Peter Capaldi will appear on The Graham Norton Show next month to discuss his decision to leave his role on Doctor Who.

Capaldi – who has been custodian of the TARDIS since the end of 2013 – announced in January that he would be leaving the BBC1 sci-fi series, making his final appearance in the 2017 Christmas special.

He will stop by for a chat with Graham on Friday 14th April and will be taking his spot on the sofa alongside actor, director and producer Warren Beatty – who was famously caught up in this year’s Oscars mix-up – The Durrells star Keeley Hawes, Miranda Hart, who is playing Miss Hannigan in Annie, and The Voice coach Jennifer Hudson.

The episode marks the second in the latest series of the Graham Norton Show which returns to BBC1 next Friday (7th April).

New episodes of Doctor Who will begin airing on Saturday 15th April.

Doctor Who actors come to the series with various levels of existing knowledge, from superfans like David Tennant and Peter Capaldi to relative newcomers to the mythos like Matt Smith or Christopher Eccleston.

However, it’s rare that series leads are actively encouraged to avoid watching earlier episodes of the sci-fi series – at least until brand-new companion Pearl Mackie (playing Bill Potts) stepped onto set.

“It wasn’t really on when I was a kid,” Mackie told SFX magazine while explaining her lack of Who knowledge. “I watched some of the new series when it first came out but I was 16, so I was trying to spend as little time at home as possible! So it’s quite new to me as well as being new to Bill.”

Of course, once Mackie was cast she was keen to get stuck into the back catalogue of New Who – but then she received the surprising advice to continue avoiding it, from none other than series showrunner Steven Moffat and executive producer Brian Minchin.

“I think it’s stood me in quite good stead in terms of my approach to [playing Bill],” Mackie said. “I talked to Steven and Brian after I’d got the job – I was like, ‘Look, gimme the back catalogue, let me watch it all!’

“I initially planned to watch all of Peter’s stuff with Jenna, so I could see what he was like as a Doctor, and they were like, ‘Don’t watch it, because she doesn’t know anything about that, and actually what you’re bringing to it is a really nice kind of freshness. What you’re doing is working’.”

In other words, her lack of Who familiarity was just a time-friendly form of Method acting – something which also aided Mackie on her first day in the Tardis.

“Oh, it was amazing,” she recalled.

“I think the first time was the day we were shooting the scene where Bill first goes onto it as well. It’s really nice that I’m experiencing that at the same time as her. No acting required, really. I’m just like, ‘Oh, this is cool!’”

All in all, then, it’s clear that no experience is sometimes good experience. We’ll remember that one for the next job interview.

Doctor Who returns to BBC1 on Saturday 15th April

Most journalists are regarded as inherently arrogant buggers who would rather sell their grandmothers than give up a story.

But when it came to interviewing English actor Arthur Darvill – who played Rory Williams, one of the companions to the 11th Doctor Who (Matt Smith), I had to concede my son Finlay was much more qualified than me.

As I have mentioned previously, I’ve became an appallingly sycophantic super fan of the iconic British TV show because of my son.

So we came to a gentlemen’s agreement. I would write the article and Finlay would do the interview with Darvill without any input from me.

Darvill said what makes Doctor Who such an appealing and alluring show that has lasted more than 50 years, was it offered viewers a sense of hope.

“It has elements of violence but it’s not that violent,” he said while nursing a coffee at the Hilton Hotel in Perth on Friday.

After travelling space and time in the TARDIS for five years, David Tennant knows a thing or two about what it takes to be the Doctor.

Speaking on The Andrew Marr Show, the 45-year-old actor was asked what he would say to whoever will be stepping into the iconic role.

“It’s part of our cultural furniture, Doctor Who, and that’s a huge honour to be in the middle of,” he explained. “But it’s quite a responsibility as well and it changes your life. It opens a lot of doors.

“I get to be in the West End and that’s due in no small part to the fact that Doctor Who brought me to a new audience. But it’s an undertaking and it’s desperately exciting for whoever the next person might be… but yes, it takes a deep breath too.”

Marr then asked him whether he knew who will be playing the Doctor next, and Tennant rather coyly said: “I don’t…but I’d have to say that even if I did!”

We think he knows something that he’s not letting on…

Anyway, he was also asked about the final series of ITV’s Broadchurch, in which he plays Alec Hardy alongside Olivia Colman’s Ellie Miller.

Tennant said that the secrecy surrounding the plots and scripts on the show, which he previously described as “really tiresome”, actually came in handy for getting into character.

“As a policeman, that’s useful it transpires. You can get a little bit grumpy about the fact that you don’t quite know where the story’s going but then when you’re in a [police] interview situation and you have no idea if the actor across the table from you is lying in character or not, it’s quite helpful really.”

Broadchurch continues on Monday at 9pm on ITV and a new series of Doctor Who starts on April 15th 2017.

Self-confessed Doctor Who fan Tanya Higgins and her family, from the Australian capital of Canberra, are planning on taking a five-week driving trip around the UK in December.

Along with her husband Karl and their five children, Tanya had mapped out a two-day tour to the Welsh capital to visit the Doctor Who experience in Cardiff.

But the family were left “shocked” and “disappointed” when they discovered the attraction is closing down months before their visit.

Tanya claimed she made a number of unsuccessful attempts to contact the experience and the tourist board to find out more information and to make alternative arrangements and so decided to cancel their visit to the Welsh capital.

“We’ve planned a five-week trip to the UK this Christmas,” 45-year-old Tanya said. “We’ll be driving around and experiencing as much of the iconic British stuff as we can.

“The whole family are huge Doctor Who fans, so we had planned to take a two-day detour to Cardiff to visit the experience in January.

“So you can imagine our shock when we learnt it would be closing in the summer.

“We were keen to find out if it was re-opening or being relocated somewhere else, so I contacted them asking for advice or to see whether there were any other attractions we could visit.

“I sent an email to the experience directly and sent messages on Facebook – but had no response.

“I also got in touch with the tourism association to ask if they knew anything, but nobody responded to my requests. If they had replied saying something like: ‘We can’t guarantee it will be open but here’s some other cool things you can do in Cardiff’, I would have been more than happy to still make the trip.

But I didn’t hear anything back.

“We had to book accommodation and things and because no-one had replied, we decided to spend an extra few days in Nottingham instead.

“It was really disappointing.

“We’re huge Doctor Who fans. My husband and I grew up watching it and since it’s been revitalised, our kids love watching it too.

We sit down every Sunday together as a family to watch it, and drop everything for the Christmas special (which usually airs on Boxing Day over here).”

And it seems Tanya is not the only person to feel this way.

Whovians (Doctor Who fans) around the world who have yet to visit the exhibition seem to be in a sense of panic to visit the attraction before it closes.

Earlier this year we spoke to Dutch fan, Jacqueline Lindemulder, who is organising a group booking for 60 people for the Doctor Who Experience next month.

“The idea for the trip started because many Dutch people suddenly realised the Experience is closing down and they haven’t been yet,” she said.

“We will be coming all the way from the Netherlands for one day – sleeping on the bus both there and back – just to visit Cardiff/the Doctor Who Experience.”

A petition to “Save Cardiff’s ‘Doctor Who Experience’ from closure” has more than 12,000 signatures on 38degrees.org.uk

A date for the closure has not yet been revealed.

The BBC has been contacted for comment.