Orbital talk 'Doctor Who': 'Matt Smith was absolutely peaking'

Published Apr 30 2012, 16:57 BST  |  By Mayer Nissim

Glastonbury is famed for its fantastic collaborations and guest appearances, and while Gorillaz invited four generations of popstars to join them on the Pyramid Stage in 2010, it was another hook-up which grabbed all the attention.

Closing the Other Stage on the last day of the festival, Doctor Who star Matt Smith joined dance legends Orbital for a rendition of a crowd favourite - their take on Ron Grainer and Delia Derbyshire's classic theme song.



While chatting to the duo's Paul Hartnoll about their comeback album Wonky, Digital Spy also got chatting about just how the Eleventh Doctor ended up on stage with him. Here's what he had to say...

"We played in Coachella, which was a great gig, we went to an aftershow party in this big sort of villa place. It was typical, exactly what you'd expect - a massive villa with a swimming pool and palm trees in the garden.

"I was approaching the fridge to go and get a beer, and I thought 'That bloke in front of me looks like Doctor Who'. We were only three episodes in [to series five] at this point. It was dark, and he opened the fridge and the light spilled out on to his face, and I thought 'F**k me, it is Doctor Who!'

"I tapped him, and I said, 'Excuse me, are you Doctor Who?'. He just turned round to me with the biggest grin and said, 'Well actually, yes I am'. That was just it. I said, 'Oh hello, my name's Paul Hartnoll from a band called Orbital'. He said 'Oh god, you're the band who did the theme tune! Oh my god we all talk about that on set, we love that, oh, that's brilliant!'

"We just had a beer together and a chat and he said 'Oh, I'd love to come on stage and introduce you one time'. Our lighting guy who was with us said, 'Why don't you come on at Glastonbury?' He sort of flipped out and said, 'Oh my god, I've never been to Glastonbury, that'd be brilliant'.



"So we just kept in touch. He said if you can get me and five friends into Glastonbury, I'll do it, so we did. He had a great time. That was brilliant. He was absolutely peaking.

"I know he's an actor and he's been seen by millions by that point. Nothing was more obvious than when I was walking through the crowd on Saturday night, I was walking with him and it was just insane. He had his big Doctor Who trenchcoat on, though it was actually before he started wearing the trenchcoat on the telly.

"He was marching through the crowd and the absolute stunned faces on all these acid casualties as we were walking through Glastonbury was so funny. People's jaws were dropping, going 'It's Doctor Who, it's Doctor Who!' And just spinning around, it was hilarious.

"He'd never stood in front of that many people before. It's not often you're stood in front of six, seven thousand people if you're an actor."