Rebecca Root says she wants to be the first transgender Time Lord, and that every time she sees Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat she asks him when it’s going to happen.


“I’d love to be the first transgender Doctor,” the actress said at her Transgender Trailblazers panel at the Radio Times Festival, where she sat with former boxing promoter Kellie Maloney.

“I know Steven actually and every time I see him I say… ‘aaaand..?’— but the Scottish guy’s got it at the minute hasn’t he,” she joked.

Root, who changed her name by deed poll from Graham after she transitioned in adulthood, was around five when she first had the idea that she was trapped in the wrong body.

As the star of BBC2’s Boy Meet Girl, she is currently playing transgender character Judy who starts dating a younger man, Leo. Hailed as the first sitcom to feature a trans actor playing a trans character, the show is something of a milestone in TV history.

And to have a transgender Time Lord would be a truly colossal event. So what kind of Doctor does Root envisage herself to be?

“A brilliant one! Is Steven Moffat around?

“I like vintage stuff, I like quirky things and I think the whole wardrobe thing looks such fun doesn’t it? More fun than the technology stuff, although I’m sure that would be fun too.

“I’d be a quirky Doctor.”


Actually, Steven Moffat is around – as we go to press, he’s doing a Doctor Who panel with Peter Capaldi at the Festival. Maybe Root should hang around and collar him afterwards…