” And we got on extremely well – very well, in fact.

But the reasons are many and varied. I wanted to move on, and in fact I went from there to the Royal Shakespeare Company. I also wanted to direct a couple [of Blake’s 7 episodes]. But in those days it just wasn’t done on British television. They’d started in America, which they do a lot now, and now it’s done over here – actors can direct. But in those days, there was no chance. So I said, “Fine, OK, then I’ll move on.”

If you had been allowed to have more input into the show, what would you have changed about it?

I think I would have tried to keep it on a slightly more realistic level. I mean, we did start going to planets where one had all sorts of bizarre characters and monsters and things like that. I would have tried to keep it more within the bounds of realism if I could. How do you feel about the show now when you catch an episode?

I’ve never seen it! I’ve seen tiny, weeny snippets – if you’re doing a chat show and they show a bit of you on the screen, you can’t avoid that. But I’ve never sat down and watched myself on television, ever.

You recently returned to the Blake’s 7 universe to work on the extra features for the show’s upcoming DVDs…

Yes, I spent a day doing some DVD stuff. The problem, of course, was I couldn’t commentate on the series: I’d never seen it. So what I did sort of talk about was the character of Blake, as far as I remembered. And they asked a few questions: “Did I remember so-and-so?”, and I sort of politely answered, “Oh yes, yes..!” [Laughs]

As you mentioned earlier, there’s been a lot of talk over the years about bringing Blake’s 7 back as a mini-series or even a movie. Do you think a revival could work?

I don’t know, and I don’t even know what the movie is supposed to be about. Originally, I believe I was told something like this: Avon, who was the only one who might have survived, is elderly and whatever, and comes out of retirement to groom seven youngsters to sort of take up the battle. But I mean, that seems to be fairly implausible. I don’t think that will be the case at all.

I don’t know what the story is now, I’ve no idea. I don’t think it would work if they called it Blake’s 7. If they tried to do something fairly similar it might work, as long as they didn’t call it Blake’s 7. There was enough hoo-haa when they carried on calling it Blake’s 7 after I’d gone! But at least I was always around and being mentioned and then came back at the end.

If the original Blake’s 7 was still on the air today, how do you think it would be received by modern audiences?

The idea of the show, I think, might go down very well now. After all, the original concept was a kind of Dirty Dozen in space, because they were all supposed to be criminals. The only one who probably wasn’t was Blake – because we reckon his child molestation trial was a set-up.

But yes, I think the show would be well accepted now; obviously, the effects and everything else would be very different and very spectacular. I think the general concept would go down very well now.