When Fife-schooled Ncuti Gatwa made his hotly-anticipated debut as the 15th Doctor Who during the third and final 60th anniversary special on December 9, his first line was: ‘No Way!’ as he laid eyes on the 14th Doctor David Tennant.
The show moved away from tradition with the first ever bi-regeneration, meaning that instead of one Doctor replacing another as has been the norm for the long-running BBC sci-fi series, there ended up being two Doctors.
However, when it comes to screen debuts, the man who gave Gatwa his first TV acting role as a hamburger buyer in Broughty Ferry a decade ago will never forget his opening TV one-liner.
Broughty Ferry author and screenwriter Neil Forsyth vividly remembers the then 21-year-old actor’s appearance on the set of 2014 BBC comedy Bob Servant.
In an episode called The Van, from series two, Bob, played by Dundee Hollywood legend Brian Cox, started selling giant Meat Attack burgers to the general public – with Ncuti’s unnamed character one of the first to try them.
“I remember it very well,” said Neil, 45, speaking to The Courier ahead of Gatwa’s first full episode as Doctor Who on the 2023 Christmas Day special.
“Ncuti had one line to deliver – “What was in that burger?” – and he delivered it with aplomb.
“It was a freezing day on Broughty Beach.
“I remember watching poor extras pretending to build sandcastles in the drizzle.
“As entry points into television goes, that was certainly a coalface, so all credit to Ncuti for the career he has built from there.
“Of course, I take sole credit for everything he has gone on to achieve!”
Doctor Who star Ncuti Gatwa’s Dundee and Fife connections in the spotlight
When it was revealed in May 2022 that Ncuti Gatwa had been cast as the Tardis-flying Time Lord, ‘Whovians’, as Doctor Who fans are affectionately known, went into a spin.
The Courier, meanwhile, reported extensively on Gatwa’s strong Fife and Dundee connections.
Ncuti was born in Rwanda, but settled in Scotland after his family fled during the Rwandan genocide of the early 1990s.
They lived in Edinburgh before moving to Fife.
He began his acting career in Dunfermline High School’s 2008 Christmas show, aged 16, when he took to the stage as Khashoggi in Queen musical We Will Rock You.
He was the first black lead in a Dunfermline High School show and in the programme for the musical, he made sure there was a light-hearted mention for the then American president elect.
It read: “Eat your heart out Obama!”
While the show proved to be one of the actor’s highlights in Fife, a 2019 BBC documentary revealed the future Sex Education star was suffering in silence from what he described as relentless and vile racist abuse aimed at him in school.
In his first year at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, the future Doctor Who returned to Dunfermline High to speak to pupils about his career.
What role did Dundee Rep play in the life and career of Ncuti Gatwa?
Ncuti’s Courier Country connections deepened when he secured a place on the Dundee Rep graduate programme in 2013, performing in half a dozen productions including David Greig’s Victoria, The BFG and And Then There Were None.
Dundee Rep prides itself on being a “learning theatre” that develops talent, offering progression routes for recent graduates to get their first experience in professional theatre.
However, Dundee Rep also figures highly in the Doctor Who back-story, with three Doctors having now treaded the boards there.
The first incarnation of the Time Lord, William Hartnell, performed in The Rookery Nook and Ghost Train at the theatre in the 1940s, while David Tennant appeared in several productions in the 1990s.
Dundee Rep artistic director and joint CEO Andrew Panton, who grew up in Burntisland, hadn’t started at the Rep when Ncuti was on the graduate scheme in 2013.
However, Ncuti was a student at The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow when Andrew was still working in the musical theatre department there, and their paths have crossed elsewhere since.
Asked if he remembers Ncuti having star potential as a young man at the Conservatoire, Andrew, who is himself a Doctor Who fan, said: “I think you can tell someone who’s got that spark.
“Usually if they are at drama school they’ve proved they’ve got the kind of potential and skill.
“The other ingredient is you’ve got to be incredibly driven and really focussed, and Ncuti was always that.
“I think if you can combine a spark, a really strong skills base and complete drive, focus and passion, those are the ingredients together that give you the best possible opportunity.
“The other bit is just being fortunate, and no one can teach you that, and you can never learn it anyway!
“Anyone that tells you otherwise is talking nonsense!” he laughed, adding that Ncuti “already is and is going to be a great Doctor”.
What does the Doctor Who Appreciation Society think of Ncuti Gatwa?
Someone else who awaited the latest regeneration with incredible excitement was Tony Jordan, co-ordinator of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society – the oldest Doctor Who fan club in the world – which was formed in May 1976.
From what he’s seen so far of Ncuti Gatwa, he thinks his incarnation is “going to be tremendous.”
He “gave up” watching Gatwa’s previous work on Netflix series Sex Education after 10 minutes because it’s’ “not for him”.
However, he thinks it’s a “good thing” casting relative unknowns.
The Staffordshire-based 64-year-old says the secret of Doctor Who’s 60-year success is that it can “go anywhere, anytime, so the boundaries are only the limits of writers’ imaginations”.
The regenerations are a “brilliant concept”, dreamt up by producer Innes Lloyd in 1966 at a time when William Hartnell’s health was declining.
Tony’s earliest memories of Doctor Who are watching the original William Hartnell episodes as a four-year-old in 1963 with his mum. He loved the monsters.
However, his favourite Doctor remains Tom Baker who was the fourth incarnation from 1974 to 1981.
“There’s an old adage that your favourite Doctor is the first one you watch, but that’s not the case for me – Tom Baker was just magnificent,” he said.
“I was appreciating it before then.
“But it just went through a golden era in the mid-1970s when he got up and running.
“It all came together. You had him and Elizabeth Sladen playing Sarah Jane Smith. They were the perfect combination.
“The quality of the scripts at that time were just something very special.
“You can have every effect in the world – but if the writing’s rubbish then it’s not going to work is it?”
What difference does Disney money make to Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor Who?
While Disney money has boosted the budget and production values of the new Doctor Who episodes, what’s interesting, he says, is that the new episodes were filmed 18 months ago.
“The whole of Ncuti Gatwa’s first season was wrapped by July 2022,” he said.
“They’ve filmed the Christmas special for next year already and they are now doing his second season.
“They want to get ahead of the game.
“You can see where the money’s going. There’s also a lot behind the scenes you can’t see.
“It’s a very big operation with Disney being on board.
“So clearly, it takes longer to make stories. They clearly want high quality.
“But post-Covid, and with the screen actors’ guild strikes in America, I just think they want to get things in the can as far in advance as possible”.
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