With rumours of Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor Who exit strategy swirling, thanks to a recent “exclusive” from the showbiz pages of the Mirror, it appears that Doctor Who casting silly season has begun.
Yes, the inevitable subject of who will play the 14th Doctor has reared it head again in the press. After a decent consideration of potential runners and riders from Martin Belam in The Guardian, suggesting the likes of Michaela Cole (I May Destroy You), Riz Ahmed (Rogue One) and Rose Matafeo (Starstruck), The Sun went full throttle over the weekend.
Spinning a piece out of a quote from a Russell T Davies interview in SFX Magazine, from January, they announced actor and Years and Years frontman Olly Alexander as the latest incarnation of the Time Lord. RTD’s supposed endorsement came on the promotion trail of It’s a Sin, his affecting drama Channel 4/HBO drama about the AIDS crisis, in which Alexander played the central character.
The original SFX piece, where RTD discusses It’s a Sin‘s recreation of a Doctor Who-like scene for Alexander’s character Ritchie to feature in, dubbed Regression of the Daleks, said:
“Oh stop it! This’ll just be all the headlines. You just want SFX headlines everywhere,” Davies replied while rolling his eyes and giving a withering look to the SFX editor. “Yes, Olly would make a marvellous Doctor Who. You tart! You enormous tart! The trouble this causes! They’ll be banging his door, his agent will be saying, ‘What have you done now…’ On your own head be it.”
All the attention prompted an excellent pun-filled social media denial from Alexander’s manager, Martha Kinn, which we are happy to quote in all its glory:
“Even though Olly is often contacted by Cybermen, I’m afraid I’ll have to exterminate this speculation. As nice as it is to see the interest in this story regenerate, it just isn’t true. As Ood as it might sound, Olly is focussing on his music. For the time being.”
Kinn also made a couple of suggestions herself, Alexander’s It’s a Sin castmate Lydia West and actor, writer and comedian Mawaan Rizwan.
For our two-penneth, Olly Alexander is an obvious suggestion – perhaps too obvious. We’d be looking at actors who have worked in the past with Chris Chibnall, rather than recently with a former Showrunner.
Doubtless the speculation is set to keep is entertained for a while – and there’s no official confirmation that Jodie Whittaker is hanging up her braces yet ! As ever, CultBox will keep you posted.