John Barrowman: ‘Bawdy behaviour could be fun – but these are different times’

“I haven’t had a facelift. I’ll show you behind my ears – look. Grey hair. Everything. I’ve got jowls. I still have my butt chin though.” John Barrowman tilts his head and points to the crease at the base of his handsome, suspiciously youthful visage. I’ve just asked the 55-year-old about his appearance in Doctor Who on New Year’s Day 2021, when Whittaker’s Doctor greeted him with: “Have you had work done?”

The actor and musical theatre star is in Palm Springs, talking to me from his living room about his new album Centre Stage, as the California sun shines down on the pool outside. An eclectic collection of show tunes, the album features lovely ballads such as Beautiful City (from Godspell) and Heart of Stone (from the Henry VIII musical Six), alongside cri de coeur Don’t Rain on My Parade (from Funny Girl). It’s not slick, it’s heartfelt; the voice is still a marvel, and he often bursts into song as we talk.

Barrowman, who grew up in Glasgow before moving to Illinois aged eight after his father changed jobs (he worked in heavy machinery, his mother was a record store clerk), is great company. He tells stories about the time his friends bailed on a show he’d got them tickets to see, and he got a panicky call from the theatre saying that their empty seats were next to the Queen and Prince Philip. Or about the day he had a call of nature in the future King Charles III’s gardens at Highgrove – “When I got back to the house someone said, ‘We understand you relieved yourself in His Majesty’s garden’. I said, ‘Yes, but I did choose the organic garden’.”

Yet it’s been a trying year for Barrowman, who was forced to face the music when reports of him exposing himself to cast and crew on the sets of Doctor Who and Torchwood in 2008 re-emerged last May. He issued a statement then explaining that his “high-spirited behaviour… was only ever intended in good humour to entertain colleagues”.

“There are lots of things that people would have done many, many years ago that you wouldn’t do now,” he tells me. “Because times have changed, and times have changed for the better in that aspect… What you call ‘bawdy behaviour’ could be fun and silly and stupid. And you just might not do that nowadays.”

It was his former Doctor Who co-star Noel Clarke whose comments at a 2015 science-fiction convention sparked the furore. (The 46-year-old actor/director has since faced allegations himself of sexual harassment and bullying, which he denies.) Onstage, Clarke agreed with their former co-star Camille Coduri’s explanation that Barrowman “got away with it” because he is “adorable”, but also suggested it was because he is a gay man.

It sounds as if they have had words. “I’ve spoken to Noel since then,” Barrowman says. “He said things to me, and I’ve said things to him, and we are completely at peace with each other.”

Of course, Barrowman’s Captain Jack Harkness, whom he played between 2005-2010, remains one of the most memorable characters of the new Doctor Who era. The singer made the transfer from West End star of shows such as Anything Goes, Miss Saigon and Sunset Boulevard with exuberant ease. I wonder what he makes of Ncuti Gatwa playing the first gay Doctor (according to co-star Neil Patrick Harris). Has he spoken to Gatwa since he won the role? “I have not spoken to anyone,” he says. “I am quite happy whoever is playing the Doctor and whatever gender they may be. As long as they live the truth of who the Doctor is, I’m going to be supportive. But it’s about time we had a gay doctor or a trans doctor.”

This rather hints at something I want to ask him about. Captain Jack’s creator Russell T Davies liked the polysexual intergalactic adventurer Harkness so much that he built an entire spin-off series, Torchwood, around him. Surely with Davies returning to the helm of the show, Harkness is in line for a return…

“Do you think I’d tell you?” he teases. “Honestly, if I am asked to be involved, I will do it at the drop of a hat.” He turns the camera round to show me a Dalek staring at us from a corner of the dining room.

Does he think the BBC is nervous about casting him after what happened last year? “I have no idea. That’s entirely up to them. All I know is that on set, we had such a great time. All of us still talk to each other. So I can’t answer for them, you’d have to talk to them about that. But if I’m asked, I will go back.”

Has he felt in any way “cancelled” after what happened? “I don’t feel that way at all,” he says. “There’s an album happening. There are other things coming up. I’m signed with one of the big new management companies here in Los Angeles. I don’t pay attention really to all that stuff. I’ve just moved on. I wrote about what happened in my book years ago, in my autobiography, everything was there. And you know, it’s time to progress forward.”

Recently, though, Barrowman found himself drawn backwards, into the lawsuit brought against Kevin Spacey in America by Anthony Rapp. A New York court dismissed the sexual assault case, in which the House of Cards star was accused of inappropriately touching Rapp at his home in 1986 when the young actor was 14. Barrowman had been present, with Spacey’s lawyer saying that her client’s attention had been on the 19 year-old Barrowman, whom he had flirted with.

Barrowman tells me he has been advised not to talk about the case, but notes it was the only time the two met, despite Spacey’s years in London as artistic director of the Old Vic. “I wrote him a letter after I starred in [Patrick Hamilton’s 1929 thriller] Rope at Chichester. I said, ‘Remember me, we met in New York City.’ I said that he should do the show and I thought there was a perfect role for him. And he sent one back saying, ‘Let’s meet up and chat about it’. But things got in the way, and we never met up.”

It was while performing Rope at the Festival Theatre in 1993 that Barrowman met his future husband, architect Scott Gill. The two have now been together 28 years. They married in California in 2013. As we chat, the singer often calls out to his partner, “Scott, who wrote Fools Rush In (Where Angels Fear to Tread)?”

We address the hot potato of whether gay or trans roles should be played by someone with lived experience. It has just been revealed that Daniel Craig’s character in upcoming film Glass Onion is gay (Craig, who is married to actress Rachel Weisz, isn’t.) “I think it should be offered to gay men, gay women, trans men, trans women, if the role is that person... and then it should be opened up, if they don’t find the right person. However, I also do believe that we’re actors, and that one thing I don’t want to happen is that certain parts of the community are then restricted to only play those roles.” On Craig: “I haven’t seen it, so it’d be unfair for me to comment, because I do like him as an actor.”

Barrowman still has acting ambitions of his own – the album includes the title song of Man of La Mancha, which he describes as an audition – “I’ve always yearned to play the role of Don Quixote”. He’s returning to tour the UK in February, and has been keeping an eye on our political upheavals from afar – he still pays taxes here and votes, but for now, he says, “I’m gonna go for a dip in the pool”.

Centre Stage is released today via Westway Music