Dan Sefton was initially left wondering why his show was being bumped back in the BBC schedules.

While we were talking with writer Dan Sefton about his new show Porters, due to begin on Dave, on Wednesday 20th September, the subject shifted to the furore surrounding Jodie Whittaker – star of his recent series Trust Me – following the announcement that she would be becoming the first female Doctor in Doctor Who. It was all as cloak and dagger as you may expect, apparently.

Asked about when he found out the news, he responded: “About two weeks before we transmitted, because it was a very well kept secret and we all had absolutely no idea.” That means he found out at roughly the same time as everyone else and that – despite her tale of tears on the set of Trust Me when she found out about the getting the gig – the star obviously kept it together well enough to keep everyone in the dark about her new job.

Sefton, however, has no doubts about her suitability for the role. “It’s a great thing,” he says, “because she’s a fantastic actress… and she’ll be great for the part.”

Finding out the news also answered a nagging doubt that Sefton had in his mind about the scheduling of Trust Me. Speaking about the popularity of the show, he said: “It did very well for it’s slot, because August is a difficult time, but it was put back to then because of the announcement. We were originally going to go out in June, but we were put back… I was like ‘What’s going on? Why have we been put back to August?’ Well, now we know.”

There’ll be more from our interview with Dan Sefton later in the week, where he talks more about Trust Me, Porters and his other current project, Sky One’s Delicious, the art – and business – of script writing, and Rutger Hauer. We’ll have a review of Porters up tomorrow… But you can see the first episode right now if you’d like, over on the Dave website.