1. When he was 13, David Tennant wrote in a school essay called "Intergalactic Overdose" that he was "convinced" he was "going to play the part of the Doctor on TV".

2. The Weeping Angels aren't props – they're played by actresses in stone costumes who have to stay very, very still.

3. The noise the TARDIS makes was created by rubbing piano strings with a key.

4. Nicholas Briggs, the voice of the Daleks in recent series, had to bring along his own analogue voice modulator to create the voice as the BBC couldn't find a way to replicate their distinctive sound digitally.

5. In an early draft of the very first Doctor Who script, it's strongly implied that the Doctor is planning to kill future companions Ian and Barbara in order to protect his secret. This was quickly taken out.

6. Wendy Padbury, the agent who discovered Matt Smith as a young actor, played the second Doctor's companion Zoe Heriot in the late 1960s.

7. In fact, three of the actresses who played the Doctor's companions went on to become agents, and all of them ended up representing actors who would play the Doctor.

8. In 1988, Paramount Pictures wanted to make a Doctor Who movie starring either Michael Jackson or Bill Cosby as the Doctor.