RT Festival Highlights: Series 10, Capaldi Future, Next Companion

Back from the Radio Times Festival, Ruth Long writes up some highlights.

Yesterday I was lucky enough to attend the Radio Times Festival at Hampton Court. One of the main attractions being a question and answer session with Peter Capaldi, Steven Moffat and Brian Minchin, hosted by avid Doctor Who fan and comedian Frank Skinner (who also played Perkins in Series 8). For over an hour they discussed various different elements of the show, its past, present and future. So, I’ve pieced together a few noteworthy points from the evening, some more relevant than others!

Before Peter arrived (he was facing the Doctor’s undefeatable foe: traffic), they began the session with the ever-so-light topic of killing young Davros. The conclusion of which, reached by Steven, was “avoid shooting children in the face”. Somehow the conversation progressed to punching young Hitler, then onto whoever designed Colin Baker’s coat (Peter was rather confused when he got there!).

Frank Skinner, the fan that he is, was delightfully bold in his questions: not shying away from asking what a lot of us wanted to hear an answer to. Unfortunately though, Brian, Steven and Peter are well versed in dodging certain subjects!

On the next companion:

Steven: “I love how long we get to grieve! Jenna’s leaving – who will the next companion be?”
Frank: “Can I ask you this, and I don’t think this is a spoiler. Do you know who the next companion will be?”
Steven: “No, I genuinely don’t.”

Peter and Brian claimed the same, though I will say this: Peter’s expression seemed to suggest otherwise!

On whether there will be a full series in 2016:

Despite Frank’s pressing, Steven wasn’t about to give us any clarification (unsurprisingly he was being very evasive on the topic); the status of Series 10 remains a mystery (though none of us were buying his assertion that he didn’t know yet). All three did highlight just how much work making the show is; Peter physically winced at the idea of producing two series of Doctor Who per year!

On Series 9’s ‘one-hander’ Episode 11:

Peter described it as “challenging”, with a different grammar to your average episode; the scenes are more like sequences. Even with a single actor, Steven’s script and Rachel Talalay’s direction (and no doubt Peter’s performance) help to create a “very potent and robust” story; he used the terms ‘evocative’, ‘poetic’ and ‘dark’. This won’t be a low-budget episode either, apparently.

On convincing Jenna to stay for Series 9:

Peter: “I said we’ve got to do something, we can’t let her leave!” … “We ambushed her and tried to talk sense unto her. That it’d be great fun, wonderful for your career and other lies like that.”

Steven: “It was the worst ambush ever, Peter said ‘I think there might be a chance we can convince Jenna to stay. She’s coming over! Don’t look at her!’”

Interestingly, they both made it sound more back and forth than Jenna’s described in recent interviews! Who knows what the full story is.

Capaldi on Typecasting & His Future

Peter’s not afraid of being typecast as the Doctor, quite the opposite: “I mean what’s wrong with that? It’s great, you know, if that’s the stigma that’s attached to how lucky you are.”

He made a lovely comment about how the actor is the Doctor their whole life, but for one golden period they get to do it properly with the TARDIS.

Continuing from this point, there’s no word on how long Peter will be staying in the role, but the impression I got was that it would be for some time yet, in spite of this exchange:

Frank: “Can we officially say, Steven, that Peter will be the Doctor in Series 10?”
Steven: “That depends on how Series 9 ends, doesn’t it? Anything could happen.”
Frank: “There is one day to go I suppose. He could be rubbish tomorrow.”

(That was met with a lot of laughter). Frank is nothing if not persistent though:

Frank: “So you’re not prepared to confirm that? I mean it’s not a spoiler…”
Steven: “What are you asking me to say? Everyone’s going to be really safe on the show; the Doctor won’t be encountering any severe danger? Watch the show, find out!”
Frank: “The show has always been based on the fact that the Doctor will be all right.”
Steven: “No, the show has always been based on the fact that the Doctor might be all right. And you’d better keep watching, in case it goes really wrong.”

Other Bits:

• So-called ‘Biscuit Gate’ (the rumors of Peter and Jenna being banned from eating custard creams on set) is a “complete fantasy” and “absolute nonsense”. As you can see, Frank was asking the important questions!
• Apparently nobody knows what Julian Bleach actually looks like. He’s always in costume on set, which made for a rather amusing conversation with Peter over a tin of corned beef one lunchtime. It turns out that the dark lord of Skaro is rather fond of the stuff.
• The Christmas Special wraps filming today (Peter had been shooting all day with Alex Kingston – he came down from Cardiff).
• There were plenty of other topics covered such as the Doctor’s costume, Peter’s unruly hair and some hilarious anecdotes on working with Davros and the Daleks, but these are some of the most significant takeaways from the panel.

I’ll conclude by saying that Brian, Steven and Peter are even lovelier in person (Frank Skinner is incredibly entertaining as well), and their passion and enthusiasm for the show really shines through. It was a really fun evening, and one I won’t forget in a hurry!