Cast your mind back to 2008, and that year’s Doctor Who Christmas special. Coming towards the end of David Tennant’s tenure in the TARDIS, David Morrissey was cast opposite him in Russell T Davies’ The Next Doctor. And with Tennant set to leave the role of the Doctor the following Christmas, speculations swiftly rose that Morrissey was in the running to replace him.

Chatting to the Radio Times, Morrissey admitted he enjoyed filming the episode “in February!”

“I didn’t know when we filmed it”, he said, “but David was leaving”.

“Because the episode was called The Next Doctor, I lived for about nine months with the speculation that I was going to be the next Doctor. I knew I wasn’t”.

So what did he do? “I asked Russell T Davies if I could tell my kids and he said no! So, during that time, my kids were always asking, ‘are you moving to Cardiff?’”

Matt Smith, of course, was ultimately named as the next inhabitant of the TARDIS. But for nine months, Morrissey wasn’t allowed to rule himself out of the running…