

Doctor Who should never be played by a woman, according to the novelist and comedian AL Kennedy.

The Costa award-winning writer, whose Doctor Who book The Drosten’s Curse was published this summer, believes the character’s eccentricity should remain “blokey”.



Speaking at the Edinburgh international book festival, Kennedy said: “As a heterosexual woman, I have no interest in a female Doctor. He’s kind of got a guy vibe, the Doctor. A hopeless, undomestic, dozy, dreamy guy-type of eccentricity. It’s not a girl-type of eccentricity. I’d be surprised if he changed gender.”

Instead, she made a plea for the creation of characters who were “iconic and marvellous for women. Let’s have faith that you can do that. Make the companions ballsy and wonderful. Let’s make wonderful parts that were designed for women.”



She conceded that it was terrible that there weren’t enough good parts for women. “But I never, as a female, thought I was being robbed because the Doctor’s a bloke.”



If she absolutely had to pick a woman to play the Doctor, who would it be?

“Nobody. Other than Tilda Swinton, who wouldn’t do it because she’s too busy anyway. She’s got that strange kind of vibe that she could do anything.”



On the Doctor’s age, Kennedy was equally dismissive. “People went on about Peter Capaldi being ‘old’ when they introduced him,” she said. “I think you’ll find that the average small person thought that Matt Smith was old. There’s 10, 11, 12 and then old. Peter is no older than all the other weird tall people who do strange adult things.”



Kennedy said her own love for Doctor Who went back to childhood, describing how she would sit close to her TV screen shouting “pick me” when the Doctor needed a new companion. She confessed that she had petitioned the BBC to commission her to take on a Who story. “They finally asked me to do a Who thing because I’d been begging them for a very long time. To the point where Steven Moffat would look at me at a party with such fear that I didn’t go near him.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Did I do that? Davros and a Dalek. Photograph: Adrian Rogers/BBC

On the creative limitations of the commission, she said: “There are rules, but because I’m that into it, I didn’t break that many. It goes through two screenings, which could be horrible. The editorial process means you get an editor who just goes through spelling mistakes. So if you’ve misspelt ‘artron energy’ because you’ve only ever heard it spoken and thought it was ‘arktron’, I was like, ‘Oh sorry I got that bit of completely imaginary physics wrong.’

“Then they send it off to the BBC. If your Doctor eats a baby, they would say, ‘Oh no he probably wouldn’t do that’. They keep the faith and are actually lovely people and easy to work with. Anything goes if you can justify it, because it’s sci-fi.”



The Drosten’s Curse includes cameos for Whovian favourites including Davros and the Wirrn, but Kennedy took every opportunity to mock the Daleks. “The Doctor had the opportunity to kill all the Daleks, and I was rooting for him. They’re always naughty and bad, even though they are armed with a sink plunger and a whisk and could go nowhere except on linoleum. Dreadful. They never scared me.”

The book is written in the persona of the fourth doctor, played by Tom Baker. Kennedy said writing as Baker had helped her appreciate “being true to what’s already created”.

“You’ve inherited what people love. I thought it might exhaust me a bit trying to be Tom Baker, and it did. He’s like the best uncle you never got to meet. So don’t mess it up.” On the plus side, she added, “There’s a whole layer of BBC police that will stop you from even thinking about messing it up.”