10 May 2022 - Ncuti Gatwa announced as new Doctor Who
Ncuti Gatwa: The Scottish-Rwandan roots of the 14th Doctor Who
Jack Ewing (BBC Scotland, 10/05/2022)
"The future is here and it's Ncuti" is how returning Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies announced the casting of Ncuti Gatwa as the 14th Doctor.
Doctor Who is a drama centred on the renewal and regeneration of its main character and in many ways, 29-year-old Gatwa embodies that renewal.
He arrived in Scotland in 1994 as a refugee fleeing a genocide and is now preparing to take on the role of one of the most iconic characters in British TV.
Ncuti Gatwa Is The Doctor Who Nobody Saw Coming, But Everybody Wants: 'The Future Is Here!'
Matt Bagwell (The Huffington Post, 09/05/2022)
When Jodie Whittaker announced she was quitting Doctor Who in July last year, speculation about who would take over from her quickly followed.
Everyone from It’s A Sin star Olly Alexander to Hugh Grant were linked to the role, but it’s fair to say that Sex Education’s Ncuti Gatwa, who plays the beloved Eric, wasn’t on many people’s Doctor Who bingo cards (our bad, Ncuti).
Together, Ncuti Gatwa and Russell T Davies can make Doctor Who a show for Brits to be proud of
John Elledge (The New Statesman, 09/05/2022)
You can’t be what you can’t see, the American activist Marian Wright Edelman once said. She was talking about the representation of women in the halls of influence and power, but the point applies just as much to other demographics, and to the stories we tell.
The heroes Western culture has placed at the centre of TV and film have historically tended to look, well, a bit like me: in somewhat better shape, sure, but nonetheless broadly white, male, heterosexual and somewhere around the middle of their life. That makes sense, given the whole patriarchal American hegemony thing the world has had going on recently, but it’s a bit of a shame because the part of the world’s population that actually does look like me is relatively small.
Why Ncuti Gatwa is an inspired choice for Doctor Who fans
James Cooray Smith (The Guardian, 09/05/2022)
The casting of a new Doctor prompts speculation equalled only by that surrounding the appointment of a new England manager, or the next James Bond. This is in part because the choice is seen to say something about the country. Doctor Who is, in cliche, a “national institution”, a term first applied to it by the Radio Times as long ago as 1972. And the smart casting of Ncuti Gatwa to fill these boots is a sign that the showrunner, Russell T Davies, is determined it should remain an institution well into the 21st century.
For while there are undeniably ways in which Gatwa’s casting is innovative, he is equally clearly a fine actor with a strong theatrical pedigree, someone known for showy supporting television roles, but not yet as an above-the-title star. Which is a sentence that also describes most of his predecessors.