How Ncuti Gatwa pushes the boundries of the Doctor

Updated: Jul 26

The Doctor has been a role that has been reinvented time and time again. As the years go by, it becomes more and more difficult to make the Doctor a fresh character that appeals to modern audiences whilst retaining the DNA of the character's origins. The secret comes through talented actors and there is an undefinable magic which makes a Doctor. Ncuti Gatwa automatically feels like the Doctor but has an originality to him that is refreshing. I want to delve into how he achieves that.

The Doctor in many ways is an endless and boundless character. They are difficult to define because they contain multitudes and can be practically anything. They exist for the purpose of reinterpretation and for an actor to make the part their own. However, the spirit of the Doctor needs to still be present. The essence of William Hartnell’s original Doctor still needs to feel like it is there. The Doctor is an adventurer, an intelligent professor and there needs to be both a prickly mystique and a joyous quirkiness and childishness. What is necessary in every Doctor is the range and the ability to switch between two radically different emotional states. The best Doctors can switch within a moment between a cruel ruthlessness and a comforting warmth and humour. William Hartnell established that variety incredibly. It’s what has given the acting part of the Doctor such an emotional range and why it demands a lot from an actor.

Ncuti Gatwa was not an obvious choice to play the Doctor but had made his name as someone very talented. He was not someone who had been on my radar as a choice and kind of came out of left field, but when he was announced, he automatically felt right for the role. His personality, range and everything about him as an actor somehow made sense and aligned with the part of the Doctor. It felt like he was born to play it. However, with his role in Sex Education being so different, it was not obvious how he was going to choose to play the Doctor. I was fascinated to find out where he might take the part.

His role as Eric Effiong in Sex Education is what made Ncuti Gatwa's career and gave him the opportunity of playing the Doctor. His portrayal of Eric Effiong helped transform and subvert the gay best friend trope into a character of depth with a personal character journey and arc. It showed the variety and range that was within Ncuti Gatwa as an actor. You could definitely see the energy of the Doctor in him but also a lot of emotion and depth.

The return of Russell T Davies and the Disney+ deal made the success of the Fifteenth Doctor crucially important in some ways. Doctor Who has a platform that it has never had before and is aiming itself at the appeal of a worldwide audience. Therefore, it needs to ensure that it has the attention of that audience. Doctor Who didn’t just need a strong actor for this renewal but a star. It got that with Ncuti Gatwa who had already progressed into stardom featuring as one of the Kens in the Barbie film with Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling. It was an impressive feat by Doctor Who to be able to secure Ncuti Gatwa with his progressing career.

In the same way he reinvented the gay best friend trope with Sex Education, I think Ncuti Gatwa has begun to reinvent the part of the Doctor and make it his own. The part feels like it now surrounds Ncuti Gatwa and his energy and identity. It’s rather difficult to get much originality out of the Doctor. After the first four incarnations, it feels like most of the Doctors, as wonderful as they are, are playing off established elements and performance styles of other actors who preceded them. Christopher Eccleston’s Ninth Doctor has felt the closest to being an original Doctor. Most of the time you can see the inspirations of Doctors of the past which actors are wearing. This has been perfectly fine given that the actor can bring a different feel to the part. However, as strong as Jodie Whittaker’s performance as the Thirteenth Doctor was, I felt at times that her energy was a little repetitive of other actors and what had been done before. A different kind of Doctor was needed.

The Fifteenth Doctor has the making of one of the best Doctors. The character feels remoulded and has an originality but has the flavour and feel of who the Doctor is. We could have something very special on our hands. The Fifteenth Doctor is remarkable and refreshing from the moment he appears on screen. The Bi-generation offered something different and the fact that Ncuti Gatwa was able to act opposite David Tennant and be the centre of attention is very impressive. The series also creates a narrative where this clean break of a Doctor makes sense. With the Fourteenth Doctor living on and having time to heal, the more emotionally free Doctor you get with Ncuti Gatwa fits with things. With the Thirteenth Doctor being very closed off, I think the Fourteenth Doctor allowed the opportunity to progress the Doctor and emotionally develop them in time for Ncuti Gatwa’s emergence. Bi-generation was a great vehicle to break free with a reformed take.

The Church on Ruby Road was Ncuti Gatwa’s first episode as the Doctor and was excellent in the way it broke free of some of the traditions of the past. The post-regeneration format in previous years has weighed the show down. However, with a story more in the spirit of Spearhead from Space and Robot, the focus is on the Doctor. The Doctor comes in confident in who they are and fully formed and the story is about getting to know and getting used to Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor. You can see a passionate and very charismatic swashbuckling adventurer in the Fifteenth Doctor. He has a wildness and a cheekiness and humour, but he also has an emotion and a depth of history and age. It’s very easy to become invested in Ncuti Gatwa as the Time Lord he inhabits.

You’ve got a Doctor who is very carefree and emotionally open and it’s refreshing to see in the Doctor and feels right for Ncuti Gatwa’s portrayal. It also makes sense for the development of the Doctor as a character with what they’ve been through. There is a showmanship in Ncuti Gatwa’s incarnation and lack of shame, which so far has been well balanced and reasoned. Ncuti Gatwa did a lot of background research on the Doctor, and you can feel the past Doctors melded into him but with an energy that is defined by him as an actor. He has the spirit of Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker and Paul McGann, but it manifests totally differently. The Doctor has a coolness that is very rare that I’m still getting used to.

Ncuti Gatwa naturally oozes cool and is incredibly calm and collected in situations, having a natural handle on things. He has a charisma and a dominating energy, which is ideal for the Doctor. It helps hold the lesser stories together by being able to pull you through them with such a powerful sense of charm and fun.

With the Doctor being a character that has been around for decades, you need to find new ways to make the Doctor appealing and Ncuti Gatwa was definitely a key. However, with Ncuti Gatwa’s presence, a lot of the modernisation and shifting of the character came about very naturally. The cheekiness of the Doctor, the emotional rawness and showmanship with the singing and dancing came about through the nature of who was being written as the Doctor. The language of this Doctor also reflects this. You can't imagine another Doctor saying things like "honey" and "babe," but it feels fitting for this incarnation and for who Ncuti Gatwa is. When Tom Baker played the Doctor, the part was written around him as a personality as Tom Baker feels like a naturally eccentric person. Ncuti Gatwa has a wildness of a personality that is a great vibe for the Doctor and the part changes and shifts by necessity around that personality. It would in some ways feel wrong to write the Fifteenth Doctor any other way. The emotional direction of this Doctor has a lot of value in refreshing the character and taking them to unexplored directions, but its real value is in how it allows Ncuti Gatwa to thrive. You need to change the Doctor to give the actor the part that fits them where they can be at their best, but the idea of the Doctor is still consistent.

The Fifteenth Doctor has a terrific way of challenging and pushing up against the preconceptions and the tropes of who the Doctor is, but they still feel naturally Doctorish and there is a cleverness in the way it's done. The Fifteenth Doctor still has an age, mystique, morals and cunning personality and ticks all the boxes of who the Doctor should be, but it's just put across and sold in a very different manner in which you don’t expect.

The emotional rawness is at the heart and soul of this Doctor. It feels like the biggest departure from normality in how at ease the Doctor is with themselves. However, whilst it is challenging normality and convention, it’s not doing it unwisely and is in the spirit of the Doctor and their ongoing journey. I loved the arc of Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor and how he started very cold and emotionally distant and by the end of his run had opened up and we saw the lengths of his emotion and care for life. It felt very true to life and resonated with me and my experiences as a teenager. With what that arc offered for the Doctor a more openly emotional Doctor feels like the right choice and best next direction.

I adore how openly the Fifteenth Doctor shows sadness and emotion and feels right for 2024. Every Doctor reflects their time and having a Doctor that challenges masculine values is something that is very meaningful for me. As a fairly sensitive person, I can relate to the shame of bottling up emotion and not feeling like it is socially acceptable to express pain and sadness as a man. Pushing the Doctor in this direction and normalising and destigmatising the emotion of men in society I think is very important, especially for young boys. It also feels right for the Doctor’s sense of loss and compassion. The Fifteenth Doctor feels compassion for everyone and tries to save every life he can, and you feel that, and you root for him as a result.

It also has a similar impact to Patrick Troughton’s sense of fear as the Second Doctor, as you feel the gravity and stakes of things. You feel this especially with Maestro in the Devil’s Chord in that you feel the weight and emotional gravity of what Maestro represents through the fear of Ncuti Gatwa’s performance and how they emotionally express themselves. The Doctor has often been an unconventional male hero. Their quirkiness, recklessness, pacifism, vulnerability and values have set them apart from male tropes and expectations. Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor simply progresses this further.

The Fifteenth Doctor has a lot of loss and suffering on his shoulders, but you get the sense he has come out more loving and passionate as a result which is a take I just adore. However, he is still a flawed character. As hard as he tries, the Doctor still has a habit of bottling and containing emotions when it comes to those he cares deeply for, and has a ruthless and vindictive side to him beneath the compassion. I would certainly like to see more of this darkness and the more alien side of the Fifteenth Doctor in Season 2.

Boom is the story that I feel got the best out of Ncuti Gatwa as an actor. With Steven Moffat’s return, you have an inspired concept and very Doctor centric episode. It restricts the Doctor into a very vulnerable position stuck on a landmine and makes the best use out of Ncuti Gatwa’s emotion and vulnerability as an actor. It also bottles his Doctor down, stripping him of his excitable nature as he is forced to focus and figure things out which I love. It shows the Doctor as a mastermind and genius and pushes Ncuti Gatwa to the emotional limit. The racism the Doctor experiences in Dot and Bubble also pushed the Doctor into brave new territory and we got a very raw and emotional performance from Ncuti Gatwa as a result. It flips the natural sense of trust and admiration the Doctor received as a white man, as the Doctor has to endure a truly disgusting part of humanity and nature. It addresses the difficulties the Doctor has to endure as a black man with an admirable bluntness.

The biggest weakness in the Fifteenth Doctor is the lack of time dedicated to him. It’s the major weakness in the season and what ultimately holds the whole thing back from being as strong as it should have been. A Doctor’s first season is all about selling themselves to the audience and fleshing out their basic characteristics. We already had a limited time to do this with only eight episodes, but with two stories that barely feature the Doctor, it doesn’t feel like we got enough of this Doctor. I enjoyed 73 Yards and Dot and Bubble a lot, but the lack of time for the Doctor hinders the overall series. It’s all due to the filming restrictions of Ncuti Gatwa with him still making Sex Education when they started filming. Whilst I can understand this and it’s a good thing to leave an audience wanting more, I wasn’t satisfied with how much we got of him and how present he was in the overall adventures. The season was less able to do its job because of the lack of presence of the main character.

So, how do I feel about Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor? Ncuti Gatwa is a fantastic talent. I already knew of his acting ability and range from Sex Education, and I’ve been very pleased with the fresh life which he has injected into the Doctor. The Fifteenth Doctor feels like a charismatic adventurer but with a wildness and an openly emotional side which defines the character. Ncuti Gatwa has a personality that is definitively Doctorish and fits the part, but the Doctor feels redefined and reshaped around Ncuti Gatwa and his wonderful personality. The emotional carefree nature of his Doctor is very much in the spirit of the character but progresses and challenges the conventions and tropes of the Doctor with a lot of originality. Unfortunately, with the filming restrictions of Sex Education, Ncuti Gatwa is less present across the season than he should be, and I was left wanting more of him than we actually got. Nevertheless, we have a very exciting and brilliant Doctor that I can’t wait to see developed further.