TV Just a brief round up of some of the commentary about Ncuti's casting as the Doctor.
Firstly, James Cooray Smith has his first column in The Guardian and does an excellent job of putting this casting in the cultural context of those who've played the part before:
"Gatwa is the first black actor to play the role as a series lead. The black British actor Jo Martin has played the part, but not as the lead. Further back, Tom Baker’s father was a Jewish seaman, Davison’s a Guyanese engineer turned grocer. Interestingly, the role has been disproportionately played by Catholics, to the extent that Baker and Sylvester McCoy (1987-89) both trained for life within the church before becoming actors."
Writing for The New Statesman, Jonn Elledge captures pretty much beat for beat what my reaction to the casting was. I too had hoped for another female Doctor for many of the reasons he lists, but swiftly realised that I shouldn't really give a fuck what misogynistic non-fans think:
"I had, if I’m honest, been hoping another woman would take the role next: Whittaker has not been well-served by the lead writer Chris Chibnall, ratings are down, and there is a danger her casting – like the absolutely brilliant but commercially lacklustre gender-swapped Ghostbusters movie – will come to look like an aberration, or even a mistake. I didn’t want anything to happen that might suggest the awful pink-faced men who sit on Twitter all day using hashtags like “#NotMyDoctor” had even the vaguest semblance of a point. And yet it took all of half a second for my reaction to the announcement that the next actor to play the Doctor would be Ncuti Gatwa to cycle from, “Oh” to, “Who?” to, “Oh my f***ing god.”"
Of course as Lola Christina Alao points out in The Independent, its unfair to pit people of different identities against one another:
"When I heard the news, I was really happy for Ncuti. I loved him in Sex Education and I can’t wait to see what he brings to his new role in Doctor Who. As a Black woman, representation and diversity in TV and film are, of course, important to me. And one thing I didn’t want to do was take this moment away from Ncuti by saying “this is great but I wish the new Doctor had been a Black woman”. (Jo Martin made a guest appearance as a fugitive Doctor back in 2020, but Ncuti will become the first Black actor to play the titular role full-time.)"
David Chipakupaku in the Metro notices that the casting may bring in new audiences:
"So as you can imagine, Sunday was a very exciting day for me. But online, my eyes were drawn to a particular type of tweet that kept appearing. These comments came from other Black and Black-origin users, and made me just as happy, if not more so, as the announcement of our new Time Lord.
"One of those tweets belonged to the TV writer Tianna Johnson, who tweeted: ‘LMAOOO they know our asses are gonna flock to watch that blue phone box show now. They’ve got us.’
"A new arrival in the TARDIS always provides a stepping-on point for many."
On Twitter, Mags L Halliday talks about the intelligence of the announcement methodology was:
"So an Insta that instantly sets a buzz going, followed by a trad press release, all timed so it creates a BAFTA red carpet hot topic tonight (thus generating immediate short video clips). That’s smart marketing if you want to engage new fans as well as reengage long time fans."
Let's end on an wide-ranging interview Tcuti gave to The Guardian back in January 2020 publicising the second series of Sex Education. I'm struck by this anecdote about being recognised in the street:
"It isn’t just kids who come up to him in the street. He was at a station recently when a woman and her granddaughter stopped him. “The nan was the effusive one. She said: ‘I wish I had a show like that when I was young, I thought you were brilliant.’ And the granddaughter was just looking at me, like…” He pulls a bored, distant, unimpressed face."
Hopefully kids will be embracing him too now.
