Inner pain of the new Doctor Who

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• Publication: The Times
• Date: 2004-04-29
• Author: Adam Sherwin
• Page: 3
• Language: English

THE regenerated Doctor Who will be an existential, melancholy time traveller recruited for the war against terrorism, the actor chosen for the part has revealed.

Christopher Eccleston, 40, famed for his intense screen portrayals, will be the ninth Doctor when the BBC One franchise is revived this year. Eccleston said that the new Doctor Who would carry the "emotional weight" of Hillsborough, the television drama about the football tragedy in which he played a bereaved father.

The series, written by Russell Davies, the creator of the Queer As Folk series, will portray the perilous, post-September 11 times in which we now live. "It seems to me that we're now in a much darker, more dangerous world, and escapism is absolutely essential," Eccleston said. "But if we're going to be talking to quite a young audience, we have to touch on these big things." Humanitarian intervention is the character's new creed. Eccleston told Doctor Who magazine: "There's a line in the first episode where he says: 'Somebody may have died, but that's because I was so busy chasing every blundering ape around this planet, trying to teach them some sense."

The actor will explore the "melancholy side" of the Doctor in a portrayal influenced by the science-fiction film Blade Runner. Eccleston said "He's always moving through time. He's never at home. That struck me as quite sad and quite resonant for our times. He's the idealistic, humane alien, isn't he? And this must be something to do with his desire to belong.

"He is this guy falling through time endlessly, and we never see him at rest or at peace. We never see him in his domestic life, with his feet up."

This troubled doctor even has sympathy for the Daleks: "All that casing, all that armour, is actually to protect this very vulnerable, strange, frightened creature."

Clayton Hickman, Editor of Doctor Who magazine, said that the actor was unlikely to spend his tine "endlessly dashing down Bacofoil corridors fiddling with some rubber tubing".

Leading article, page 25

Caption: Christopher Eccleston will equip his Dolor Who character with an existential moral outlook to deal with a dangerous world

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• APA 6th ed.: Sherwin, Adam (2004-04-29). Inner pain of the new Doctor Who. The Times p. 3.
• MLA 7th ed.: Sherwin, Adam. "Inner pain of the new Doctor Who." The Times [add city] 2004-04-29, 3. Print.
• Chicago 15th ed.: Sherwin, Adam. "Inner pain of the new Doctor Who." The Times, edition, sec., 2004-04-29
• Turabian: Sherwin, Adam. "Inner pain of the new Doctor Who." The Times, 2004-04-29, section, 3 edition.
• Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=Inner pain of the new Doctor Who | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Inner_pain_of_the_new_Doctor_Who | work=The Times | pages=3 | date=2004-04-29 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=21 May 2025 }}</ref>
• Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=Inner pain of the new Doctor Who | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Inner_pain_of_the_new_Doctor_Who | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=21 May 2025}}</ref>