After the announcement that Peter Capaldi was departing Doctor Who in January, media pundits and newspapers spent months trying to discover the identity of the next Time Lord, to no avail.

But now, of course, we know the new face in the Tardis will be first female Doctor Jodie Whittaker – and the Broadchurch and Trust Me star has finally opened up on the pressure of keeping her Who identity secret for all those months.

“I didn’t know details but I knew there was going to be an attempt at a really brilliant reveal,” Whittaker told Christine Bleakley on ITV’s Lorraine.

“I have got super bad paranoia, so I was like, ‘Did I tell you that? Sorry. Was I supposed to tell you that?’ You know that awful thing of ‘Was I supposed to tell you that?’

“Obviously I’ve had five years of Broadchurch to know, ‘OK, I’m not sure if I told you that, but if I did, don’t tell anyone…’ I also had a massive panic about it as I was a bit like ‘I can’t remember what I was told I’m not allowed to say’…”

“There was just this thing of, in July this will happen and if we could get it to be this really amazing moment… and also for me I got to live a pretty anonymous life until then,” she added. “So it was within my benefit to have that reveal happen.”

And so Whittaker embarked on a campaign of secrecy, screening calls from new Doctor Who showrunner Chric Chibnall, telling nobody but her husband (actor Christian Contreras) about the job and even keeping discussion of the part down to whispers in her own home.

“I was just lying left right and centre,” she explained.

“Talking to my agent and [showrunner] Chris Chibnall, obviously we were speaking a lot, I’d get so paranoid if my phone was on the table and his name would ping up and I’d be like ‘Well, people won’t associate it with that as people know we’re friends from Broadchurch.’

“You just become a massive narcissist,” she went on. “Like, ‘Everything’s about me… everyone is looking at me all the time.

“I think I was incredibly melodramatic the whole time. I talked like this [in a whisper] in my flat for months.”

Still, in the end the secrets paid off, and fans were truly surprised when Whittaker appeared as the next Doctor under that hood. Probably worth the odd missed call and scratchy throat, right?

Incoming Doctor Who star Jodie Whittaker has been speaking about her hopes for the BBC sci-fi series, with the actress apparently keeping her fingers crossed that her casting as the first female Doctor will attract a new audience to the show.

“It’s got a huge audience, and a huge fanbase, and a loyal, wonderful fanbase,” Whittaker told Christine Bleakley on ITV’s Lorraine.

“But you know, maybe this will open it up to maybe some new young faces who haven’t necessarily been introduced to it yet.

“Cos what you forget is, we’re so lucky – if I’m the Thirteenth [Doctor] there’s so much to watch and catch up on, that it doesn’t matter what age you come into it. You’ve got this wealth of amazing television to watch.”

And that legacy is something that Whittaker clearly takes very seriously, recounting once again how she cried when she got the role and generally emphasising her emotional connection to the series.

“You can’t get a job like this and not get knocked sideways by it. You should be!”

Doctor Who returns to BBC1 this Christmas

Jodie Whittaker reveals how she feels about becoming the 13th Time Lord in Doctor Who.  She is currently starring as a different kind of doctor in the new television drama Trust Me.

Jodie Whittaker says she didn’t see people’s reactions to her becoming the first female Doctor Who, because she’s not on social media.

Speaking to BBC 6 Music in her first broadcast interview since her casting was revealed, she said: “This will be a blessing and a curse.

https://www.facebook.com/DoctorWho/videos/1656225844401619/

“I’ve missed a lot of the fun stuff and probably the bad stuff.”

The Broadchurch star also praised fans of the sci-fi series as “the most amazing, creative people”.

And she said she had spoken to the actors who have previously played The Doctor – although she didn’t ask for advice.”The overwhelming sense was this is such an exciting journey,” she said.

“It’s to be enjoyed. There’s no advice you can do – no person plays this part the same. What a freeing thing it is.”

The reaction to Whittaker’s casting was mostly positive – but a sizeable minority protested that the Doctor shouldn’t be played by a woman.

The actress said she managed to avoid most of the commentary.

“I’m not on any type of social media,” she told Shaun Keaveny. “The only time I see anything is if mates screen grab and send something to me.”

She said she had seen “an amazing video” of a young girl’s reaction, as she watched the trailer revealing the Doctor’s new identity.

Whittaker also admitted the role “was not in the realm of possibility” when she was growing up and that getting the part was “incredibly emotional”.

The 35-year-old, who’s previously starred in Broadchurch, said that when she found out her audition had been successful: “I didn’t faint – I played it really cool and cried.”

She added she was looking forward to the “freedoms and fun” and the “scale of the storylines” – especially as she is going to be working with Broadchurch creator Chris Chibnall, who is the new Doctor Who showrunner.

“I already know Chris – I already know how incredible he is. The direction he’s going to take it is going to be amazing. I get excited by it,” she said.

“I don’t even know what the journey is. Every script I read will be brand new. This certainly is very different.”

Whittaker is to be seen in new BBC One series Trust Me, which starts on 8 August.

She stars as Cath Hardacre, a nurse who loses her job after she turns whistle-blower – and then steals her friend’s identity as a senior doctor in an Edinburgh hospital.

The internet has made a lot of noise since the casting of Jodie Whittaker in Doctor Who. The first female custodian of the Tardis gets her hands on the keys this Christmas and has said that she is hoping to get some “calls of advice” from previous owners.

David Tennant has already praised Doctor Who’s new “strong female lead” but one Doctor who has stayed schtum on the topic is Christopher Eccleston… until now.

Appearing on Radio 4 show Loose Ends, the actor was asked by stand-in presenter Sara Cox what he thought of the new Doctor.

“She’s working class, she’s northern, what can go wrong?” said the Lancashire-born actor.

Of course, Eccleston is well acquainted with Whittaker; the two starred together in National Theatre production Antigone back in 2012.

The 53-year-old played the ninth Doctor for one series in 2005, and was the first to appear in BBC1’s revamped show under the stewardship of Russell T. Davies.

Whittaker’s casting was announced last month, after the men’s Wimbledon final, with her Thirteenth Doctor due to make her first appearance in this year’s Christmas special.

Steven Moffat has revealed how the upcoming Doctor Who Christmas special almost didn’t happen, due to the changing hands between writers.

The upcoming special titled Twice Upon A Time is set to be Peter Capaldi’s last outing as the Doctor, with writer Steven Moffat also bowing out from the show and being replaced by Broadchurch’s Chris Chibnall.

Speaking to Digital Spy however, Moffat revealed how this year’s festive episode almost didn’t materialise because Chibnall wanted to start series 11 in January rather than take the reins at Christmas.

‘There was one big glitch, which was Christmas,’ Moffat said. ‘I was going to leave at the end of series 10 – I had my finale planned and what I wanted to do with it. I had a good notion of that.

‘Then I learned at a drinks event that Chris didn’t want to start with a Christmas, so at that point they were going to skip Christmas. There’d be no Christmas special and we would’ve lost that slot.’

He was worried missing the festive special this year would result in Doctor Who losing the annual Christmas slot altogether, and revealed how it took Capaldi some convincing to remain on board for a few more months.

‘Doctor Who would’ve lost that slot if we hadn’t [done a special] because Christmas Day is so rammed,’ Moffat added.

‘So I said, probably four glasses of red wine in, “I’ll do Christmas!” and then had to persuade Peter [Capaldi] that’s how we were leaving.

‘Then I had to work out how you could get mortally injured in one episode and spend an hour regenerating on Christmas Day, which I hopefully have done!’

Capaldi has also recently teased how his regeneration will be ‘emotional’ when he appears alongside David Bradley’s First Doctor.

If you’re eagerly anticipating Jodie Whittaker’s turn as the Doctor, you may have a long wait, with Steven Moffat recently teasing a release date of autumn 2018.

Former Doctor Who companion Freema Agyeman has revealed that she’d be open to returning to the BBC sci-fi series, with the TV and theatre actress saying that she felt there was “more to explore” with her character Martha Jones (who last appeared in the series in 2010, after first starring in 2007).

“I had a really great time on the show, I really loved the character, it brings so many people so much joy,” Agyeman told RadioTimes.com. “So never say never! I feel like there was more to explore with Martha, definitely, but I don’t know what form that would take.”

“I know I kept doing audiobooks until after I’d even left the show. So I don’t know – it could be case of maybe one day, maybe one day soon, maybe one day in 30 years time. We will wait and see.”

Martha fans should probably keep their eyes (and ears) peeled for future audio and televisual projects, then – though of course, viewers recently got to see Agyeman back in the main series anyway, with the actress cropping up in a montage of previous companions (below) during a scene late in series 10 finale The Doctor Falls.

It was, however, an appearance that Agyeman herself was unaware of until the story aired…

“I didn’t even know about that!” she told us. “It was only on Twitter that I saw all of this stuff, and I thought ‘Oh gosh, what’s that all about?’

“That’s the world of Who, isn’t it? It’s kind of incredible how 10 years down the line, people do still want to talk to you about it, and those connections will never go.

“It’s such a gift really, to be part of something that is such a happy show. You know, and all the opportunities that it affords you later on. That association is not one that I ever feel I want to disassociate myself from.”

Elsewhere, one companion comeback that fans CAN soon be sure of is a final return for Pearl Mackie (below). Her character Bill was recently revealed to be joining current Doctor Peter Capaldi’s final episode this December after seeming to exit in the series 10 finale – and Agyeman says she’s looking forward to chatting with Mackie once her time in the series is up.

“I sent her a tweet, but I haven’t met her, I haven’t spoken to her,” she explained. “But at this recent con I met up with David [Tennant] again, I hadn’t seen him for years, and Alex Kingston was there too, who I do see more regularly – whenever I’m in LA I catch up with her there.

“So I will probably eventually bump into everybody from the Whoniverse at some point at these events, and then really get the chance to speak to her and find out her experiences. But you know sometimes as well you want to let people get on with it as well.

“Everyone’s experience is totally unique, and that’s when I stepped into it – you know, you can ask other people, you can arrange to sit down and ask ‘What can I expect as a companion, what should I look out for, what should I prepare for?’ But it doesn’t really work like that.

“I think the strength of the show is change – it’s what’s given it longevity and people are hired to give it a new flavour and a new energy.”

For now, Agyeman is making her West End debut in Apologia, a play written by Alexi Kaye Campbell and directed by Jamie Lloyd which also stars The West Wing and Grease star Stockard Channing and Downton Abbey’s Laura Carmichael.

“I am absolutely overjoyed to be joining the cast of Apologia. It’s right up my street and had me roaring with laughter!” she said.

“It’s fun. It’s clever. It’s deeply insightful. And I feel I couldn’t be in safer, more experienced hands for my theatre debut than those of Alexi Kaye Campbell and Jamie Lloyd. Or in better company than the inimitable Stockard Channing.

“So I would say if you’re up for a night of laughs, it’s incredibly funny, it’s incredibly dark – when I read it I was crying, laughing, ruminating, pondering, so it’s highly entertaining, but it will have you talking about it all the way home in the taxi or on the tube. So I would recommend it on all of those levels.”

APOLOGIA is currently showing at Trafalgar Studios until the 18^th November 2017.

Jodie Whittaker will be appearing on the Shaun Keaveny programme on BBC6 Music this Monday 7th August 2017.  She is due to join the programme after 9am to chat about her new BBC drama Trust Me.

Jodie plays a nurse pretending to be an experienced A&E doctor and it’s incredibly tense! It also raises a lot of questions about who can you trust? Shaun Keaveny  says,  “An actual listener to this programme and friend of the show, we’re looking forward to chatting with Jodie after 9am”.

You can listen live or via BBCi Player here