The BBC has confirmed thet the Doctor Who spin-off series will be shown on BBC One this January

The first episode can be seen on Monday 9th January at 10.45pm

Class has previously only been available in the UK via the BBC Three channel, which, since the 16th February this year, has only been available online.

No firm details are available for the number of viewers who have watched the series on BBC Three, but no episode has managed to make the Weekly BARB Top 50 list of downloaded programs, meaning less than around 60,000 watched the episode in the two days after release. It is believed the audience for each episode was between 20,000 and 60,000 viewers.

The BBC will be hoping for a much bigger audience for the BBC One showing, where the late night timeslot has an average of just over 2 million viewers.

The series is due to be shown on BBC America this spring.

Peter Capaldi has praised his Doctor Who colleague Matt Lucas as being “one of the biggest and most talented comedy stars” the UK has ever produced.

Capaldi, who stars as the Doctor in the hit BBC series, will appear alongside Lucas as Nardole in the forthcoming Christmas special.

Lucas is reprising his role as hapless Nardole after first appearing in last year’s Christmas episode The Husbands Of River Song.

He has also been confirmed to be appearing in the tenth series of Doctor Who when it airs in spring 2017.

During a Q&A session on Twitter, Capaldi praised Lucas, who is best known for co-creating and starring in sketch show Little Britain.

Asked what it is like working with him, Capaldi said: “It’s absolutely wonderful because he’s one of the biggest and most talented comedy stars that the UK has ever presented.

“If you think of all those character he has created – the gay in the village, Vicky Pollard, the chap in the wheelchair and all that stuff – and he’s lovely.

“He’s just an absolutely great person to have around and he makes me laugh all the time, and I think you’re going to really enjoy him in Doctor Who.”

The actor added, jokingly: “Is it him who asked this question?”

Capaldi and Lucas will return in The Return Of Doctor Mysterio, which airs on BBC One on Christmas Day.

The 60-minute show will see Capaldi as the Doctor teaming up with an investigative journalist, played by Charity Wakefield, and a superhero named Grant, played by Justin Chatwin, to save New York from a deadly alien threat.

During the social media Q&A, Capaldi also revealed his love of Doctor Who started in his childhood and was in part due to his proximity to a Tardis-style police box.

He said: “I was drawn to the magical, strange quality of it all, and it seemed to me that Doctor Who could also show up in your own world, the Tardis could arrive in your own street.

“When I grew up in Glasgow they still had police boxes and there was actually a police box at the end of my street.”

The Return of Doctor Mysterio airs on BBC One on Christmas Day at 5.45pm.

Peter Capaldi as Dr Who, new Star Wars, US poet Ben Lerner and E R Braithwaite will feature tonight on BBC Radio 4 Front Row and thereafter on the BBCi Player for 30 days.

I love that Peter Capaldi modelled his signature on Peter Cushing's.. Talking Doctor Mysterio on @BBCFrontRow 715pm pic.twitter.com/C5OF6kUUeE

— Samira Ahmed (@SamiraAhmedUK) December 14, 2016

Issue #507 of Doctor Who Magazine confirms that Toby Whithouse is contributing an episode for Series 10.

Whithouse has penned five stories since the show returned: School Reunion back in 2006, The Vampires of Venice in 2010, The God Complex in 2011, A Town Called Mercy in 2012 and last year’s spooky two-parter Under the Lake / Before the Flood.

Outside of Doctor Who, Whithouse is perhaps best known as the creator of BBC’s Being Human. He also wrote Torchwood story Greeks Bearing Gifts.

His latest episode will be the eighth of the new run.

This Christmas sees The Doctor join forces with a masked superhero for an epic adventure in New York.