Varada Sethu made such a big impression in her first Doctor Who outing that showrunner Russell T Davies had to bring her back as a new companion – continuity be damned…
Add Doctor Who to your watchlist When Varada Sethu first found out she might be Doctor Who’s newest companion she had, perhaps fittingly, just come crashing back to earth. Not long returned from an extended five-month sabbatical of travel around South America, the 32-year-old landed in London in October 2023 in the midst of an industry-wide actors’ strike that meant a planned job had very suddenly fallen through. “I was depressed, had the holiday blues and just thought, ‘I guess I’m never working again,’” she says, with a rueful laugh. That was when her agent called to let her know that the team at the newly Ncuti Gatwa-powered BBC institution were wondering whether she may be interested in a long-term stint in the Tardis for the show’s forthcoming second season (or, in old money, 15th series). Her initial response was, well, confusion. Having already filmed a self-contained guest role for the show’s most recent series – as Mundy Flynn, the emotional heart and overly twitchy trigger finger of Steven Moffat’s impossibly tense, ticking-clock episode Boom – Sethu wondered whether the producers had made a mistake. “I said, ‘But I’ve been in it already. They know that, right?’” she recalls. After being reassured that, yes, they were aware, and that showrunner Russell T Davies had already planned to “write some magic to make it work” (more on this later), Sethu was whisked into a meeting and told the job – playing a new and different character – was hers if she wanted it. In a few days her blurted, instant “Yes!” was formalised, scripts started to arrive and she was bundled into a read-through. Two weeks later, and barely a month after she’d returned to the UK, she was on set with Gatwa, in costume as the mysterious Belinda Chandra, and on the breathless precipice of taking on what is still among the most coveted, high-profile and high-pressure co-starring roles on British television. Let’s just say that she didn’t have to work too hard to channel the necessary awestruck bewilderment and terror. “The turnaround was like whiplash,” she admits, detailing an intense shooting schedule that ran from November to last May. “I was dropped into [filming] within two weeks of being told I had it. So a lot of the confusion and stress that [Belinda is] going through is the confusion and stress that I was going through.” When we meet, in a quiet corner of a south-east London café, Sethu gives the impression of someone just about coping with the breathless nature of that introductory whirlwind. Diminutive, glossy-haired and stylishly decked out in a chunky, multicoloured tank top, she’s acclimatising to a world of autograph-hunting strangers (“It feels like it’s only the Whovians that can spot me at the moment”) and savouring these last moments before the public get to make their own judgements about the eight new episodes. “I’m really excited about it because the show has been this intangible, beautiful thing in my head,” she says, setting down a matcha latte. “But the moment it comes out, I’ll have to deal with people’s opinions.” In this respect, Sethu can draw on her experience of working on Andor – Disney+’s critically acclaimed, dark-as-carbonite Star Wars spin-off that featured her breakthrough role as flinty rebel fighter Cinta Kaz (the second and final season launches on 22 April). In other ways, though, this former veterinary trainee took a route to stardom that, in contrast with her rapid entry into the Whoniverse, has been a lot more circuitous and surprising. Born in Kerala, India, Sethu has a twin sister and was raised in Benton, near Newcastle, by parents who were both doctors. Though the family moved when she was six, she still remembers the culture shock of swapping coastal India for the banks of the Tyne. “India was a sun-soaked world of tropical plants and fruit, family, love and warmth, and then we came to the UK,” she says, smiling. “And it was just the four of us. And my parents were more stressed because they didn’t have my grandparents [to look after us].” She laughs. “Obviously, I’m very happy that they came here, but there was a whole assimilation process. There were definitely two versions of myself, [including] the Indian side that I was sadly very keen to tuck away and hide. I wouldn’t have taken curry in for lunch because there would have been comments. There would have been jokes that I would have to then deal with.” Performing was very much in her blood – her dad had been a singer in his youth and her mother still does classical Indian dance. But beyond school plays, she got an unusual introduction to the arts when she entered and won Miss Newcastle in 2010, at the age of 18. I wonder, which version of Varada was that? “It was the one that wanted to p*** off my mum,” she says, cackling. She says she was scouted in a shopping centre and signed up in defiance of her mother’s wishes. Winning the contest, she notes with some embarrassment, “was just a fluke. The pageant world doesn’t align with my values. But it did give me the confidence to throw myself into acting.” A stint in the National Youth Theatre and a role in gritty thriller Sket – made while she was at the start of a five-year veterinary degree in Bristol – followed. However, with her parents believing that performing was a hobby rather than a secure vocation, it took a tearful heart-to-heart with her dad to finally change her path. “I was really unhappy,” she explains. “And so I said, ‘This doesn’t feel like my calling. My calling is acting.’” After downshifting to a three-year physiology course (“I still had to do a science degree [because] they’re still Indian,” she jokes), she re-entered the world of acting and made up for lost time with roles in Sky action series Strike Back and high-concept BBC cop drama Hard Sun. Next came Andor, then the Doctor Who guest turn that paved the way for Belinda’s forthcoming whirl in the blue box. Has screenwriter Davies told her what it was about her performance last year that had him wanting to bring her back, continuity be damned? “He said they were in the edit for Boom, kept seeing me and Ncuti on screen and thinking, ‘God, those two have such great chemistry,’” she recalls. “We really are equals in the way that we interact with each other. Russell wanted someone who can push back and not be in awe of this all-powerful being.” Belinda is, Sethu notes, “the main character of her own story”. She continues: “This mad man has just come crashing into her life, and now she can’t go home to her main plot.” This sense of a Doctor and companion on equal footing – borne out by the fact that, in contrast to 20-year-old outgoing series regular Millie Gibson and the likes of Billie Piper and Karen Gillan, Gatwa and Sethu are exactly the same age – carried over into the pair’s off-camera relationship. They would retreat to Gatwa’s trailer for lunch (“I went through a phase of smashing through every single Wagamama option,” she says), where Gatwa would give Sethu – a self-confessed “Who agnostic” – vital notes on how to approach the material. “Everything is so ridiculous and mad [in Doctor Who] that if I were to actually play it how I, as a human, would, I’d be having a mental breakdown all the time,” she says. “You have to find the joy, the humour, and you have to push it. Ncuti was like, ‘Lean into it. That’s where the fun comes.’” Vibrant, anarchic playfulness is, in Sethu’s estimation, a signature of this year’s “bright and energetic” new episodes. She’s reluctant to choose a favourite, but Lux – the 1950s-set second episode – is a highlight. “I loved that 50s dress and I actually stole the shoes,” she says. Elsewhere, the reveal that will link Mundy and Belinda (presumably one of those series-spanning mysteries that Who wheels out so well) sounds typically out there. “I think I honestly didn’t have time to absorb it,” she admits, treading carefully. “It was just like, ‘Cool. That’s that.’” However, for all the technicolor, traditionalist-rattling cheek that awaits (this is, after all, a series that includes a cameo from Rylan in an episode called The Interstellar Song Contest), the significance of a Tardis team comprised solely of people of colour – a Doctor Who first – was not lost on Sethu or Gatwa. “Ncuti was like, ‘Look at us. We get to be in the Tardis. We’re going to p*** off so many people,’” she says, laughing. More pointedly, at a time when representative casting in sci-fi and fantasy can still prompt toxicity online, she has been encouraged by the fans’ response to her joining the show. “There’s been a couple of Doctor Woke [references] or whatever, but I just think we’re doing the right thing if we’re getting comments like that,” she says. “Woke just means inclusive, progressive, and that you care about people. And, as far as I know, the core of Doctor Who is kindness, love and doing the right thing.” The future of the show is the subject of much speculation and mischief-making conjecture at the moment, with the BBC and US partner Disney reporting that they are yet to make a final decision on new episodes (beyond forthcoming Whoniverse spin-off series The War between the Land and the Sea). But would she be keen for another trip, if it’s confirmed? “Mm-hm,” she says, with a nod, perhaps keen not to give too much away. And in any case, the adventuring that’s currently occupying this fluent Spanish speaker’s thoughts has nothing to do with journeys through space and time. “Travelling is my favourite thing to do,” she says. “And I’m not done with Central and South America yet. It’s always called me.” She will be hoping that, this time at least, she doesn’t return to a film and TV industry in effective shutdown. Belinda and the Doctor’s entwined fates may currently be unknown. But whatever happens now, and after a somewhat delayed start to her career, Varada Sethu is very much going places.
Doctor Who's Varada Sethu: 'Belinda is main character of her own story – not in awe of the Doctor'
"As far as I know, the core of Doctor Who is kindness, love and doing the right thing."
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. When Varada Sethu first found out she might be Doctor Who’s newest companion she had, perhaps fittingly, just come crashing back to earth. Not long returned from an extended five-month sabbatical of travel around South America, the 32-year-old landed in London in October 2023 in the midst of an industry-wide actors’ strike that meant a planned job had very suddenly fallen through. “I was depressed, had the holiday blues and just thought, ‘I guess I’m never working again,’” she says, with a rueful laugh. That was when her agent called to let her know that the team at the newly Ncuti Gatwa-powered BBC institution were wondering whether she may be interested in a long-term stint in the Tardis for the show’s forthcoming second season (or, in old money, 15th season). Her initial response was, well, confusion. Having already filmed a self-contained guest role for the show’s most recent series – as Mundy Flynn, the emotional heart and overly twitchy trigger finger of Steven Moffat’s impossibly tense, ticking-clock episode Boom – Sethu wondered whether the producers had made a mistake. “I said, ‘But I’ve been in it already. They know that, right?’” she recalls. After being reassured that, yes, they were aware, and that showrunner Russell T Davies had already planned to “write some magic to make it work” (more on this later), Sethu was whisked into a meeting and told the job – playing a new and different character – was hers if she wanted it. In a few days her blurted, instant “Yes!” was formalised, scripts started to arrive and she was bundled into a read-through. Two weeks later, and barely a month after she’d returned to the UK, she was on set with Gatwa, in costume as the mysterious Belinda Chandra, and on the breathless precipice of taking on what is still among the most coveted, high-profile and high-pressure co-starring roles on British television. Let’s just say that she didn’t have to work too hard to channel the necessary awestruck bewilderment and terror. “The turnaround was like whiplash,” she admits, detailing an intense shooting schedule that ran from November to last May. “I was dropped into [filming] within two weeks of being told I had it. So a lot of the confusion and stress that [Belinda is] going through is the confusion and stress that I was going through.” When we meet, in a quiet corner of a south-east London café, Sethu gives the impression of someone just about coping with the breathless nature of that introductory whirlwind. Diminutive, glossy-haired and stylishly decked out in a chunky, multicoloured tank top, she’s acclimatising to a world of autograph-hunting strangers (“It feels like it’s only the Whovians that can spot me at the moment”) and savouring these last moments before the public get to make their own judgements about the eight new episodes. “I’m really excited about it because the show has been this intangible, beautiful thing in my head,” she says, setting down a matcha latte. “But the moment it comes out, I’ll have to deal with people’s opinions.” In this respect, Sethu can draw on her experience of working on Andor – Disney Plus’s critically acclaimed, dark-as-carbonite Star Wars spin-off that featured her breakthrough role as flinty rebel fighter Cinta Kaz (the second and final season launches on 22nd April). In other ways, though, this former veterinary trainee took a route to stardom that, in contrast with her rapid entry into the Whoniverse, has been a lot more circuitous and surprising. Born in Kerala, India, Sethu has a twin sister and was raised in Benton, near Newcastle, by parents who were both doctors. Though the family moved when she was six, she still remembers the culture shock of swapping coastal India for the banks of the Tyne. “India was a sun-soaked world of tropical plants and fruit, family, love and warmth, and then we came to the UK,” she says, smiling. “And it was just the four of us. And my parents were more stressed because they didn’t have my grandparents [to look after us].” She laughs. “Obviously, I’m very happy that they came here, but there was a whole assimilation process. There were definitely two versions of myself, [including] the Indian side that I was sadly very keen to tuck away and hide. I wouldn’t have taken curry in for lunch because there would have been comments. There would have been jokes that I would have to then deal with.” Performing was very much in her blood – her dad had been a singer in his youth and her mother still does classical Indian dance. But beyond school plays, she got an unusual introduction to the arts when she entered and won Miss Newcastle in 2010, at the age of 18. I wonder, which version of Varada was that? “It was the one that wanted to p*** off my mum,” she says, cackling. She says she was scouted in a shopping centre and signed up in defiance of her mother’s wishes. Winning the contest, she notes with some embarrassment, “was just a fluke. The pageant world doesn’t align with my values. But it did give me the confidence to throw myself into acting.” A stint in the National Youth Theatre and a role in gritty thriller Sket – made while she was at the start of a five-year veterinary degree in Bristol – followed. However, with her parents believing that performing was a hobby rather than a secure vocation, it took a tearful heart-to-heart with her dad to finally change her path. “I was really unhappy,” she explains. “And so I said, ‘This doesn’t feel like my calling. My calling is acting.’” After downshifting to a three-year physiology course (“I still had to do a science degree [because] they’re still Indian,” she jokes), she re-entered the world of acting and made up for lost time with roles in Sky action series Strike Back and high-concept BBC cop drama Hard Sun. Next came Andor, then the Doctor Who guest turn that paved the way for Belinda’s forthcoming whirl in the blue box. Has screenwriter Davies told her what it was about her performance last year that had him wanting to bring her back, continuity be damned? “He said they were in the edit for Boom, kept seeing me and Ncuti on screen and thinking, ‘God, those two have such great chemistry,’” she recalls. “We really are equals in the way that we interact with each other. Russell wanted someone who can push back and not be in awe of this all-powerful being.” Belinda is, Sethu notes, “the main character of her own story”. She continues: “This mad man has just come crashing into her life, and now she can’t go home to her main plot.” This sense of a Doctor and companion on equal footing – borne out by the fact that, in contrast to 20-year-old outgoing series regular Millie Gibson and the likes of Billie Piper and Karen Gillan, Gatwa and Sethu are exactly the same age – carried over into the pair’s off-camera relationship. They would retreat to Gatwa’s trailer for lunch (“I went through a phase of smashing through every single Wagamama option,” she says), where Gatwa would give Sethu – a self-confessed “Who agnostic” – vital notes on how to approach the material. “Everything is so ridiculous and mad [in Doctor Who] that if I were to actually play it how I, as a human, would, I’d be having a mental breakdown all the time,” she says. “You have to find the joy, the humour, and you have to push it. Ncuti was like, ‘Lean into it. That’s where the fun comes.’” Vibrant, anarchic playfulness is, in Sethu’s estimation, a signature of this year’s “bright and energetic” new episodes. She’s reluctant to choose a favourite, but Lux – the 1950s-set second episode – is a highlight. “I loved that '50s dress and I actually stole the shoes,” she says. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2025/03/doctor-who-season-15-6badd4a.jpg" width="768" height="512" alt="Ncuti Gatwa and Varada Sethu in a dramatic scene from Doctor Who, dressed in elegant vintage-style outfits. Gatwa, wearing a sharp blue suit with a pink bow tie, looks tense and alert, while Sethu, in a flowing yellow dress, holds onto his arm with concern. The setting appears to be a grand, old-fashioned theater with rich red seating and Art Deco-inspired decor." title="Ncuti Gatwa and Varada Sethu in a dramatic scene from Doctor Who" /> Elsewhere, the reveal that will link Mundy and Belinda (presumably one of those series-spanning mysteries that Who wheels out so well) sounds typically out there. “I think I honestly didn’t have time to absorb it,” she admits, treading carefully. “It was just like, ‘Cool. That’s that.’” However, for all the technicolor, traditionalist-rattling cheek that awaits (this is, after all, a series that includes a cameo from Rylan in an episode called The Interstellar Song Contest), the significance of a TARDIS team comprised solely of people of colour – a Doctor Who first – was not lost on Sethu or Gatwa. “Ncuti was like, ‘Look at us. We get to be in the Tardis. We’re going to p*** off so many people,’” she says, laughing. More pointedly, at a time when representative casting in sci-fi and fantasy can still prompt toxicity online, she has been encouraged by the fans’ response to her joining the show. “There’s been a couple of Doctor Woke [references] or whatever, but I just think we’re doing the right thing if we’re getting comments like that,” she says. “Woke just means inclusive, progressive, and that you care about people. And, as far as I know, the core of Doctor Who is kindness, love and doing the right thing.” The future of the show is the subject of much speculation and mischief-making conjecture at the moment, with the BBC and US partner Disney reporting that they are yet to make a final decision on new episodes (beyond forthcoming Whoniverse spin-off series The War between the Land and the Sea). But would she be keen for another trip, if it’s confirmed? “Mm-hm,” she says, with a nod, perhaps keen not to give too much away. And in any case, the adventuring that’s currently occupying this fluent Spanish speaker’s thoughts has nothing to do with journeys through space and time. “Travelling is my favourite thing to do,” she says. “And I’m not done with Central and South America yet. It’s always called me.” She will be hoping that, this time at least, she doesn’t return to a film and TV industry in effective shutdown. Belinda and the Doctor’s entwined fates may currently be unknown. But whatever happens now, and after a somewhat delayed start to her career, Varada Sethu is very much going places. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Doctor Who returns to BBC One and iPlayer on Saturday 12th April 2025. Dive into our Doctor Who story guide: reviews of every episode since 1963, plus cast & crew listings, production trivia, and exclusive material from the Radio Times archive. Check out more of our Sci-Fi coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. 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As he prepares for his Doctor Who debut, Ncuti Gatwa tells Jimi Famurewa about self-doubt, swearing and standing on the precipice of the Whoniverse
This article was published in RT in December 2023 and is part of our digital Doctor Who anniversary bookazine — click here to download it for free. Ncuti Gatwa’s timelines are a little scrambled. When we meet, he’s yet to make his first official appearance in Doctor Who. But his life as the 15th incarnation of the Doctor feels confusingly – or, perhaps, appropriately, given the nature of the show – like both a thing of the recent past and the yet-to-come future. “I’ve been waiting for so long!” he says. “I got cast so long ago and then started filming so long after that, that it feels like this thing that’s never going to come.” He laughs. “I don’t think I’m fully taking in what I’m on the precipice of.” If he means the enormity of what lies ahead, then he’s not wrong. From the moment in May 2022 when Gatwa was announced as the long-term successor to Jodie Whittaker’s 13th Doctor (receiving the Tardis keys only after the surprise, three-episode tenure of David Tennant’s 14th Doctor), his debut became one of the most anticipated British TV moments of the decade. This, after all, will be the first time in Doctor Who’s 60-year history that the series’ main character has been played by a black man and an openly queer person; it’s the dawn of Russell T Davies’s splashy return as showrunner of the revived series; and it’s the first batch of episodes to follow the significant budget boost initiated by the BBC’s global distribution partnership with Disney. On a personal note – as a lapsed, once-obsessive fan of the show since the days of Christopher Eccleston and flatulent Slitheen – I feel that Gatwa’s casting is the perfect, zeitgeist-seizing move; the youthful, risky counterpoint to the nostalgic fan-service of Tennant’s unexpected return. So there’s a fair bit of pressure and expectation. Did he feel the weight of it? “I was questioning every line,” he admits, with a gleaming smile, sharply dressed and nestled at one end of a leather sofa in a tastefully appointed London hotel. The 31-year-old’s voice is a sonorous Scots burr, marked by a childhood in Edinburgh and Dunfermline, and often accented by expressive hand movements. “It was the weight of the role – the legacy. And I don’t know if I should say this because I don’t want to let doubt in. But I thought, ‘I can’t fail at this. I cannot blow it.’ And so everyone was trying to calm me down, saying, ‘Ncuti, you’re doing fine,’ while I was all, ‘No, no! We have to reshoot the whole day!’ ” But if there was justified nervousness attending the early scenes that Gatwa shot in Cardiff last December, then it was counterbalanced by a simple fact: he always felt he had an innate understanding of who the Doctor was. “It’s all in me – it’s good casting,” he says, hooting with laughter again. “Or I hope so. In the week of watching Doctor Who before my audition, I thought, ‘I get it. You’re always on your own, you’re always wanting an adventure. You’ve always surrounded yourself with people. You don’t really fit in anywhere but you’re able to get on with everyone.’ It was just… I get what’s going on with you, Doctor. I see it!” He’s not wrong – while Gatwa’s casting has been hailed as bold and radical, there’s an overlap in his personal story, and a tangible Doctorishness about his character, that almost makes him the obvious choice. He was born in Rwanda, before his family moved as refugees to Scotland, so his outward effervescence and warp-speed mind – qualities that brought him to attention as Eric in the Netflix hit Sex Education – belie a lifetime of the sort of watchful outsiderdom that a rootless Time Lord might sympathise with. “When I got the [scripts] through for the audition, the words just started flying out of me,” he says. “It almost felt like it was written for me. The way the character’s mind works and the way it chops and changes. The way he’s got seven billion thoughts in his head at one time and is always constantly thinking to the future. I just thought, ‘That’s how I am.’ ” Gatwa gave his audition with the livewire freedom of a man who thought he had no chance of getting it. And then, he barely gave it a thought – until he was standing outside a Tottenham barber shop with his phone to his ear, learning he’d won one of the most coveted roles on the planet. Was there any hesitation about taking on such an all-consuming, life-altering project? “Oh, absolutely,” he says. “I told my agent I needed a week. There was some apprehension. But it was also a no-brainer. As an actor, the role was just too juicy to turn down. It was too full of everything. The humour, the fun, the emotion, the darkness of it. It was just like a juicy, juicy steak to cut into.” It seems fair to assume part of this reticence may have also related to a viewing public that hasn’t always been welcoming of representative casting (see past negative backlash to Freema Agyeman’s role as companion Martha Jones, or Jo Martin’s turn as the Fugitive Doctor in 2020). But, in this, Gatwa was mostly heartened by the conversation following his unveiling. “I was a little bit braced for impact and then was very pleasantly surprised because it was the antithesis [of what I was expecting],” he says. “But then, also, what’s scary is that we all live in [social media] bubbles. “I remember scrolling on Twitter and being like, ‘Oh my gosh. I’m so loved.’ And then I clicked on one tweet that wasn’t as positive. And then that opened up an entire world of the opposite feeling. ‘Oh no. There they are.’ Seeing the anagrams of my name [made into a racial slur] was just lovely.” He gives me a rueful bit of side-eye. “But it was interesting. As I say, I live in a very leftist, liberal bubble. And in fact, there’s a really great episode coming up next year where we lean into that.” So will the Doctor’s race be something that they directly address? “Yes, definitely,” he says. “It would be stupid if we didn’t. The Doctor has always walked into unknown situations and taken charge with authority. Historically, there’s only really one demographic of people that are able to do that – and it’s certainly not a woman, and it’s certainly not someone black. Thank God, things are changing.” This change is all in keeping with Davies and the production team’s desire to, as Gatwa puts it – with pointed air quotes – “push the show forward”. However, it was an aspect of the new episodes that it took him a while to get fully on board with. “Going into initial production meetings I was keen to, I guess, keep up the traditionalism of the show,” he says. “I didn’t want to be seen as too wild a choice. So it’s been a process of the show encouraging me to embrace myself.” And, presumably, the same goes for the BBC embracing the fact that, off camera, this incarnation of the Doctor will (as Gatwa did in June) pose nude for a photo shoot in British Vogue. Did he get word of any producers spluttering out their tea upon seeing those photographs? “I did think, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve got my kit off so I’m probably going to get a couple of phone calls about this,’ ” he laughs. “But, no, they’ve been very encouraging. “The only time I’ve ever gotten in trouble for anything was when I swore [while wearing] a Doctor Who costume. I got called into Russell’s office. Woo! And he let me know that that’s not acceptable. He said, ‘Do what you want when you’re out of costume, but when you’re in costume, do not let us catch you swearing.’ I was like, fair enough. And I guess that was a lesson. For the last four years I’ve been co-leading an X-rated show, and so I’m on a constant journey of learning what it is to be a PG role model and the lead of a family show.” This is a mark of the evolution that Gatwa has had during his year making Doctor Who, without any member of the public having more than a glimpse of his take on the role. His first series won’t air until next year, but he’s already a couple of months into filming for a second run due in 2025. “It feels so much fun now,” he says. “I’ve relaxed and [the Doctor] seems to have sunk down a little bit deeper, from my chest into my gut.” Though he still says he’ll be “far away from a TV” when his first episode airs on Christmas Day. And what’s next? Is he in Doctor Who for the long haul? Or does the lure of Hollywood – and more roles like his brief but memorable turn in Barbie – tempt him? “No idea, no plan,” he says, quickly. “I just know that I’m loving it and my love for it is growing.” If he does want counsel on how long to stay in the role then he could always consult the “Whoniverse” – a group chat of former Doctors recently started by David Tennant. “They all gave me amazing individual pieces of advice,” he says. “I spoke to David, I spoke to Matt [Smith], I spoke to Peter [Capaldi]. I think I felt a particular affinity to Jodie [Whittaker] just because of the shared struggle, as in the Doctor’s never been seen like this before, and what that means for yaysayers, naysayers. How do you navigate that? She was so generous. With her story and her experience of it all. “They’re all very present parents,” he says, with a smile. And proud ones, too, I imagine. Because, though he may have had to bide his time for his on-screen bow, to spend time with him is to be in the presence of someone who is every inch the Doctor. For both him and the audience at home, this feels like a Christmas present very much worth the wait.
Billericay and Barry’s lovebirds are taking flight one last time. Mathew Horne and Joanna Page bid them farewell
Add Gavin & Stacey: the Finale to your watchlist It has been 17 years since Gavin & Stacey, the zeitgeist-capturing, Anglo-Cymraeg tale of love, friendship and family dysfunction first hit our screens. Now Gavin, Stacey and the West/Shipman clans are back, with creators, writers and stars James Corden and Ruth Jones tying a climactic, festive bow on their long-running saga. If you’re among the millions to have watched every episode, then you will have also seen the grand sum of my filmography as a television actor. In the sixth episode of the second series, there is a typically silly B-plot scene involving Pam Shipman (Alison Steadman) leading local opposition to a new phone mast. Thanks to a long story (related to a former career as a men’s magazine journalist), I can be seen as an extra, in an oddly prominent role as one of the two phone company operatives who trudge through Pam’s glowering crowd of protestors in order to hammer a sign into the ground. It is, over and above my subsequent career as a regular food critic on shows like MasterChef, the thing I still get the most excited messages about. And the fact that I’m a very small part of one of the modern era’s most beloved British sitcoms is a completely ridiculous, frequently wheeled-out claim to fame. Following 2019’s yuletide reunion special, hotly anticipated answers relating to rumoured funerals, Uncle Bryn and Jason’s infamous fishing trip, and Smithy’s response to Nessa’s cliffhanger marriage proposal are mere days away. So, naturally, the first thing I want to ask Mat Horne and Joanna Page – both returning as the titular star-crossed lovers – is why I didn’t get the call to reprise my pivotal role. “Oh no, is this going to be a really bitter piece now?” says Horne, with a chuckle. “It was nothing to do with your performance, Jimi. There was actually a big chat about it. But we just wanted to leave the audience with something that wasn’t concluded.” In all seriousness, Jones and Corden’s apparent willingness to leave their audience dangling has been the central conundrum of the past five years. From the moment the credits rolled on the 2019 Christmas Day special (watched by 18.5 million households), the nation was desperate to know what came next – including the cast. “After the last special I felt like a fan,” says Page. “I was like, ‘What happened? You can’t! What does Smithy say?’ But I wouldn’t put it past [Corden and Jones] to just leave it like that.” Clarity came, in the end, with a round of exploratory phone calls in January 2024. “James called me out of the blue and asked if I was aware of the work of someone called Ruth Jones,” notes Horne, with a smile. Page, meanwhile, saw Corden’s name flash up on her phone and thought, instantly, “Oh my God, it’s actually happening!” Predictably, everyone was keen to get the band back together for one last ride in Barry and Billericay. Which is not to say that any of them was trusted with so much as a plot hint as the months dragged on and production schedules were thrashed out. “They didn’t tell us anything that happened in the script,” confirms Horne. “But I had absolute trust.” A few weeks before the July read-through, this faith was finally rewarded with an email that Page, fittingly, received in just about the most Gavin & Stacey location imaginable. “I’d just done a job and had stopped at a services to get a burger on my way home,” she explains. “I looked down at my phone and it said, ‘Gavin & Stacey: read-through script.’” Desperate to find out the fate of the characters – yet also conscious of not getting a parking ticket – Page spent the next few hours driving from one service station to the next, learning the fates of Gav, Stacey, Nessa, Smithy and the gang. The finale is, she says, “classic Gavin & Stacey”. Horne goes further. “They have written the perfect ending,” he says. Britain will have to wait until Christmas Day to open this present and find out what that ending is, however, as the cast have done their best to keep it under wraps. And that wasn’t always easy, as hordes of fans and photographers swarmed around filming locations in and around Barry Island. For Page, some of that rabid interest was within her own family (she has four children with her husband, fellow actor James Thornton). Midway through filming, having not shared any plot spoilers with her 11-year-old daughter, Eva, the actor cleared everyone out of her bedroom so she could practise her lines. “And then I looked underneath the bed and saw that she’d hidden an iPad under there to record everything,” she says, with a hoot. “Even in my own house I had to be careful what I said! The thought of being the person who cocks up and reveals something is absolutely terrifying.” An even bigger battle loomed in stepping back into roles these actors first played almost 20 years ago. “Just before we started, I did say to my mum, ‘How am I going to play Stacey? I’m 47 now, I’ve got four kids and I don’t look the same as I used to look. So how can I still be that really excitable, bubbly girl?’” Page says. It was left to her mum to remind her that Stacey Shipman – now a 40-something mother of three and in a 14-year marriage – has changed, too. “She’s grown in the way that I’ve grown,” she says. “So I didn’t overthink it and I just went and had a laugh.” Despite being “an emotional wreck” by the time she filmed her last scenes, she also appreciated how things had changed. “I wasn’t having to do the school run, I wasn’t cooking endlessly, people were bringing me cups of tea,” she says. “It was like a holiday.” For Horne, after years of feeling somewhat typecast as the perennially befuddled straight man, filming the finale coincided with a new sense of gratitude. “There are worse things to be known for as an actor than Gavin Shipman,” says the 46-year-old. “The acceptance of that was really freeing.” What’s more, he notes that changes in his life since the last special – he has a new son with his wife, set designer Celina Bassili – have brought him a closer affinity with his character. “Gavin has continually inspired me over the past 17 years – maybe he was the one that said I should be a dad, too.” This rich sense of the passage of time is sure to be a key part of the finale’s potent cocktail. It’s also why, though Horne admires the fact Corden and Jones are “finishing on their own terms”, Page would welcome the possibility of a few more sporadic, Royle Family-style specials. “I would love to come back every year,” she says. “But I genuinely don’t think there will ever be any more and I can really see why.” The truth of whether this will truly be the end is unknown. All we know for sure is that Christmas Day’s episode is going to bring tears, surprises, the absence of a visibly uncomfortable phone company employee and, if our families are anything like Page’s, some familiar joyful chaos. “We’ll try to watch the special, but I’ll have a sherry or a wine and be shouting at everyone to be quiet, and then I’ll start crying because it’s the last one. It probably will be quite a Gavin & Stacey Christmas,” she says. Billericay and Barry’s fictional lovebirds are about to fade from view. But you get the sense that they’ve left an indelible mark on the actors that brought them to life, and the viewers that got to savour every cracking moment.
Is this really the end for Gavin & Stacey? "I would love to come back every year"
"But I genuinely don't think there will ever be any more and I can really see why."
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. It has been 17 years since Gavin & Stacey, the zeitgeist-capturing, Anglo-Cymraeg tale of love, friendship and family dysfunction first hit our screens. Now Gavin, Stacey and the West/Shipman clans are back, with creators, writers and stars James Corden and Ruth Jones tying a climactic, festive bow on their long-running saga. If you’re among the millions to have watched every episode, then you will have also seen the grand sum of my filmography as a television actor. In the sixth episode of the second series, there is a typically silly B-plot scene involving Pam Shipman (Alison Steadman) leading local opposition to a new phone mast. Thanks to a long story (related to a former career as a men’s magazine journalist), I can be seen as an extra, in an oddly prominent role as one of the two phone company operatives who trudge through Pam’s glowering crowd of protestors in order to hammer a sign into the ground. It is, over and above my subsequent career as a regular food critic on shows like MasterChef, the thing I still get the most excited messages about. And the fact that I’m a very small part of one of the modern era’s most beloved British sitcoms is a completely ridiculous, frequently wheeled-out claim to fame. Following 2019’s Yuletide reunion special, hotly anticipated answers relating to rumoured funerals, Uncle Bryn and Jason’s infamous fishing trip, and Smithy’s response to Nessa’s cliffhanger marriage proposal are mere days away. So, naturally, the first thing I want to ask Mat Horne and Joanna Page – both returning as the titular star-crossed lovers – is why I didn’t get the call to reprise my pivotal role. “Oh no, is this going to be a really bitter piece now?” says Horne, with a chuckle. “It was nothing to do with your performance, Jimi. There was actually a big chat about it. But we just wanted to leave the audience with something that wasn’t concluded.” In all seriousness, Jones and Corden’s apparent willingness to leave their audience dangling has been the central conundrum of the past five years. From the moment the credits rolled on the 2019 Christmas Day special (watched by 18.5 million households), the nation was desperate to know what came next – including the cast. “After the last special I felt like a fan,” says Page. “I was like, ‘What happened? You can’t! What does Smithy say?’ But I wouldn’t put it past [Corden and Jones] to just leave it like that.” Clarity came, in the end, with a round of exploratory phone calls in January 2024. “James called me out of the blue and asked if I was aware of the work of someone called Ruth Jones,” notes Horne, with a smile. Page, meanwhile, saw Corden’s name flash up on her phone and thought, instantly, “Oh my God, it’s actually happening!” Predictably, everyone was keen to get the band back together for one last ride in Barry and Billericay. Which is not to say that any of them was trusted with so much as a plot hint as the months dragged on and production schedules were thrashed out. “They didn’t tell us anything that happened in the script,” confirms Horne. “But I had absolute trust.” A few weeks before the July read-through, this faith was finally rewarded with an email that Page, fittingly, received in just about the most Gavin & Stacey location imaginable. “I’d just done a job and had stopped at a services to get a burger on my way home,” she explains. “I looked down at my phone and it said, ‘Gavin & Stacey: read-through script.’” Desperate to find out the fate of the characters – yet also conscious of not getting a parking ticket – Page spent the next few hours driving from one service station to the next, learning the fates of Gav, Stacey, Nessa, Smithy and the gang. The finale is, she says, “classic Gavin & Stacey”. Horne goes further. “They have written the perfect ending,” he says. Britain will have to wait until Christmas Day to open this present and find out what that ending is, however, as the cast have done their best to keep it under wraps. And that wasn’t always easy, as hordes of fans and photographers swarmed around filming locations in and around Barry Island. For Page, some of that rabid interest was within her own family (she has four children with her husband, fellow actor James Thornton). Midway through filming, having not shared any plot spoilers with her 11-year-old daughter, Eva, the actor cleared everyone out of her bedroom so she could practise her lines. “And then I looked underneath the bed and saw that she’d hidden an iPad under there to record everything,” she says, with a hoot. “Even in my own house I had to be careful what I said! The thought of being the person who cocks up and reveals something is absolutely terrifying.” An even bigger battle loomed in stepping back into roles these actors first played almost 20 years ago. “Just before we started, I did say to my mum, ‘How am I going to play Stacey? I’m 47 now, I’ve got four kids and I don’t look the same as I used to look. So how can I still be that really excitable, bubbly girl?’” Page says. It was left to her mum to remind her that Stacey Shipman – now a 40-something mother of three and in a 14-year marriage – has changed, too. “She’s grown in the way that I’ve grown,” she says. “So I didn’t overthink it and I just went and had a laugh.” Despite being “an emotional wreck” by the time she filmed her last scenes, she also appreciated how things had changed. “I wasn’t having to do the school run, I wasn’t cooking endlessly, people were bringing me cups of tea,” she says. “It was like a holiday.” For Horne, after years of feeling somewhat typecast as the perennially befuddled straight man, filming the finale coincided with a new sense of gratitude. “There are worse things to be known for as an actor than Gavin Shipman,” says the 46-year-old. “The acceptance of that was really freeing.” What’s more, he notes that changes in his life since the last special – he has a new son with his wife, set designer Celina Bassili – have brought him a closer affinity with his character. “Gavin has continually inspired me over the past 17 years – maybe he was the one that said I should be a dad, too.” This rich sense of the passage of time is sure to be a key part of the finale’s potent cocktail. It’s also why, though Horne admires the fact Corden and Jones are “finishing on their own terms”, Page would welcome the possibility of a few more sporadic, Royle Family-style specials. “I would love to come back every year,” she says. “But I genuinely don’t think there will ever be any more and I can really see why.” The truth of whether this will truly be the end is unknown. All we know for sure is that Christmas Day’s episode is going to bring tears, surprises, the absence of a visibly uncomfortable phone company employee and, if our families are anything like Page’s, some familiar joyful chaos. “We’ll try to watch the special, but I’ll have a sherry or a wine and be shouting at everyone to be quiet, and then I’ll start crying because it’s the last one. It probably will be quite a Gavin & Stacey Christmas,” she says. Billericay and Barry’s fictional lovebirds are about to fade from view. But you get the sense that they’ve left an indelible mark on the actors that brought them to life, and the viewers that got to savour every cracking moment. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Gavin & Stacey returns to BBC One and iPlayer on Christmas Day at 9pm. Check out more of our Comedy coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
'We've become the viewers' extended family'
Add Gavin & Stacey to your watchlist Did you ever worry that Gavin & Stacey might never return? Never say never. Having waited all those years, answering people’s questions about if there’s ever going to be another one. And then having to answer the same question when we’d done another one, I was surprised but not shocked. And I don’t think the BBC will ever kill the goose that laid the golden egg. So there may be scope for more? The point is, we just put together the most extraordinary, grand finale to the best part of 20 years of work. Who knows? Was playing Mick again emotional? I didn’t feel emotional until we started heading towards the end of the shoot. Then you realise, well, this is very likely the last time that we all get together. And having joined in with everything from the very beginning – seeing people in their 20s who are now pushing 50, it’s a fascinating study. I’m now an elderly gentleman, while I was respectably in my 60s when it started. There’s extreme secrecy around the details of the final episode. How did you find that? Ever since we’ve started doing it, people have always wanted to know more. But if they ask you, you just say, “Look, if I tell you one thing, it’s like a great big knitted garment. You pull one thread and the rest are all gonna come apart. So, I ain’t telling you anything. That’s it.” You’ve mentioned that you added some of yourself to playing Mick. Are you similar? I’m pretty close to Mick and I enjoy playing him because he’s a gentle soul. Back when I played Archie Mitchell [in EastEnders], that side of me was not one that I always wanted to show, whereas Mick is much more the character I am. What was it like reuniting with Alison Steadman, who plays your on-screen wife, Pam? Alison and I have a really lovely working relationship. We like playing those characters together and it’s wonderful to sense their love. Everyone is watching an extended family succeed in moving forward with love at the core. And finally — will there be an update on Mick and Pam’s, um, fondness for Charles and Camilla, now they’re the King and Queen? My lips are sealed…
Larry Lamb says Gavin & Stacey could return again: 'BBC won't kill goose that laid the golden egg'
The actor spoke to Radio Times about the upcoming Christmas special.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Did you ever worry that Gavin & Stacey might never return? Never say never. Having waited all those years, answering people’s questions about if there’s ever going to be another one. And then having to answer the same question when we’d done another one, I was surprised but not shocked. And I don’t think the BBC will ever kill the goose that laid the golden egg. So there may be scope for more? The point is, we just put together the most extraordinary, grand finale to the best part of 20 years of work. Who knows? Was playing Mick again emotional? I didn’t feel emotional until we started heading towards the end of the shoot. Then you realise, well, this is very likely the last time that we all get together. And having joined in with everything from the very beginning – seeing people in their 20s who are now pushing 50, it’s a fascinating study. I’m now an elderly gentleman, while I was respectably in my 60s when it started. There's extreme secrecy around the details of the final episode. How did you find that? Ever since we’ve started doing it, people have always wanted to know more. But if they ask you, you just say, 'Look, if I tell you one thing, it’s like a great big knitted garment. You pull one thread and the rest are all gonna come apart. So, I ain’t telling you anything. That’s it.' You've mentioned that you added some of yourself to playing Mick. Are you similar? I’m pretty close to Mick and I enjoy playing him because he’s a gentle soul. Back when I played Archie Mitchell [in EastEnders], that side of me was not one that I always wanted to show, whereas Mick is much more the character I am. What was it like reuniting with Alison Steadman, who plays your on-screen wife, Pam? Alison and I have a really lovely working relationship. We like playing those characters together and it’s wonderful to sense their love. Everyone is watching an extended family succeed in moving forward with love at the core. And finally — will there be an update on Mick and Pam's, um, fondness for Charles and Camilla, now they're the king and queen? My lips are sealed… The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Gavin & Stacey returns on Christmas Day. Check out more of our Comedy coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Doctor Who's Ncuti Gatwa: 'I'm not fully taking in what I’m on the precipice of'
This interview first appeared in Radio Times Magazine.
Ncuti Gatwa’s timelines are a little scrambled. When we meet, he’s yet to make his first official appearance in Doctor Who. But his life as the 15th incarnation of the Doctor feels confusingly – or, perhaps, appropriately, given the nature of the show – like both a thing of the recent past and the yet-to-come future. “I’ve been waiting for so long!” he says. “I got cast so long ago and then started filming so long after that, that it feels like this thing that’s never going to come.” He laughs. “I don’t think I’m fully taking in what I’m on the precipice of.” If he means the enormity of what lies ahead, then he’s not wrong. From the moment in May 2022 when Gatwa was announced as the long-term successor to Jodie Whittaker’s 13th Doctor (receiving the TARDIS keys only after the surprise, three-episode tenure of David Tennant’s 14th Doctor), his debut became one of the most rabidly anticipated British TV moments of the decade. This, after all, will be the first time in Doctor Who’s 60-year history that the series’ main character has been played by a Black man and an openly queer person; it’s the dawn of Russell T Davies’s splashy return as showrunner of the revived series; and it’s the first batch of episodes to follow the significant budget boost initiated by the BBC’s global distribution partnership with Disney. On a personal note – as a lapsed, once-obsessive fan of the show since the days of Christopher Eccleston and flatulent Slitheen – I feel that Gatwa’s casting is the perfect, zeitgeist-seizing move; the youthful, risky counterpoint to the nostalgic fan-service of Tennant’s unexpected return. So there’s a fair bit of pressure and expectation. Did he feel the weight of it? “I was questioning every line,” he admits, with a gleaming smile, sharply dressed and nestled at one end of a leather sofa in a tastefully appointed London hotel. The 31-year-old’s voice is a sonorous Scots burr, marked by a childhood in Edinburgh and Dunfermline, and often accented by expressive hand movements. “It was the weight of the role – the legacy. And I don’t know if I should say this because I don’t want to let doubt in. But I thought, ‘I can’t fail at this. I cannot blow it.’ And so everyone was trying to calm me down, saying, ‘Ncuti, you’re doing fine,’ while I was all, ‘No, no! We have to reshoot the whole day!’” But if there was justified nervousness attending the early scenes that Gatwa shot in Cardiff last December, then it was counterbalanced by a simple fact: he always felt he had an innate understanding of who the Doctor was. “It’s all in me – it’s good casting,” he says, hooting with laughter again. “Or I hope so. In the week of watching Doctor Who before my audition, I thought, ‘I get it. You’re always on your own, you’re always wanting an adventure. You’ve always surrounded yourself with people. You don’t really fit in anywhere but you’re able to get on with everyone.’ It was just… I get what’s going on with you, Doctor. I see it!” He’s not wrong – while Gatwa’s casting has been hailed as bold and radical, there’s an overlap in his personal story, and a tangible Doctorishness about his character, that almost makes him the obvious choice. Born in Rwanda before his family moved as refugees to Scotland, his outward effervescence and warp-speed mind – qualities that first brought him to attention as Eric in the Netflix hit Sex Education – belie a lifetime of the sort of watchful outsiderdom that a rootless Time Lord might sympathise with. “When I got the [scripts] through for the audition, the words just started flying out of me,” he says. “It almost felt like it was written for me. The way the character’s mind works and the way it chops and changes. The way he’s got seven billion thoughts in his head at one time and is always constantly thinking to the future. I just thought, ‘That’s how I am.’” Gatwa gave his audition with the livewire freedom of a man who thought he had no chance of getting it. And then, he barely gave it a thought – until he was standing outside a Tottenham barber shop with his phone to his ear, learning he’d won one of the most coveted roles on the planet. Was there any hesitation about taking on such an all-consuming, life-altering project? “Oh, absolutely,” he says. “I told my agent I needed a week. There was some apprehension. But it was also a no-brainer. As an actor, the role was just too juicy to turn down. It was too full of everything. The humour, the fun, the emotion, the darkness of it. It was just like a juicy, juicy steak to cut into.” It seems fair to assume part of this reticence may have also related to a viewing public that hasn’t always been welcoming of representative casting (see past negative backlash to Freema Agyeman’s role as companion Martha Jones, or Jo Martin’s turn as the Fugitive Doctor in 2020). But, in this, Gatwa was mostly heartened by the conversation following his unveiling. “I was a little bit braced for impact and then was very pleasantly surprised because it was the antithesis [of what I was expecting],” he says. “But then, also, what’s scary is that we all live in [social media] bubbles. “I remember scrolling on Twitter and being like, ‘Oh my gosh. I’m so loved.’ And then I clicked on one tweet that wasn’t as positive. And then that opened up an entire world of the opposite feeling. ‘Oh no. There they are.’ Seeing the anagrams of my name [made into a racial slur] was just lovely.” He gives me a rueful bit of side-eye. “But it was interesting. As I say, I live in a very leftist, liberal bubble. And in fact, there’s a really great episode coming up next year where we lean into that.” So will the Doctor’s race be something that they directly address? “Yes, definitely,” he says. “It would be stupid if we didn’t. The Doctor has always walked into unknown situations and taken charge with authority. Historically, there’s only really one demographic of people that are able to do that – and it’s certainly not a woman, and it’s certainly not someone Black. Thank God, things are changing.” This change is all in keeping with Davies and the production team’s desire to, as Gatwa puts it – with pointed air quotes – “push the show forward”. However, it was an aspect of the new episodes that it took him a while to get fully on board with. “Going into initial production meetings I was keen to, I guess, keep up the traditionalism of the show,” he says. “I didn’t want to be seen as too wild a choice. So it’s been a process of the show encouraging me to embrace myself.” And, presumably, the same goes for the BBC embracing the fact that, off camera, this incarnation of the Doctor will (as Gatwa did in June) pose nude for a photo shoot in British Vogue. Did he get word of any producers spluttering out their tea upon seeing those photos? “I did think, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve got my kit off so I’m probably going to get a couple of phone calls about this,’ ” he laughs. “But, no, they’ve been very encouraging. “The only time I’ve ever gotten in trouble for anything was when I swore [while wearing] a Doctor Who costume. I got called into Russell’s office. Woo! And he let me know that that’s not acceptable. He said, ‘Do what you want when you’re out of costume, but when you’re in costume, do not let us catch you swearing.’ I was like, fair enough. And I guess that was a lesson. For the last four years I’ve been co-leading an X-rated show, and so I’m on a constant journey of learning what it is to be a PG role model and the lead of a family show.” This is a mark of the evolution that Gatwa has had during his year making Doctor Who, without any member of the public having more than a glimpse of his take on the role. His first series won’t air until next year, but he’s already a couple of months into filming for a second run due in 2025. “It feels so much fun now,” he says. “I’ve relaxed and [the Doctor] seems to have sunk down a little bit deeper, from my chest into my gut.” Though he still says he’ll be “far away from a TV” when his first episode airs on Christmas Day. Read more: Ncuti Gatwa only auditioned for Doctor Who once: "He just got it" Doctor Who to feature Beatles episode in Ncuti Gatwa's first season And what’s next? Is he in Doctor Who for the long haul? Or does the lure of Hollywood – and more roles like his brief but memorable turn in Barbie – tempt him? “No idea, no plan,” he says, quickly. “I just know that I’m loving it and my love for it is growing.” If he does want counsel on how long to stay in the role then he could always consult the “Whoniverse” – a group chat of former Doctors recently started by David Tennant. “They all gave me amazing individual pieces of advice,” he says. “I spoke to David, I spoke to Matt [Smith], I spoke to Peter [Capaldi]. I think I felt a particular affinity to Jodie [Whittaker] just because of the shared struggle, as in the Doctor’s never been seen like this before, and what that means for yaysayers, naysayers. How do you navigate that? She was so generous. With her story and her experience of it all. “They’re all very present parents,” he says, with a smile. And proud ones, too, I imagine. Because, though he may have had to bide his time for his on-screen bow, to spend time with him is to be in the presence of someone who is every inch the Doctor. For both him and the audience at home, this feels like a Christmas present very much worth the wait. Doctor Who is available to watch on BBC iPlayer and on BritBox – you can sign up for a 7-day free trial here. Check out more of our Sci-Fi coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what’s on. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only £10 – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.