(Photo: Alberto Pezzali/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

It was announced yesterday that Segun Akinola would be taking over from long-time composer Murray Gold on musical duties for the forthcoming series of Doctor Who. Not only will Akinola compose the incidental music, but he’ll provide a fresh spin on the iconic theme tune.

In a depressingly predictable sequence of events, internet whiners purporting to be fans of Doctor Who bemoaned that Akinola had been hired to tick diversity boxes (he is a black man); that it was political correctness ‘gone mad’; that he would introduce rap to the incidental music (wow, racist much?) or that he might ‘girly’ the theme tune (like…how? Get Ariana Grande to sing it acapella?).



You see, this will be the first series to feature a female actor, Jodie Whittaker, playing the time-travelling, shape-shifting, twin-hearted, alien being known as the Doctor. Apparently her gender is a stretch too far for some fans.

I’m in no way surprised. When I, a transgender woman, was hired to write the first novelisation featuring Whittaker’s Doctor, there were similar grumblings – people insinuating I’d got the gig purely on the basis of my gender.


To those dissenting voices, I’d like to deliver a resounding and final ‘fuck you’. I’ve never met Segun Akinola, but I’ll tell you what we have in common: we are more than qualified for our respective roles. I am a life-long Doctor Who fan and author of seven award-winning novels for young adults. Akinola is a graduate of the Birmingham Conservatoire and recipient of the BAFTA Breakthrough Brit Award.

The reason you might question our appointments is because of something called unconscious bias. What you’re doing is assuming that white men would be more skilled, more hard-working, more talented than us.

And why is that? Because history, systemic racism and misogyny made it that much easier for white men to succeed in all areas of public life, creating the false impression that they are somehow innately better.

Hopefully, with your conscious brain, you’ll acknowledge that that is utter garbage.

The new series of #DoctorWho will be scored by composer Segun Akinola and will include a fresh take on the legendary theme tune. Welcome to the Whoniverse @segunakinola! More info > https://t.co/UUTn9R1Og6 pic.twitter.com/hhALVmEJen — Doctor Who Official (@bbcdoctorwho) June 26, 2018

It isn’t ‘political correctness gone mad’, it’s just that while societal structures still favour wealthy white men (and they do), it may seem surprising to see women or people of colour in high profile roles. If it does, question, interrogate and challenge why that’s surprising to you.

But more’s the point this is Doctor Who for crying out loud! A show in which the Doctor has always, always championed the underdog, fought for equality. The Daleks are a metaphor for facism. The show has run since 1963 precisely because of its commitment to change and regeneration. How can anyone fail to enjoy this and claim to love Doctor Who?

Moreover, without the contribution of minority talent, Doctor Who simply wouldn’t exist. It was a female producer, Verity Lambert, who largely got the show into production, while the very first episode was directed by Waris Hussein, a gay British-Indian man. When the show was resurrected from the grave in 2005, it was by another gay man, Russell T Davies.



I get it. When I was a freaky outsider adolescent, Doctor Who spoke to me across time and space. From my bedroom in Bradford, the TARDIS offered a way out – a chance to escape from my miserable teenage life. I too became quite territorial of it. If others claimed to be Doctor Who fans, I was a bigger fan. It felt like it was mine.

But it wasn’t and it’s not. Doctor Who has an international fandom of millions. These days, I love belonging to that community. Now that I’ve written for both Torchwood and Doctor Who, I love that I can interact with fans all over the world.

My advice to fans worried about this much-needed fresh coat of paint is this: Doctor Who doesn’t belong to any of us, but it’s for all of us if we let it be.

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