Following our recent wishlist of British acting legends that are overdue a guest spot in Doctor Who, here are ten more thespians we’d love to appear in the show.

 

Dame Angela Lansbury

Question: compelling though Michelle Gomez was as the (ahem) Master of the Nethersphere, why couldn’t space have been made for giving her a heavenly superior?

If any actor alive could personify the type of cyberspace God that should appear in Doctor Who, it’s the glorious and beloved Dame Angela. Quirky, nimble and with precision comic timing, her acting instincts are ideally suited to the bonkers world of Who.

 

Tilda Swinton

Defiantly uncommercial in her career choices and always interesting in her artistic ones, Swinton has the kind of captivating interiority – and occasional androgyny – as a performer that always leaves audiences guessing.

Frankly, Swinton is so good that, whenever we watch the Dalek Controller in ‘Bad ‘Wolf’, we squint and try to pretend that it’s her. If Moffat ever needs a Queen of Outer Space, there’s only one person he should call.

 

Julia McKenzie

Aged 73, McKenzie brings class to everything she does.

A veteran of the West End, Broadway and Agatha Christie, she’s had almost a parallel career to Angela Lansbury (see above), and in her own way has been just as impressive.

 

Sir David Jason

The Royal Bodyguard excepted, Sir David Jason is able to bring huge numbers to even the gentlest of sitcoms. At the heart of British television for forty years – in the pantheon of TV comedy heroes, they don’t come much bigger.

Russell T Davies tried to cast him once in ‘Voyage of the Damned’. Could Moffat succeed?

 

Ben Whishaw

More fantasy casting now which can be filed under the category of ‘we can but dream’.

Adorable as the voice of Paddington; electrically self-loathing as the Prince of Denmark – Whishaw may be out of Doctor Who’s league these days, but hey, if they can get acting knights John Hurt and Michael Gambon on the programme, surely there’s room for one of theatre and cinema’s brightest young things?

 

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