Con Culture: 'You Don't Have To Hide Anymore, Because It's So Out There'

When John Barrowman, the charismatic star of Doctor Who and Torchwood, says that he is, in fact, a Time Lord, there's a certain plausibility to it. After all, mischievous tinkering with his timeline may go some way to explaining his apparent wish-fulfilment powers.

Eight years old when his family relocated to Illinois from Glasgow, Scotland, that's when he first fell for the foppish charms of Jon Pertwee, who brought a certain caped insouciance to the Doctor's third incarnation. Wedged on the sofa between his brother Andrew and sister Carole on a Saturday night, Pertwee's debut story, Spearhead From Space, introduced the plastic-manipulating nemesis known as the Autons. Barrowman was terrified.

"After that first episode, my mum had to hide me in her coat walking past shop windows because I thought the dummies were going to come alive and kill me," he chuckles over the phone from the US ahead of his appearance at Australian comic convention Supanova.

The fact that he would one day join the Doctor in the TARDIS as the omni-flirtatious Captain Jack Harkness isn't really enough to prove this temporal disturbance theory. Eight-year-old's dreams do come true, occasionally. But when you then consider that, around the same age, his new friend Ross introduced Barrowman to superhero comics, and that then his adult self also would go on to star as the villainous Malcolm Merlyn in DC's Arrow and Legends Of Tomorrow, and that he'd co-write the character's backstory into an actual comic book alongside his sister Carole, his lucky streak begins to look, in his easily adopted original Scottish accent, a wee bit fishy.

"I'm not one of those people who talk about karma, but I've always just known that things would be ok," he muses. "As my mother says to me, 'You've got a wee bit of the gift, son.' Whether that's true or not, I don't know, but there are these feelings I get. For instance, when I get deja vu - some people, it freaks them out. For me, that means I'm on the right path and I get it all the time."

As we speak, Barrowman is standing in front of a cabinet festooned, much to the chagrin of his husband Scott Gill, with an expensive collection of vintage Star Wars figurines, a TARDIS and '70s lunchboxes adorned with Superman and the like. It also features a 15-inch version of himself as Captain Jack.

"I'm a six, 12 and a 15-inch and I prefer playing with the 15-inch," he cackles saucily. "People say to me, 'What are you doing?' and I say, 'I'm playing with myself'."

You see, Barrowman doesn't show up to Australian comic convention Supanova as a savvy businessman cashing in on obsessive fans; he is an obsessive fan. "I lost my mind when I met George Lucas and Carrie Fisher at conventions, and I love to share that insanity with my fans," he says. "So when I do the cons, I'm a geek coming to celebrate geekdom with everybody, walking around, seeing what's available to buy."

Barrowman particularly loves encountering young kids dressed as their dream roles, with a particularly cute YouTube video showing a four-year-old Darth Vader taking him down with the dark side of the force. "There's a great joy that fills a convention centre with all the like-minded people celebrating their quirkiness. They are thrilled to be accepted and to talk about their favourites."

Back in the day, Barrowman and his best mate would hide in Ross's basement to play with their action figures in peace, "because other boys would bully us if they saw us playing with, quote-unquote, dolls. But now you don't have to hide anymore, because it's so out there."

It may amuse Chris Hemsworth to hear that the only action figure Barrowman didn't want to touch was Thor, "because Thor was actually the same head mould and hair that they used for the Cheryl Ladd doll for Charlie's Angels, and I didn't want to be her."

Whether that was Ladd-specific or about being a girl, this scribe didn't ascertain, but, if the latter, Barrowman isn't fazed these days. Renowned for attending convention panels in cosplay, he hints he'll be in a dress for Supanova when he returns to Australia three months after his sell-out showtunes concert at Melbourne's Hamer Hall during Midsumma Festival.

It was his first musical gig in Australia and the nerves were high, but he needn't have worried. The 2,400-plus-seater venue sold out quick smart and there's already talk of a bigger return season. For those that caught the show, and Barrowman's glittering suit changes, it was a gloriously fun night, with the crowd one of the most boisterous this writer has ever seen outside of a rock gig.

"Spaaarkles," Barrowman squeals in razzle-dazzle form when the show's standard-setting glitter fart opening monologue is recalled. "That, right away, sets the tone. It meant that people could let their hair down. The kind of stuff I hate is when you go see a show and someone says, 'The next song I'm going to sing...' Who gives a shit, really? Put something behind it that connects the song to you and to the audience."

Performing in musicals for a good 15 years or so before shooting to international stardom in Doctor Who, Barrowman says he recognises a similar fervour in showtune fans as he does in superhero geeks, observing that both of these popular art forms share common DNA with one of the highest in the Western literary canon.

"The theory of a musical is that when someone can't express themselves through speaking anymore, they start to sing. And in superhero movies, when they want to help, their powers are analogies for life, basically, just like the singing in musicals. They are both heightened reality, taking you to another level, and if you go way, way back that's exactly what Shakespeare was doing."

He's well aware some will find this a long bow to draw. "Some people will disagree with me and be angry at me [for] saying this, but I don't give shit. Doing a musical and doing this type of genre television is exactly like doing Shakespeare, and I will defy anybody to prove me wrong."