DOCTOR WHO: There is a Doctor in the house. Also a showrunner and two companions.
As their second season together kicks in, we gather the Doctor Who cast and showrunner for a group session
AS TEAM WHO settle into their seats round a huge table in a London hotel suite, we get the sense they’re embracing this opportunity to kick back, savour the moment and reflect on what it really means to be part of this extraordinary show. Even though this is only their second season together, showrunner Chris Chibnall and his core cast of Jodie Whittaker, Tosin Cole, Mandip Gill and Bradley Walsh (who’s absent because he’s busy filming his hit ITV game show The Chase), have evidently forged a strong fellowship, bonded together through the shared experience of being at the centre of the Whoniverse.
So far, it’s been the wildest of rides. The moment when Whittaker’s casting as the 13th Doctor was announced may have caused some loud men of the internet to froth with pent-up anger, but the vast majority of the Doctor Who fanbase seemed utterly thrilled by the prospect. When her first episode aired, it not only achieved record ratings for a Who series premiere, critics everywhere agreed she instantly nailed the role, while her gang of deeply likeable companions — Ryan (Cole), Yaz (Gill) and Graham (Walsh) — only underlined the sense that the show has rarely felt so fresh and vibrant.
Now it’s clear they all feel a responsibility to step things up, build on the innovations of that 2018 series and really let the show soar to even greater heights.
Your first series felt like you were refreshing everything — from the cast, to the music, the titles. So how do you follow that for the ‘difficult second album’? Chris:
It’s not a difficult second album — it’s a thrilling, exciting and action-packed double album full of big tracks. I ruined that analogy now [laughs]. You keep going, I think. The first series was kind of an introduction with standalone stories — it was very much for kids who might be coming for Jodie’s Doctor and anybody who’d drifted away from the show, and we made it very deliberately open week on week. This series is hopefully taking those people and saying, “Now come with us on a journey deeper into Doctor Who”. The scale of the show has
gone up a gear. There are two-parters, there’s serial strands, there’s returning monsters. Everybody who joined last year and everyone who’s been there for a while, it’s like, “Here are all the treats of the Doctor Who universe and then some”. And we’re also challenging these characters and taking them into new places.
Have you seen how the actors interact with each other in real life and started writing for them differently now you know them better?
Chris: Yeah, a little bit. There’s kind of a weird non-dialogue dialogue that goes on between a writer and cast when you’re watching them on rushes every day. You think, “Oh, they really liked that” and “They did that brilliantly” and you sort of feed it back in — especially across a 10-month shoot when you’re watching something every day. And then you’re also looking for something that they haven’t done, and you think, “Oh yeah, I haven’t given them that”. It’s definitely an unspoken dialogue that we literally never talk about… Is that true?
Jodie: Yeah, but I also think that we don’t have to manufacture this chemistry or banter. We understand each other’s rhythms, and even though we’re not playing a traditional family, we do in our real lives have like a sibling relationship and we’ve got a dad figure [Bradley Walsh] in it. But also, because there are four of us, in this [series] there’s bits where we maybe go off, not just as a four, but sometimes as duos, and within that, those relationships can develop.
Tosin: I think we’re just picking up where we left off last season, that introduction to the characters and that unspoken thing between [Tosin’s character] Ryan and Graham [Bradley Walsh] getting to know each other. Now time’s gone past and we’re all comfortable with each other — everyone’s grown so we’re just cracking on with it — it’s just a normal day. Me and Yaz [Mandip] have got a relationship, me and the Doctor have got a relationship, Ryan and Graham have got their own relationship. So everyone’s just doing their own thing and just getting on and complementing each other.
Mandip: And I think everyone’s got their own strengths now, so you know who’s going to react first and who’s going to question it.
Jodie: We’re also all comfortable enough just to be quiet. It’s that kind of relationship. And sometimes in the show there are those moments of reflection. I think everybody’s ability to tap into that and to make decisions, like we’ve established it with Ryan in season one where he’s running at things. In this season we really explore the fact that Yaz has a real heroic side and can step up. Because we’re not introducing us, we can let those character traits shine through more.
One of the best scenes in the last series was a quieter moment in the Rosa Parks episode when Ryan and Yaz talked about racism. Are you exploring more of those big ideas in this series?
Tosin: There’s loads of similar moments. We have things where we question stuff…
Mandip: And personal external journeys as well. And we go off with other people when we do have conversations like that where it explains more about where the characters come from and why Yaz is enjoying this journey so much.
Tosin: It’s good to have stuff to relate to. Those scenes were some of my favourite to film. When would you ever get to have that experience in your life? Especially seeing those characters through Ryan’s eyes. Imagine if I did. And that feeling is just crazy. There’s a scene where I’m in a house and there’s Martin Luther King, and I’m just like [sighs] ‘You know, imagine if I was really here’. So for me, I felt like a kid and I’m really grateful and happy to be a part of it.
Mandip: Like Tosin said, you relate to it. There’s also the feeling of teaching people about it. Like with [the episode] ‘Demons Of The Punjab’, a lot of people don’t know that happened, they don’t know why there was a divide [between India and Pakistan]. It was beautiful to look at and there was a love story in the middle of it. As much as it’s thrilling for me because I relate, but it’s also thrilling to know that there are people who had no idea and this is something that’s really close to us. Like giving them something they’re not going to learn in school.
Are there moments like that in the new series?
Chris: I think it’s interesting, I think you have to swerve what people think you’re going to do. Is there another ‘Rosa’ or ‘Demons Of The Punjab’? No. Are we doing different things? Yes.
You talked about how the scope feels even bigger this series…
Chris: [interrupts] It is bigger this year, I promise!
How does that manifest itself ? Tosin: Oh, man [makes expansive gestures and exploding noises] Boo! Bang!
Mandip: What I really liked about this series is that we change costumes to suit the period. And I don’t know why but we didn’t do that last year, so it does feel like a big movie. Jodie: Yes, there are some journeys we happen upon, and some journeys we intentionally take, and for those there’s a preparation that we haven’t had before. In the first three or four episodes, we’re trying to get the Tardis back to Sheffield, and we’re not quite where we think we are.
Do you keep a list of the historical figures you’d like to feature in the show? Chris: We do have a list — so yeah, Tesla [played by Goran Višnjić] was absolutely on the list, and then we go and meet Lord Byron and Mary Shelley later on in the series. Maxine Alderton wrote that episode, she’s a massive aficionado of the Romantics, and it’s [set on] that night when Shelley was writing Frankenstein. And you’re like, these guys are going to want and go and visit them, so, yeah,
you’re always looking how you can drop these figures in, in unexpected ways.
And do you guys pitch things to Chris like places you’d like to go or people you’d like to meet?
Jodie: We’ve had chats before. I thought I’d had this really amazing idea and he goes, “We’ve done it.”
Tosin: I was excited because I thought we were going to New York…
Jodie: Oh yeah! Gutted! Absolutely gutted!
Tosin: Me and Brad had the same thing, “We’re going to New York”, and I was so excited, I was planning my trip…
Chris: Nope, we filmed it in Bulgaria.
Jodie: I wanna go — because I’m a geek — to ET’S planet. It’s going to have soft ground because they don’t have toes.
Tosin: I’d like to go to Tokyo — maybe see some ninjas or some samurais, something like that.
You’re also choosing writers and directors as well, Chris — what are you looking for in those people?
Chris: Talent, voice. You’re looking for energy; people who love the show, people who can tell stories visually. And people who’ll keep the ambition of the show really high and work with these guys. Nicely! The working environment is really important — we have such long days and it’s a 10-month shoot, so you’ve got to have people coming in who are good people, going to have a laugh, as well as hitting the schedule…
I think it’s fair to say that before last series none of you were massive Who fans, but do you ever have time to sit back and go, “I’m part of this incredible phenomenon” and look at what that means?
Jodie: I’m really sentimental about it. Tosin: Sometimes I forget I’m part of this thing, and when people outside of it remind you and appreciate what you’re doing, you’re like, “It is this big, big, big, big situation”. The youth theatre that I go to went to the BBC Studios and they were all taking pictures of the Tardis and sending it to me and talking about ‘the box’ and I was thinking, ‘What box?’ They were like, ‘The box” and I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, the Tardis!’
Jodie: Me and Chris watched the first episode in Madison Square Garden with 6,000 fans and I cried my eyes out. We had to walk on stage to introduce it. I started crying, and I was stood there with my bottom lip going. I was also bricking it because I was thinking, “This is quite exposing”. But the good thing about that was I don’t come into the episode for quite a long time, so I had time to calm down. But as introductions to your own character go, falling through a roof to your own iconic soundtrack is one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.
Chris: And then being applauded by 6,000 people.
Jodie: That first episode for me has a huge place in my heart because I got to know these guys, who I will stalk forever. And for Chris entrusting this to us was just amazing.
Is being a part of Doctor Who proving as exciting and difficult as you thought it would be?
Chris: It’s definitely madder, it’s definitely as exciting. It’s more fun than I thought it would be, particularly as people told me — well, Steven [Moffat], as he was leaving told me all the bad things about it. So it’s much more fun than you think it’s going to be because you do all these things every day. You know, you get a set of rushes and there’s five minutes where you think “God, how did they do that?” So that’s great. I think It’s hard on all of us in the same way because it’s just relentless…
Jodie: Yeah, it is.
Chris: It’s a lot of work but it’s a lot of work that you’ll never get to do anywhere else. So it’s harder work and more magical and more amazing all at once. Kind of every day.
Mandip: Those little figures that we’ve got of ourselves! I’ve got everything, it’s all in my house… squishy little toys of us, calendars — “Oh, there’s me!”, skip on a month…
Chris: It’s quite emotional. I don’t know what it’s like for you guys, but there’s all the art that comes in. The responses are so emotional and so overwhelming.
Jodie: Every other event we go to, I’ll cry, so yeah, I find it really emotional. As soon as we started filming it was extraordinary. Nine and a half months of playing pretend with your mates and a crew who are incredible and a right laugh, and you go to some brilliant places… And you’re having interaction with people that it reaches, people sharing stories of how until Doctor Who they didn’t feel like they had a community. I just find that amazing.