the announcement of the new Doctor Who companion

TV Come 8:50 am this morning I was a bit out of sorts. It would have been the time I began getting ready for work and although philosophically I'd already dealt with the fact of not working, subconsciously I felt like I should have been cleaning my teeth, changing out of my "house clothes" into my jeans and making sure my portable cd player had enough batteries. Realising I'd have to wean myself out of the routine, I did all of those things anyway then walked to the postbox to send some dvds back to Lovefilm (including the disappointingly disappointing Tin Tin thing) and buy a newspaper.

Being otherwise at home did at least allow me to enjoy the announcement of the new Doctor Who companion in something like real time:  the broken embargo, what amounted by then to a confirmation on the BBC's official Twitter feed, the other news about when Karen and Arthur would leaving us, the amount of episodes this year (which I've added to the old faithful, now nearly a year old), the release of the on-camera interview during the Budget statement (which I also had the misfortune to listen to) and the general hullabaloo.

Jenna-Louise Coleman has me at a disadvantage. Not having seen either Emmerdale Farm in the past few decades or Waterloo Road, I'm not familiar with her work and even having enjoyed Captain America, with my Professor Cronotis like memory I can't place her character, Connie.  But she is currently working on Stephen Poliakoff's next series, Dancing on the Edge according to this remarkable prescient "Why we're watching" column from The Observer a week and a half ago.  It's almost like they knew something.  That page probably requires a Doctor Who tag now.

Inevitably my ignorance means a trip to YouTube which is chockful of examples of her acting including this sliver of her soap career, edited in the style of Talking Points Memo's Day in 100 seconds:



But it's this disturbing monologue produced for an NSPCC campaign that really suggests her potential. Not safe for work by the way, if that's where you are.



Judging by the Lizo Mzimba interview, she seems like a very centred, professional actress, with the usual nerves consistent with having become a household name overnight. She's already got a dvd extras or convention friendly story about receiving the news from her agent, an avocado being the suitably surreal variable.  Plus she's from Blackpool, one of Doctor Who's spiritual homes.  She's going to be excellent, isn't she?