Meet the stars of Doctor Who before they were famous

Peter Capaldi

The Twelfth Doctor was turning heads as long ago as 1983, when he was cast as Danny Oldsen in Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero. His first TV appearance came the following year in an episode of the long-running daytime legal drama Crown Court – remembered with fondness by a generation of school kids who watched it nursing a bottle of Lucozade while pretending to be ill. Peter played Flamin’ Eamonn Donnelly, none-too-bright lead singer of rockabilly group The Hat Check Boys – a comic masterclass that has ‘future star’ written all over it.

Of course, young Peter didn’t have to stretch too far to play a Glasgow rocker, having been frontman and guitarist with post-punk outfit The Dreamboys, also featuring Craig Ferguson (here they are singing lost classic Bela Lugosi’s Birthday).

In 1995, he was a member of a band who made a slightly bigger impact on the world, playing Beatle George Harrison in NBC TV movie John and Yoko: A Love Story. John Lennon was played by Mark McGann, whose brother Paul was about to become the Eighth Doctor. Coincidence? Yes.