Stephen Fry has been cast for the 1st episode of Doctor Who’s 12th series, to appear alongside Jodie Whittaker, although we don’t yet know what role he will play. Fry has been spotted at the Swansea Guildhall late last month shooting for the episode.

This will be his first appearance on Doctor Who, though he does have a connection with it to start. He voiced the Minister of Chance in the animated webcast Death Comes to Time, released in 2001 on the BBC’s website, which costarred Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred as the Doctor and Ace. Fry had also been meant to write an episode for the show in Series 2 (2006), but the script needed rewrites that Fry was too busy to do at the time. The script was never produced, and the episode Fear Her was shot instead.

Word has it that the first story of Series 12 is going to be some sort of spy drama, directed by Jamie Stone, and co-starring Dominique Maher (The Devil Speaks) as Agent Browning, Darron Meyer (Deep State) as Seesay, and Ronan Summers (Welcome to Murdertown) as Rendition Man.

The 12th Series will be directed in turns by Jamie Stone, Lee Haven Jones, Nida Manzoor, and Emma Sullivan.

Fry is one of the more popular figures on British television, being an actor, writer, and comedian as part of the duo of Fry and Laurie, with Hugh Laurie (They were the stars of Jeeves and Wooster.) He hosted the intellectual game show Q.I. (short for “Quite Interesting) since its inception in 2003, and carrying on through 2015. He also appeared on the popular auto sports show Top Gear, and has written three novels. Fry is also known for his voice-overs, reading all seven of the Harry Potter novels for the UK audiobook recordings, narrating the LittleBigPlanet and Birds of Steel series of video games, as well as an animated series of explanations of the laws of cricket, and a series of animations about Humanism for Humanists UK – and was the voice of the narrator in the feature film version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as well as for the audiobook of the same title.

Doctor Who Series 12 will begin airing in early 2020.

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