Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat has revealed that Peter Capaldi’s arrival will see the show’s “rhythm” alter in the new series.

Discussing the casting of Peter Capaldi at the recent Hay Festival, Moffat commented: “We sat there thinking ‘Of course we’re going to cast him. What are the BBC going to think?’ Are they going to say ‘No, we need younger and sexier hair’ so we sent them the [audition] disc and they just said ‘yes, absolutely definitely’.”

The writer continued: “And it was at the same time as me saying, about the show itself, that it needed to change a bit. I mean, it just needed to change… One of the hardest things ever to do is to notice when your clever and new idea is now your very old idea.”

He explained: “We haven’t made much of a change to Doctor Who since it came back in 2005. It’s been the same show. It’s maybe amped some things up and lowered other things, but it’s basically the same. It needs to be surprising again. The rhythm has to alter, which it has [in Series 8].”

Last year Moffat teased: “You learn how to do it, you get really slick at it, and then you think you’re really, really slick at it and everyone’s started to yawn. So now we’ve got to actually get a bit raw at it and do it in a different direction.”

Series 8 is currently filming in Cardiff and will begin on BBC One in August.

> Here’s everything we know about Series 8 so far.

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