Doctor Omnishambles

In the 1970s and 80s the identity of the new Doctor would be one of the few TV acting announcements that would make the BBC early evening news. Now, the announcement gets a whole half hour dedicated to it, after which the Internet explodes. So who would have seen this coming?

On Saturday afternoon, Ladbrooks were offering the following odds:

Ben Wishaw 28/1
Idris Elba 28/1
Ben Daniels 25/1
John Hurt 20/1
Daniel Rigby 13/1
Andrew Scott 5/1
Peter Capaldi 1 /4

A clear favourite then. There were even odds for some more unlikely actors and if you fancied Miranda Hart for the role you could have got odds of 94/1. This means that if you placed  a bet of £10 on Miranda, then you would lose £10. I’m not a fan of the bookies but the odds are a bit of fun. However, whether or not they believed the identity of the actor was already known is a mute point as they suspended betting shortly afterwards.

Fortunately, it isn’t bookies that chose the actors. It isn’t even done with public voting on some sort of X-factor type talent show (I shouldn’t have typed that – don’t you dare BBC!) but by the show’s producers and writers. By and large I think they have always got it right. The main thing is to chose an actor that is unlike any of the others that we have seen and will challenge our perceptions. Of the actors that I can recall being awarded the role previously the only one that I would describe as a household name was Peter Davison who was well known from Sunday night TV’s All Creatures Great And Small. Of the others, some have been well known actors in their own right such as Paul McGann and Christopher Eccleston but neither had a defining role in the public’s mind. The last two Doctors were not well known outside of the profession although I had seen Matt Smith in a TV role which had completely not registered with me. Peter Capaldi is one of those actors who is know and respected and probably just falls slightly short of “Household name” category but who will be recognised by many as “Oh it’s him from …” I suppose his most famous creation is Malcolm Tucker from The Thick Of It. Although iconic he isn’t the most appealing of characters so the risk of typecasting by playing the Doctor must be appealing rather than daunting.

We have been making a bit of an afternoon of it by watching The Time Meddler, an old William Hartnell adventure from 1965 which even featured Peter Purves in his pre-Blue Peter days. I expect Peter Capaldi must have watched this when it was first broadcast. The nice thing with watching the old black and white adventures with the kids is that I often haven’t seen them either. It’s also quite amusing seeing the kids trying to work out why everything from when Dad was a kid is in black-and-white. I think they assume this has something to do with my colour blindness. The one thing that delights me is how well an older Doctor works. Since the series has returned the Doctor has been as much of an action hero as an insightful genius and for me, the Doctor always was an older character – even if Jon Pertwee did fancy himself as an elderly James Bond at times.

As for Peter Capaldi we will have to see how he develops but I am absolutely delighted with his casting. Matt Smith has been magnificent in the role and settled any doubts I had about him in his first few minutes on screen. I’d like to have seen at least another series of him but at 3 years in the role he is pretty much par for the course – only Tom Baker and Jon Pertwee were in the role for significantly longer. Will Peter Capaldi stay that long? I do hope so. Anyway we have still got the 50th anniversary special to look forward to and we should have a new Doctor on Christmas Day – that’s only 143 days away. Bring it on!