Director Rachel Talalay has been chatting about the BBC’s decision to openly reveal the return of John Simm in Doctor Who series 10…

Spoilers for Doctor Who: World Enough And Time lie ahead.

Right at the start of Doctor Who series 10, the BBC decided to play its hand early and reveal that John Simm was returning to the series. It was a disappointing reveal, given that Simm wouldn’t actually appear until the penultimate episode of the run, World Enough And Time. Why couldn’t they try and keep it under wraps, many of us wondered. Turned out that John Simm seemed to be wondering that himself.

Rachel Talalay directed World Enough And Time, and she’s given an interesting new interview to the excellent Radio Free Skaro. And she admits too that she was surprised that Simm’s return was given away.

“We were incredibly careful with John Simm. Because he was playing the Razor character when he was outside, we were able to keep him under wraps and under cover. We did all the things that we could do to make sure that it wasn’t spoiled. We left shooting with it being a secret”, she said.

“The first time I knew that they were giving it away was when John Simm emailed me and said ‘what?!’. But there’s nothing you can do”.

She added that “what surprised me was that I thought this was going to ruin it for so many people because they’re going to know that Razor’s him from the very beginning, because they’re going to be waiting for him. But a lot of people, real Who fans, said that they were surprised, and didn’t immediately go to ‘that’s John Simm’”

The full interview is well worth a listen, and you can find it here.