Travelling through time and space with a Time Lord is a pretty demanding job, so it’s good to know that former Doctor Who companions are there to keep an eye out for their successors – at least when it comes to former series star Jenna Coleman and new co-lead Pearl Mackie.

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You see, according to Mackie the former Clara Oswald (who left the series in 2015) gave her some indispensable advice on a key part of her new gig – running away from monsters with Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor.

“Jenna sent me a bunch of flowers on my first day of filming, which was lovely,” Mackie, who plays Bill Potts in the BBC sci-fi series, told RadioTimes.com and other journalists.

“And yeah, it had lots of advice in it – practice your superhero run to comedy theme music.”

That’s right – apparently the ideal way to perfect the Doctor Who “running down corridors” technique is to crank up some hilarious tunes, and while Mackie wouldn’t spill on which comedy music she used (“That’s for me and me alone. Very Method,” she told us) we just can’t shake that arresting visual from our heads.

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“[She also told me] stuff like, where to get nice food delivered in Cardiff, and what not to eat in the canteen,” she added. “Anything in the canteen!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnutiAVwhWk

Mackie went on to discuss the difference between her character Bill and former companions, explaining that part of the reason she avoided catching up on the series was to keep Bill free of their influence.

“Obviously every companion is completely different,” she said. “But essentially, there is a similarity between them, because they travel with Doctor Who.

“So watching someone do the job that you’re about to do, brilliantly…all the companions have been amazing. You’d be mad as an actor not to go ‘Oh that’s good, I’m gonna have that.’

“So I thought obviously what I was doing in the audition was working, and I thought even subconsciously I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from borrowing things from previous companions. So perhaps it is best to not do that, so I can continue being Bill as I would play her.”

We can only hope that within that interpretation will be a unique “superhero run” that Jenna Coleman herself would be proud of…

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Doctor Who returns to BBC1 on Saturday 15th April at 7.20pm

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