Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that can help answer the question.
Query: What actor currently plays Doctor Who?
The incumbent is Jodie Whittaker, who succeeded Peter Capaldi in the role at the conclusion of the 2017 Christmas special.[1]
Big Finish have also produced a limited series, titled "Doctor Who Unbound", which explores possibilities contrary to the established mythos (for instance, "What if the Doctor had never left Gallifrey?"). The format of the "Unbound" series allows well-known actors such as Derek Jacobi and David Warner to play alternative versions of the Doctor. Bernice Summerfield, the Doctor's companion from the Virgin New Adventures novels, also features in her own series of audio plays; the character is voiced by Lisa Bowerman.
Doctor Who: Destiny of the Doctor is a series of audiobooks produced by Big Finish Productions for AudioGo. They were released monthly through the first eleven months of 2013 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of British television series "Doctor Who". The series – composed of eleven separate releases, one for each incarnation of the Doctor – is performed in the third-person by an actor associated with each era of the show, with additional dialogue provided by a guest actor, in a similar vein to Big Finish's own "The Companion Chronicles" series. The series is notable for being the first time Big Finish was allowed to directly feature current era (2005 onwards) characters, due to the collaboration with AudioGo.
In 1983, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the BBC science fiction television series "Doctor Who", producer John Nathan-Turner planned a special event, "The Five Doctors", a 90-minute episode to feature four of the five actors who had at that point played the role of the Doctor. William Hartnell, the actor who originated the role, had died in 1975. Hurndall eventually won the role of the First Doctor, playing him as acerbic and temperamental but in some ways wiser than his successors. His casting in the role was approved by Hartnell's widow, Heather. When Tom Baker, who played the Fourth Doctor, declined to appear in the programme, Hurndall's role was expanded slightly to have the First Doctor take a greater part in the action.
Since the beginning of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who in 1963, many actors have played the title character of The Doctor on television and in various BBC-licensed spin-offs on television, stage, radio, film, audio plays and webcasts. The character's ability to periodically regenerate his appearance and personality has facilitated the ability of new actors to take over the role – in both official and unofficial productions – while in most cases maintaining continuity with the television series.
The "Doctor Who – Main Range" is a series of full-cast audiobook adventures based on the British science fiction television programme "Doctor Who", produced by Nicholas Briggs and Big Finish Productions and starring one of the original actors to play The Doctor on television in the classic era of the programme. The main audio series currently feature the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Doctors, and have since developed the pattern of thirteen releases per year, one every month with two in September or December.
The young Gareth Jenkins in this broadcast is not the same Gareth Jenkins who currently works as a composer, audio engineer, and actor for "Doctor Who" audio play producers Big Finish, but is in fact the current Head of Campaigns for children's charity Save the Children.
More visibly, many Australians – or Britons with some connection to Australia – have appeared on-screen in "Doctor Who". The 1963 serial "The Daleks" featured several Australian actors: John Lee played Alydon, while Robert Jewell and Kevin Manser made their first contributions as Dalek operators, roles they revisited numerous times throughout the 1960s. Ilona Rodgers played Carol in the 1964 serial "The Sensorites" - Rodgers relocated to Australia in the late-1970s, then to New Zealand in the mid-1980s. Australian actor Ray Barrett played Bennett/Koquillion in the 1965 serial "The Rescue". Australian actor David Nettheim and the South African-born Australian actor Bill Kerr both portrayed Australian characters in the 1967 serial "The Enemy of the World". New Zealand-born actress Louise Pajo played Gia Kelly in the 1969 serial "The Seeds of Death" - Pajo completed her training in the UK before relocating to Australia during the 1970s. Katy Manning played companion Jo Grant 1971–73 and later lived in Australia for many years, becoming an Australian citizen and the patron of the Doctor Who Club of Australia. Australian actor Kevin Lindsay played Cho-Je in "Planet of the Spiders", as well as various Sontarans in both "The Time Warrior" and "The Sontaran Experiment". Australian actress Janet Fielding played companion Tegan 1981–84, while Fielding's contemporary Mark Strickson played companion Turlough 1983–84 - Strickson lived in Australia for many years before settling in New Zealand. British actress Liza Goddard played Kari in the 1983 serial "Terminus" - Goddard moved to Australia with her family in 1965 after her father's appointment as the ABC's Head of Drama and later starred in the first two seasons of "Skippy the Bush Kangaroo", before returning to the UK in 1969. Australian singer and actress Kylie Minogue played Astrid Peth in the 2007 Christmas special "Voyage of the Damned" and Australian actor Peter O'Brien played Ed Gold in the 2009 special "The Waters of Mars".
Australia itself has also featured in "Doctor Who" more than once, though without ever having been filmed or produced locally. The Second Doctor 1967–68 serial "The Enemy of the World" was set on and near an unnamed Australian beach in 2018 and featured a cast of characters who were supposed to be Australian, though virtually all were played by British actors. As well, in the Fifth Doctor 1982 serial "Four to Doomsday", the main villain, Monarch, was said to have visited Earth in the distant past, gathering 'samples' of the local people as he went; included in his collection was an Aboriginal tribal elder and his tribesmen, following Monarch's visit to the Australian continent.
A scene from the first episode of Series 10, "The Pilot" (premiered in Australia on April 16, 2017) was shot near Circular Quay, Sydney; the first "Doctor Who" scene shot in Australia.
He appeared in "Doctor Who" with a guest appearance as Organon in "The Creature from the Pit" (1979) opposite Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor. Subsequently, he played an alternative First Doctor in two audio plays based on the "Doctor Who" television series by Big Finish Productions in the "Doctor Who Unbound" series: "Auld Mortality" (2003) and "A Storm of Angels" (2005). In 1963, Bayldon had been one of the first actors offered the role of the Doctor.
In 2017, in the final episode of the tenth series of "Doctor Who", "The Doctor Falls", Bradley returned to portray the First Doctor, having previously been portrayed by Hartnell, who originally played the character. He reprised this role in the 2017 Christmas special, "Twice Upon a Time". This makes him the third actor to play the role in the television programme, after William Hartnell and Richard Hurndall since the premiere of "Doctor Who" in 1963, and at the age of 75, he is the also the oldest actor to play the role of the Doctor.
On Christmas Day 2012, former Fifth Doctor actor Peter Davison watches "The Snowmen" with his children. They remark on the upcoming 50th anniversary special and speculate as to whether Davison will be invited to return or if it will simply feature the most recent two Doctors, David Tennant and Matt Smith. Davison has a dream where he is invited back and given special treatment, ending with a vision of Janet Fielding telling him that none of the old Doctors will be asked to return. Over the next couple of months, he, Sixth Doctor actor Colin Baker and Seventh Doctor actor Sylvester McCoy desperately await a call inviting them to star in the special. A disillusioned Davison attends a convention, where he is unrecognised by the hotel receptionist and asked by fans if he has heard about appearing in the episode. He calls current "Doctor Who" executive producer Steven Moffat, who is more interested in playing with his action figures and deletes his messages from Davison, as well as Baker and McCoy who have also called about appearing (McCoy mentions appearing in "The Hobbit" and Baker mentions doing "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!").
The "Doctor Who" Prom showcased the work of Murray Gold, who has composed the incidental music for "Doctor Who" since its return in 2005. Other classical pieces were also played. The concert was conducted by Ben Foster and Stephen Bell, and performed by the BBC Philharmonic. It was presented by actress Freema Agyeman, who played companion Martha Jones on "Doctor Who". Other "Doctor Who" actors and performers dressed as "Doctor Who" monsters also made appearances on stage and in the audience. The concert included video montages of scenes from "Doctor Who" and a specially filmed "mini-episode" of "Doctor Who" called "Music of the Spheres", which was presented on a screen above the orchestra and included live interactive elements.
On rare occasions, other actors have stood in for the lead. In "The Five Doctors", Richard Hurndall played the First Doctor due to William Hartnell's death in 1975; 34 years later David Bradley similarly replaced Hartnell in "Twice Upon a Time". In "Time and the Rani", Sylvester McCoy briefly played the Sixth Doctor during the regeneration sequence, carrying on as the Seventh. For more information, see the list of actors who have played the Doctor. In other media, the Doctor has been played by various other actors, including Peter Cushing in two films.
Originally, the part of the Doctor was to be played by Jon Pertwee, but the role went instead to character actor Trevor Martin. Martin had previously appeared in "Doctor Who" as a Time Lord in the 1969 serial, "The War Games". In the play, it is stated that Martin's version of the Doctor is regenerated from Pertwee's; this makes him an alternate version of the Fourth Doctor. (The play premiered about two weeks before Tom Baker began his television tenure as the Fourth Doctor).
Thirteen actors have headlined the series as the Doctor. The transition from one actor to another is written into the plot of the show with the concept of regeneration into a new incarnation, a plot device in which a Time Lord "transforms" into a new body when the current one is too badly harmed to heal normally. Each actor's portrayal is unique, but all represent stages in the life of the same character. Together, they form a single lifetime with a single narrative. The time-travelling feature of the plot means that different incarnations of the Doctor occasionally meet. The Doctor is currently portrayed by Jodie Whittaker, who took on the role after Peter Capaldi's exit in the 2017 Christmas special "Twice Upon a Time".
In October 2015, Big Finish Productions announced that Tennant would return to the role of the Tenth Doctor alongside Catherine Tate as his former companion Donna Noble in three new stories from Big Finish. The stories feature current and previous Doctor Who actors, including Strax actor Dan Starkey, former Davros actor Terry Molloy, and many veterans of Big Finish, including Niky Wardley, who portrayed Eighth Doctor companion Tamsin. The three stories were released in May 2016.
The series' two main voice actors each previously played major roles in Doctor Who: Sophie Aldred (who voices the animated Tom) as Seventh Doctor companion Ace and David Tennant (who voices Twigs) as the Tenth Doctor. The actor who plays Tom in the live action opening and closing sections of the show, Adam Henderson, is Sophie Aldred's son.
The Master is the Doctor's archenemy, a renegade Time Lord who desires to rule the universe. Conceived as "Professor Moriarty to the Doctor's Sherlock Holmes", the character first appeared in 1971. As with the Doctor, the role has been portrayed by several actors, since the Master is a Time Lord as well and able to regenerate; the first of these actors was Roger Delgado, who continued in the role until his death in 1973. The Master was briefly played by Peter Pratt and Geoffrey Beevers until Anthony Ainley took over and continued to play the character until Doctor Who's hiatus in 1989. The Master returned in the 1996 television movie of "Doctor Who", and was played by American actor Eric Roberts.
Doctor Who Unbound is a series of audio plays produced by Big Finish Productions. Free from the constraints of continuity, the "Doctor Who Unbound" audios present a series of "What if...?" scenarios, and cast new actors in the role of the Doctor.
Russell T Davies has expressed a dislike for stories in which multiple incarnations of the Doctor meet, stating that he believes they focus more on the actors than on the story itself.[57] In 2007, David Tennant showed enthusiasm for the idea of a multi-Doctor story, but expressed doubts about the practicality of episodes involving multiple previous Doctors, given that three of the actors who played the character were deceased.[58]
List of actors considered for the part of the Doctor Doctor Who spoofs The "Morbius Doctors"
Hines' "Doctor Who" debut came in 1966, when he was cast to play the part of Jamie McCrimmon, the companion of the Second Doctor (played by Patrick Troughton). Originally intended as a one-off guest character, Jamie joined the regular cast and appeared in the series from 1966 to 1969. Hines reprised the role in a cameo in the 20th anniversary serial "The Five Doctors" (1983) and as a guest star in "The Two Doctors" (1985). Hines would appear in 117 episodes of "Doctor Who" in all—more than any other "companion" actor in the history of the series. The only actors appearing in more episodes are those who played the first four Doctors. Many of the episodes featuring Jamie no longer exist in the BBC's collection.
The audiobook was read by Georgia Moffett, who is the daughter of Fifth Doctor actor, Peter Davison, wife of David Tennant who played the Tenth Doctor and who also played his daughter Jenny in "The Doctor's Daughter".
"Doctor Who" has appeared on stage numerous times. In the early 1970s, Trevor Martin played the role in "Doctor Who and the Daleks in the Seven Keys to Doomsday". In the late 1980s, Jon Pertwee and Colin Baker both played the Doctor at different times during the run of a play titled "Doctor Who – The Ultimate Adventure". For two performances, while Pertwee was ill, David Banks (better known for playing Cybermen) played the Doctor. Other original plays have been staged as amateur productions, with other actors playing the Doctor, while Terry Nation wrote "The Curse of the Daleks", a stage play mounted in the late 1960s, but without the Doctor.
Geoffrey Bayldon told "Doctor Who Magazine" that he had declined the role. He would later play an alternative version of the Doctor in two plays for the "Doctor Who Unbound" series of audio plays by Big Finish Productions: "Auld Mortality" (2003) and "A Storm of Angels" (2005). Furthermore, he played Organon in the Fourth Doctor serial "The Creature from the Pit" (1979).