The Light Cinema, Sheffield, 24 September 2018

As Jodie Whittaker’s debut season as the Doctor finally feels within our grasp, Sheffield city centre paid host to the series launch, with hundreds of fans lining the red carpet and a luckier smaller group of ‘people of influence’ getting the chance to finally see the premiere episode and listen to the cast talk about their journey so far. Nick Joy was among the 170 journalists and class of schoolchildren (insert your own joke here about which group was better behaved, had higher IQ, etc) and reports in full from the venue, with just a couple of redactions to avoid spoilers.

The people of Cardiff barely bat an eyelid if they spot the TARDIS on their shopping precinct, so omnipresent has the Time Lord’s Police Box been on their streets for the last 14 years. But it’s more of a novelty for Sheffield shoppers, who found the TARDIS surrounded by barriers and a huge crowd of fans in the Moor shopping area. It’s not quite the multi-continent World Tour that marked Peter Capaldi’s series launch, but it was still the hottest ticket around, the South Yorkshire former home of steel being chosen because of its relevance to the new series. In one of the few bits of information we know about the show, we know that Jodie’s Doctor falls to Earth in this city, though how recurring that location will be is yet to be seen.

After a screening of The Woman Who Fell to Earth (click here to read our spoiler-free review), BBC Breakfast’s Steph McGovern led an on-stage Q and A with series writer Chris Chibnall and stars Jodie Whittaker (the Doctor), Tosin Cole (Ryan), Bradley Walsh (Graham) and Mandip Gill (Yaz).

That had so many elements to it. Watching it now, does it feel like it contains everything you pitched as you started out as the show runner?

Chris Chibnall: It exceeds what I thought we could achieve and that’s because of a lot of people in this room. You never know when you’re writing if you’re going to be  getting brilliant people, and we did, and I’m so thrilled to introduce them to people. And it’s only the start of the journey so you’ll watch them develop as they go along. Also thanks to the producers, [director] Jamie Child’s, who’s a genius I think, [composer] Segun Akinola… everyone on the team.

I can see a bit of emotion in your eyes.

Chris: I first watched it (Doctor Who) when I was four, so to sit here and see that, and to hear that theme tune coming out at the end in surround sound… yeah, it’s very emotional.

Jodie, for you there’s been so much hype about you being the Doctor. How does it feel now?

Jodie Whittaker: I think that sitting and watching it on a big screen you’ve got to embrace this celebration of all this hard work that’s gone into this. Often when we’re on set, shooting out of sequence, we’re not necessarily looking at what’s on screen. It’s extraordinary, from our first day of shooting shoot – right in at the deep end for all us – to see this, to hear it, to watch it with Chris and everyone… it’s really emotional. There’s no getting away from it… we are the next season of Doctor Who!

Does it feel real now?

Jodie: Yeah, it’s brilliant. I think the first day of shooting when you complete your first take you think ‘yeah, I can do it.’ When everyone else is hard working and the efforts of the cast and crew pull together… there’s so many bits you don’t know about. When you’re watching it… it’s amazing.

Bradley and Tosin, this is the first time that you’ve seen the episode isn’t it? How did it feel?

Bradley Walsh: I was amazed actually. I was amazed. Everyone said how fantastic it was and I decided to leave it and not see anything until today. My background on Doctor Who is watching William Hartnell and Pat Troughton. As soon as it got to colour I stopped watching it. And the reason is I was too busy playing football. Every Saturday I was playing, you see, and so tonight that’s the first whole episode I’ve watched since around 1971. Whenever Pat Troughton finished, that was it. And that’s fantastic. I’m thrilled with it. I really am. All those hard nights out in Sheffield with Jodie – it was really brilliant – I’m blown away by it. I didn’t imagine it was going to be like that. I didn’t know what to imagine

Will we keep you as a regular viewer for the rest of the season then?

Bradley: I will tune in. I definitely will.

Tosin, you hadn’t seen it. How did it feel watching it now?

Tosin Cole: It’s good, isn’t it. Proper good. I’m really chuffed and excited.

Mandip, how was it for you joining the Doctor Who family?

Mandip Gill: It’s been absolutely amazing. I’ve had a great time. I’ve had such a laugh and happen to get paid for it too, so that’s a win!

Is it like this on set? Cos just from meeting you today and then watching you lobbing popcorn at each other…

Jodie: We’re not lobbing popcorn, we’re having popcorn lobbed at us by Brad!

Is that what it’s been like filming it?

Bradley: Unfortunately I’m a 14-year-old kid trapped in a 58-year-old man’s body. That’s the problem. I just find it all a bit funny and surreal. Thank god the second series is going to be made in Epping.

Chris, watching it, it was full of humour. Being a Northern girl it felt very Northern. The mentions of Sheffield and the steel industry, was that important to you?

Chris: Yes, a sense of place was really important. That’s why we came to Sheffield to show you the episode, obviously. We wanted to screen it here, we brought some local kids in, it feels really important to connect Doctor Who to Sheffield. You’ll see it again during the series. With any new Doctor you want to ground it in home and Sheffield is the home for this series of Doctor Who. I’d lived in the city for a year, I knew how cinematic it was, and how awesome the people were too. A load of Sheffield characters felt really fantastic for me. Someone like the character that Jonny plays, Carl, it just gives you a different humour and people saying it as it is.

Jodie, I really enjoyed your Doctor, who is dead bright as well as everything else. How did you decide how you wanted to make the Doctor?

Jodie: It’s kind of easier than it sounds because it’s all in the writing. All those wonderful layers and characterisations are given to you on a plate in the writing and because [Chris and I] know each other, from the audition could sense the direction I was going in, and that then lent itself to this episode. I think for me it was just the fact that there were no rules with it. You’re not limited to a time period, an etiquette or anything. You can play it how you want and it was fun and playful and Jamie the director gave me loads of space. It’s hard when you’ve got a lot of coverage to get, and I move a lot and wanted to continually fizz around. I was given that time and coverage and it meant that it was easier for me.

On that sense of fizzing around a lot, you don’t half move around a lot. Were you knackered by the end of filming?

Jodie: I was alright. Tosin gets tired.

Tosin: Catnaps all the time, man.

Do you genuinely have catnaps, Tosin?

Jodie: He’s a growing lad. It was every lunchtime.

Tosin: Every lunchtime.

Jodie: We genuinely find each other funny, and thank god we don’t find Brad annoying… it would have been a long nine months!

Would you like to respond to that?

Bradley: Yeah, I’d like to sing a song from my latest album – Doctor Who: The Glory Years, coming out this Christmas! We have a laugh. It’s great. It’s a gruelling schedule. It’s not an easy schedule and having seen this episode just now, pardon the pun, but that’s just an introductory episode, the rest really does take off as well. It’s extraordinary. I think you’re going to be blown away by it. I really do.

Mandip, I know that you particularly found running interesting when you were filming this?

Mandip: Well, I thought I was OK until I went back to do ADR [re-dubbing] and noticed that my legs were chafing together. I’d eaten way too many marshmallows in South Africa and put on a couple of pounds. So the next time it came to a run I made sure my thighs were apart. They look really good though!

Jodie: I think that if there was an award for the best run, Brad would win. Like he’s waiting to save a goal. You’re amazed that his body is taking him forward because it looks like he should be crabbing to the side. But we do love you and think you’re phenomenal!

Chris, how did you keep them all under control?

Chris: Well, that’s not really my job. That’s why you need lots of producers and directors. I knew already that Jodie is a great ensemble member but also she is a great leader and she sets the tone. People can have a laugh and an amazing time, but they also do brilliant work. When the cameras roll, the work is serious, everybody’s really prepared. Also, it was really important for all of us coming in, because there’s new guest actors every week, it’s got to be a place where actors come and do amazing things they’re never going to do anywhere else on television or probably half the time on film. You guys have made such strong friendships with some of the guest casts coming up across the year.

There’s obviously a lot of post-production as well, you do a fantastic job of acting with the monsters and the like, but how as actors do you manage to act when you don’t know what’s there?

Mandip: You hope for the best? No, you always hope that the director will go ‘No, don’t do that. That’s way too big. Stop that.’ But there was a time I didn’t know what I was acting to. There’s one of the monsters, which obviously I can’t talk about, where we all had different perceptions of what it was. I thought it was a toilet roll, and then they showed me a picture and I went ‘Yeah, that’s not what I thought.’

Tosin: When you’re reacting to things that aren’t there, it’s like… I dunno…

Bradley: That was concise. Thank you!

Tosin: You’re not trying to be too big and you’re not trying to be too small, and then you get confused and start being self-conscious. I might look at someone else and start adjusting what I’m doing because of what they’re doing.

Jodie: The main concern often is the eye-line. You need a lot of guidance of where the eye-line is. There have been amazing moments where I’ve been at the front of the pack looking one way and Mandip is looking in a completely different direction. We’ve got someone with a tennis ball and we’re meant to be looking at him.

Jodie, you have a fair few people dressing up like you now. What’s that like?

Jodie: It’s amazing. To have people of all ages, different genders, wearing your costume and looking cool, it’s amazing. When we went to San Diego for Comic-Con it was very emotional because we were being embraced by the Whovian family and they hadn’t even seen it, still haven’t seen it, and that kind of support before you’ve been able to share your work, it’s wonderful.

Bradley: It’s nice to see 14-year-old kids dressed up like a 58-year-old geography teacher.

You don’t look as old (in real-life) as you do on the show.

Bradley: That’s very kind, Steph.

Did you have to get ‘aged up’, as it were?

Bradley: I had to wear a wig, because fortunately, despite my age, I’m not too grey. I needed to be much much greyer and rather than colour my hair, because of another job I do, I had to have a wig made. I’ve never worn a wig before and I quite liked it. I’m now having one made for weekends. Blonde!

And curly and long?

Bradley: Absolutely. I liked the transformation. It was good.

Chris, there’s a lot of fans who haven’t seen this first episode yet. What do you think is the key to keeping them onboard and bringing even more fans to the Doctor Who party?

Chris: I hope it demonstrates everything that you’ve come to love about Doctor Who. There’s fun, there’s monsters, there’s action-adventure, there’s characters and an amazing new Doctor. So, I think really turning up every Sunday night for a new adventure is a big thing. These guys go on big emotional journeys across the series.

Where did you come up with your ideas for this series?

Chris: I do remember thinking ‘Ooh yes. Can we do that? Are we allowed to do that?’ Often in conversations, myself and Sam co-write the storylines, so it’s conversations like that where it comes out. And just wandering around late at night going ‘We could put that in Doctor Who. That would be good.’

Mandip, have you noticed a change in your life? You’ve done Hollyoaks before and other acting jobs, but are you getting recognised? I know this series isn’t out yet.

Mandip: Absolutely not. Actually there was a lady the other day reading the Doctor Who Magazine next to me. She’d offered me a chocolate and said ‘I love Doctor Who.’ I thought she’d obviously recognised me. But she hadn’t, so I read the whole article over her shoulder and then went and bought it. I’ve had one picture and then nothing. I’m waiting for it.

What was the reaction from your family and friends when you said you were doing it?

Mandip: They just don’t care really. No, not that they don’t care, just that they’re so unphased. My mum put 60 copies of The Sun out and never said ‘You’re on the front of it.’ It was my sister. She said ‘I’ve just been in the petrol station and you’re on the front cover.’ Mum had just counted out 60 copies – she didn’t care!

Tosin, what’s it been like for you with your family and friends?

Tosin: They don’t even know what’s going on, you know. My dad thinks I’m in Star Trek for some reason. They’ll see it on October 7th.

Bradley, you’ve had so many different careers. You’ve mentioned football, you nearly threw us a song there, how does this compare?

Bradley: My favourite job of all time was when I was a jet engineer in a factory and just sitting there at my bench bored out of my brains all day. That was my favourite job… How does it compare? It doesn’t. It’s an iconic show, it’s a global phenomenon. Everyone knows Doctor Who. It’s an extraordinary thing to be in and I’m very proud and privileged to be a part of it. Not just the fact that it’s going in a new direction and looks sensational, we’ve got people like Jamie Childs wanting to come and direct it. Because Chibnall, my old boss from Law and Order [UK] wanted me to be in it and so consequently I feel very proud A) to have been asked, B) to have been assembled alongside Jodie, Tosin and Mandip – we’ve become pals through this. I actively now can’t wait to see the rest of the series. My wife’s sitting up there, Donna, and at the end of the episode she said ‘That was great.’ And Donna doesn’t watch telly. When we went home after having a bit of of lunch with Chris and [Matt] Strev[ens] my son said ‘Dad, you’ve got to do that. You’ve got to do it.’ There’s not many people in here now who remember Bill Hartnell and Pat Troughton. Maybe there’s a couple of older people in here – wake them up! The black and white days, the glory days of when it was really horrific for a young kid to watch it. To be part of that now, 40-odd years later I think for me is a bit mind-blowing. I’m thrilled to be in it. I really am.

Chris, what do the audience have to look forward to in the rest of the series, without giving anything away?

Chris: Erm. Err. I’m not going to say anything about Episode 2. A lot more action and adventure, alien planets, loads of monsters, historical periods. I don’t want to [say any more]… the feeling off not knowing [what’s going to happen] makes it feel special. I really feel that. I felt that watching Bodyguard, I felt that when Broadchurch went out. It’s really important. What we’ve tried to do is show the range of what Doctor Who can do – visually, emotionally, geographically in time and space, the whole range of everything.

But is Sheffield its core?

Chris: Well, they lived in Sheffield until the end of that episode and so at some point you would hope they would see their way back.

Nick Joy, Sci-Fi Bulletin: Jodie, a lot of this episode was about the Doctor finding herself again. How was it for you as an actor finding the role, or was finding the end point the easy bit and then you had to work it back?

Jodie: I think the thing that’s really helpful about Episode One is being in Peter [Capaldi]’s costume [for a proportion of the episode] and feeling that I was literally in someone else shoes. So I felt as if I was continually trying to discover things and I suppose settle in. I really love the euphoria of the scene where the Doctor finds what she wants to wear because it does feel for me from that moment that the electricity is on, connected back, but for me personally I felt like I could get in it, and it becomes easier with time anyway. I think the brilliant thing is you can be quite method about that because I am actually trying to discover things about it throughout, so the brilliant dialogue about things not matting together… [Phone alarm goes off in audience] That’s your alarm. Just in case you slept through it. ‘Wake up for the Q and A’… I feel that it was a really helpful episode for an actor playing a brand new role.

Did you get any advice from any of the other actors?

Jodie: They found out the weekend that the reveal was happening. The reveal was on the Sunday and they found out on the Saturday or the Friday. And it was such a whirlwind. I had wonderful conversations with Peter [Capaldi], Matt [Smith] and David [Tennant]. I can’t quite remember them because I was so hyper and anxious, but what I do remember David saying that you can’t really describe what it’s like. And actually I’d never try to give advice on this, except the things they said like it’s going to go so quick, it’s a journey like no other and you’re going to love it. And I can’t believe we are watching that, because it feels like yesterday we were filming that. And just to try and be present and enjoy it. It’s hard, and it should be hard. It’s quite a schedule when you’re doing it, but you know that it’s worth it. It’s great.

You filmed some of your scenes in South Africa, and I believe we’ve seen some of these in the trailer. I’m sure you can’t go into detail about exactly what they represent, but I wonder in general terms why you chose to set the location there, and what your experience was of filming in South Africa.

Chris: We went there because we wanted scale. We’ve got quite a lot of scale in Sheffield to be honest, but we got a different type of scale in South Africa. Different types of landscapes. A couple of different worlds that we’ve done in South Africa. Variety really. It looks stunning and was amazing.

Jodie: It was January and it was boiling. Everywhere else was freezing and we’d been freezing filming that [first episode] so it was incredible for us. The crew over there were extraordinary. We were so well looked after and we were filming in locations that as tourists I don’t think you’d necessarily get to see. That’s mind blowing in so many ways. The elements, nature and the epic landscape serving the story was great and made our job a lot easier.

Mandip: It was really hot. It was so hot. And the end of that episode you see I wear a leather jacket and so I had to take that leather jacket to South Africa. And it was so hot. But we were also warned by Ray [Holman – costume designer] that if you take it off in that episode you have to keep it off in Cardiff, so I kept it on. We’d all agreed because it was so cold filming that episode that we would not moan when we got to South Africa that it was too hot… and we did!

Tosin: Every day I complained. Why are we here? Why? I’d said ‘I promise I won’t complain.’ I couldn’t comprehend what was going on with my body. I got there in the end. I was out there… flexing.

Graham Walker, The Yorkshire Post and Star in Sheffield: I’ve been watching the show pretty much as long as Brad has, and that’s one of my favourite ever episodes. Jodie, we love the idea that you’ve retained your Yorkshire accent from Scunthorpe. I just wondered whose decision was it for you to keep your Yorkshire accent and what great Yorkshire qualities are you hoping to bring to the role?

Jodie: The Yorkshire Post is not going to like my answer! So, the thing is, I came to the audition, and for things like Broadchurch I knew what accent was required, but for this I had no idea. So, I turned up and said, ‘Chris, you said it was ok for me to use my voice. Did you really mean it?’ And then we did the auditions and throughout the process, which was a very long process, it never felt wrong, but it’s certainly not a Yorkshire character. It’s a body with a voice, and that voice is mine. I think that if I was RP [received pronunciation] or come from London and had chosen to have a Yorkshire accent it would have a real meaning behind it in a way. But it doesn’t in this instance because it’s me. And it’s lovely because a lot of the time when I am working with dialect coaches or doing things, it’s hard to focus. [To Mandip] I think you’re broader than me, but everyone says I’m broader than you, but I’ve got to say my Ts and Ds, that’s a note I get a lot. And when I sit with Mandip at lunchtime I get all ‘yack yack yack’. We just get broader and broader throughout the day. I love working on dialect but with this kind of vocabulary and this amount of lines every evening, I take my hat off to David [Tennant] who transformed his voice as well as doing a phenomenal Doctor.

Pupil from Wales High School in Sheffield: When you said that you were going to have no familiar faces in this series, what’s going to happen to them? Are they going to be shelved or be brought back for a Christmas episode or next series?

Chris: I don’t know. It’s not a rule forever on Doctor Who. It’s just that this year in the series we’ve got new monsters and new faces. As is relatively well known I’m as big a fan of the show as anyone. There’s lots of things you’d like to bring back and we might do that in the future, but just not this year.

Pupil: How long did it take to design and make all the monsters?

Chris: That’s a really good question. There’s a number of people involved in this process. They start off in the script as a description but really then it’s when a company called Millennium who make the prosthetics. They made [redacted] in that [episode], brilliantly. Our [redacted] is created in CG by D-Neg, who are our special effects company. People do drawings of what they think it’s going to look like, Jamie our director had a lot of input into how those things would look. Lots of conversations between lots of people. The make-up department as well. It involves a lot of people being brilliant and a lot of conversations. ‘How scary can we make it?’

Steph: If someone in the room had a monster idea, could they send them to you?

Chris: Erm, I don’t know what the answer is to that actually. I think they should save it and become writers themselves and run the show themselves one day. I met these guys this morning and they’re all totally capable of it.

Simon, ‘a nerd from the West Midlands’: You’ve got some extraordinary ‘can do’ moments in that episode [redacted]. But also the way you’re addressing dyspraxia. When you’re making Doctor Who, how conscious are you that you’re reaching an audience that can feel a little bit disconnected from life? And talking about these issues on screen can be dramatic for them.

Chris: Yeah, very conscious of that, particularly with this show, and that’s one of the reasons we wanted Ryan to have dyspraxia. We did a lot of research into that with the Dyspraxia Foundation. The script team have been working with those guys. It was important, because people live with these things. I have a nephew with dyspraxia,– it’s a relatively common thing among kids. So it’s important to see that heroes come in all shapes and sizes. That’s the most important thing about Doctor Who and you’re going to see that a lot this year.

Tosin: It’s important for people to know that anything is possible. You can overcome anything by just cracking on. That’s my two pence on it.

Jodie, that stunt was great. Do you do all your own stunts?

Jodie: In Episode 1 that’s all me. I’m really proud of that. There are couple of moments in the series where it was deemed not appropriate that I chucked myself out of somewhere. We have a really amazing stunt coordinator and my stunt double Belinda is amazing so there are moments where it needed a professional. Actually it was amazing, and the wonderful thing about the Doctor is that it’s all about self-belief in so many ways. You don’t have these outlandish or other-worldly skills. Physically you have a body like anyone else and you can or can’t do certain things.

Tosin: I did my own stunts too. I dropped that bike over and over again. I wonder if you know how difficult it is to act that you can’t ride a bike when you can.

Jodie: ‘And the BAFTA goes to…’

Bradley: ‘Have you been injured at work?’

Corrine, Mad Dog 2020 Casting: What was it like meeting each other for the first time? Was it an instant click?

Mandip: Me and Tosin had known each other for a long time [from Hollyoaks]. He thought it was a different person getting the job, so when I turned up he was really excited. Me and Jodie just clicked straight away, even in the audition I knew she was going to be my new best friend. Brad was really serious. Have I told you this?

Brad: No.

Mandip: I thought ‘Wow, he’s really serious. He’s going to be a tough one.’

Jodie: He regaled us with stories of the Ritz.

Mandip: There’s a really posh voice he uses.

Bradley: I was having lunch at the Ritz with Mel Brooks. That’s what it was. I think we pretty much got on from the get-go, but we’re lucky because we’ve got a lead actress who is just wonderful to be around and leads from the front, is funny, kind, generous with her performance and everything else that goes with it. We’re very fortunate.

Pupil: How long did all of it take to record?

Chris: [This episode] took about four or five weeks to film… Oh, everybody on the production line is now giving me different numbers!

Bradley: It took almost seven years!

[general loud discussion disagreeing over dates]

Jodie: Right guys, we started on 30 October and we wrapped on the 3rd of August.

 

 

Doctor Who returns to BBC1 on Sunday 7th October at 6.45 p.m. Click here to read our spoiler-free review of the first episode