Love, love me Who

New Doctor Who Ncuti Gatwa and producer Russell T Davies talk about getting by with a little help from their friends.

- RUSSELL BAILLIE

There are many firsts in the new season of Doctor Who. Yes, it was announced two years ago that the 15th incarnation of the titular Time Lord in the world's longest-running sci-fi show would be black and gay. He's played by Ncuti Gatwa, who's queer, Rwanda-born, and - like three Doctors before him - Scottish. It's also the first one with the involvement of Disney in the BBC perennial, and the first to involve that other ancient British pop culture institution, The Beatles. More of which later.

Gatwa's Tardis tenure comes after Jodie Whittaker - the first woman and 13th Doctor - was regenerated after three seasons into a Doctor played by David Tennant, who had already been the 10th incarnation. Which made him, briefly, the 14th as well, before Gatwa's arrival in a special last year when his Doctor "bi-generated" from Tennant's character. Tennant had been the Time Lord Gatwa had watched while growing up in Edinburgh.

"David was my doctor," Gatwa tells the Listener. "When I think of the Doctor, that's who I have in my mind - other than me, now. It was such a full-circle moment - he kind of inspired me to get into acting and now to have a role that I really wanted, to have the baton passed over from him felt surreal and magical at the same time."

That bi-generation scene also left the two characters with one set of clothes between them. It gave Gatwa's Doctor another first: The only one in 60 years to arrive without any trousers. Remind him of his character's Y-fronted first bow, and his laughter risks taking up much of the Listener's allocated short interview time.

But as the early episodes of the new season show, at least some of the Disney money in the BBC production has gone on giving his Doctor abundant wardrobe choices, including pants. "There are a lot more of them," says Gatwa, still giggling.