John Bishop has revealed he’s already had a telling off from BBC bosses about his impending Doctor Who role – and filming on the show hasn’t even finished yet.
It was recently revealed that John would be joining Jodie Whittaker for her final series at the helm of the Tardis, as a new pal of The Doctor.
However, he admitted he’s already landed himself in hot water with the team after revealing a spoiler (albeit a fairly predictable one) about his role in the show.
During an appearance on Monday’s edition of BBC Breakfast, Louise Minchin asked John what he was able to tell them about the show, to which he responded: “Not a lot. I got told off!”
Explaining exactly what transpired, John said: “I did a Zoom talk with some acting students in Liverpool, and they were saying, ‘can you tell us anything about the character?’. And I said, ‘well, I dunno, what do you want to know?’, and they said, ‘is he from Liverpool?’. And I said, ‘yeah’.
“Then it got into some Whovian website that the character is from Liverpool, and the BBC press office phoned me up and said ‘you shouldn’t have done that, you’ve given a secret away’. And I said, ‘how good an actor do you think I am? I didn’t give anything away! Nobody was expecting anything else!’.”
“Were they expecting you to be from Scotland?” Louise joked, with John agreeing: “Yeah exactly, I wasn’t going to come in and be from the Bronx, was I? It’s going to be me… in Doctor Who.”
Despite this early hiccup, John insisted he’s had a “brilliant” time on set
“It’s iconic,” he said. “And the first day that you’re on the Tardis is so exciting, and Jodie is just superb.
“The whole crew’s brilliant to be involved with. But also doing it under Covid, everyone behind the camera’s got a mask on. So I’ve been working with people for nearly a year and I don’t know what their chin looks like!”
“The leaving do’s going to be strange,” he joked. “Because it’ll be like the first time I’ve met them.”
One thing John was able to confirm is that his character, Dan Lewis, is a plasterer, and that Doctor Who companions are now referred to as just “friends”.
The new series of Doctor Who – which will be Jodie’s last in the lead role – will debut later this year, with three stand-alone specials following in 2022.