Doctor Who’s roster of guest stars since it returned to our screens in 2005 has been comfortably on the impressive side. But not everyone the Doctor Who team has approached has been able to take the job on.

One of UK television’s biggest stars, David Jason, was approached by Russell T Davies, after reading that the show was one of the few that the actor was letting his young daughter watch. This was all revealed in The Writer’s Tale, Davies tome that he co-penned with Benjamin Cook. It’s an excellent book that we just happen to have recently re-read!

In this case, though, it wasn’t to be. At the time, Jason was tied to a golden handcuffs deal with ITV, reportedly worth some £5m a year.  And notwithstanding the scheduling problems of fitting around Jason’s workload, ITV reportedly quickly nixed the idea.

Jason had been earmarked for a role in the fourth series of the revived show, but fate had other ideas. Now that he’s not exclusively tied to ITV, we can’t help but wonder if the idea of approaching David Jason again…