Billie Piper, perhaps the most enduringly popular of the Doctor's "companions" on the long-running 'Doctor Who' TV series, had to pull out of a performance of the play Great Britain at London's National Theatre last week after a cyclist traveling at high speed collided with the car she was driving.
Her understudy, Jo Dockery, sister of Downton Abbey's Michele Dockery, stepped into the role less than 15 minutes before curtain time. (Dockery is a regular cast member as well, normally playing three small roles.) Piper returned to the stage the next evening.
Billie Piper's stage credits also include The Effect (at the National), Treats and Reasons to be Pretty. Television roles besides Doctor Who include Penny Dreadful, True Love and Secret Diary of a Call Girl.
Dockery has appeared in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Timon of Athens, Antigone and Backbeat.
In Richard Bean's satire Great Britain, about phone hacking and the press, Piper plays a ruthless, steely Rebekah Brooks-like news editor provocatively named Paige Britain who "discovers phone hacking and uses it to 'destroy other people's lives. On your behalf. Because you want to read about other people's lives."
The company rehearsed the extremely topical play in total secrecy and debuted it just a week after the much-publicized real-life phone-hacking trial ended with Andy Coulson found guilty and Brooks found innocent.
Police questioned Piper after the collision, which left the actress temporarily traumatized and the teenage cyclist with a severe shoulder injury. Piper was driving under five miles an hour as she attempted a U-turn on a steep road behind King's Cross station on her way to the theater. Scotland Yard's investigation into the accident is continuing.
Great Britain runs at the National until August 23, then transfers to the Theatre Royal Haymarket beginning September 10.
