Matt Smith, the 11th Time Lord (2009-2013), winced when I asked if he’d passed on any advice to Jodie Whittaker, the new Doctor Who. “Look, firstly, she’s going to have the best time, that’s what I said to her,” Smith replied. “It’s such a glorious part, creatively you’re satisfied and you’re happy, and that’s such a big thing.”

Smith paused; you could tell there was a “but” coming. “But the shift in your life is extraordinary, because it crosses generations,” he went on. “So when she goes to a wedding, she’s not going to the wedding any more as Jodie Whittaker, she’s going as the Doctor. When she goes to a funeral, she’s not going to a funeral as Jodie Whittaker, she’s going to a funeral as the Doctor. Something changes in the perception of everyone else around you.”

Doctor Who is not the cultural juggernaut it once was: in the David Tennant era of the mid-late 2000s, the BBC One show regularly attracted more than 10 million live viewers; with Peter Capaldi as the Doctor, the audience sunk to under half that figure, the lowest ratings since it returned to television in 2005.

But, when it is firing, Doctor Who is still one of the only programmes – and perhaps the only drama – that can draw a genuine family audience, sitting together in one room at the moment of transmission. When Capaldi announced he was moving on in January, there was frenzied interest in whom would be his successor: Kris Marshall, Olivia Colman and Phoebe Waller-Bridge were early frontrunners. The 35-year-old Whittaker was eventually unveiled in July, in a teaser trailer at the end of the Wimbledon men’s final. The headline that, after half a century of white men there would at last be a female Doctor Who, was reported around the world.

There is good reason why the average tenure in the Tardis is approximately three years. Being the Doctor is, by all accounts, ferocious work: the show shoots up to nine months a year, mostly in Cardiff, and, because the Doctor is in almost every scene, the line-learning is relentless. Moreover, as Smith points out, on the rare instances you are not filming, there are obsessive Whovians everywhere you go, who want to talk to you about the show.

Some of the actors selected are pre-existing fans of Doctor Who (Capaldi); others have literally never watched it (Smith) – Whittaker appears to fall somewhere in the middle. After she was told she had won the part, “It was incredibly emotional because my entire life, as a child, all I ever wanted to be was be an actor, and I wanted to do it because I wanted to play pretend, and that is the ultimate,” she told BBC Radio 6 Music’s Shaun Keaveny in August. “I’m about to play an alien, a Time Lord. And that as a girl? Who knew? That’s incredible.”

Jodie Whittaker and Andrew Buchan played Beth and Mark Latimer in Broadchurch. Photograph: ITV/REX

Whittaker will appear for the first time in the teatime Christmas day special, Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time, which is also a farewell to Capaldi. Her casting has received praise from everyone from previous Doctors to those behind the scenes (writer Mark Gatiss and long-time showrunner Steven Moffat) to Theresa May. “I do like watching Doctor Who at Christmas,” the prime minister revealed, presumably overjoyed at not being asked to comment on the latest balls-up in her government, “and I think this is a great move forward for girl-power that there is going to be female Doctor Who, and one day there should be a female James Bond.”

Certainly, the Doctor is by far the most eye-catching role in Whittaker’s career. To date, she’s best-known for the ITV crime drama Broadchurch, in which she plays the bereaved mother, Beth Latimer. But she’s worked steadily since leaving drama school in 2005 and has also appeared in The Night Watch, a BBC adaption of a Sarah Waters novel, Joe Cornish’s Attack the Block and once covered for Carey Mulligan, with three hours notice, in a Royal Court production of The Seagull. This summer, she starred in the four-part BBC drama Trust Me, about a nurse and single mother who in desperation takes the identity of an A&E doctor.

In a 2011 interview, Whittaker said: “I feel, maybe naively or arrogantly, that I’ve got a best-case scenario that I work a lot and no one knows who the fuck I am. If you’re instantly recognisable you must be of interest to people all the time.” Well, that’s all about to change.

Whittaker, who has a distinct non-rhotic Yorkshire accent that, apparently, the Doctor will inherit, was born in Skelmanthorpe, nine miles outside Huddersfield. Her father had a business supplying and fitting protective film for windows, and her mother was a nurse. Whittaker seems proud of her background: her father gave Peter O’Toole, her co-star in the Hanif Kureishi adaptation Venus, some Huddersfield cricket club balls; meanwhile, Viggo Mortenson, whom she played opposite in the 2008 film drama Good, received a Huddersfield Town football shirt.

That role in Venus, where she is a teenager who forms an unlikely bond with a dying old man (O’Toole), proved to be a breakthrough. Whittaker was only a few months out of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and was so convincing in the audition that Kureishi and director Roger Michell changed the part from a Londoner to a northerner. “That girl Jodie is amazing,” Kureishi is reputed to have said. Whittaker later commented: “I’ll never be able to quantify how important Venus was for me or my career. I ticked a huge box.”

But Whittaker has never pursued the limelight. Away from work, she was married in 2008 to the American actor Christian Contreras, whom she met at Guildhall. They have a two-year-old daughter. But she’s very private about that side of her life, and has no social media presence. “I don’t really want to talk about relationships because it lets people into stuff,” she has said. “I’m not on Facebook for that reason.”

David Bradley and current Doctor Who Peter Capaldi in an episode of the show. Photograph: Simon Ridgway/AP

Staying off social media might have been a smart move since she has been revealed as the 13th Doctor. While there have been some heartwarming responses – a video of a young girl watching the teaser in silence for a minute before screaming, “The new Doctor is a girl!” has been watched almost two million times – there has been a minority grumbling, as ever, about political correctness and that, in the words of RobDeWolf on the Express website, an “iconic” show is sure to be “ruined”.

In reality, Whittaker’s appointment might even save Doctor Who. While the critics praised Capaldi, viewers have drained at an alarming rate, slipping from 9.2m when he made his debut to under 5m by last summer. Part of this can be explained by inconsistent scheduling – the BBC moved its slot to accommodate the Strictly live shows – but the series has also been criticised for overly complex story arcs and failing to engage younger viewers. Whittaker arrives as part of a revamp with a new showrunner: Moffat, who has done the job since 2010, is being replaced by Broadchurch creator Chris Chibnall. Chibnall revealed that he only considered women for the role and that Whittaker stood out as “a super-smart force of nature”.

Smith, for one, is excited to see how it plays out. “How amazing now, especially in this current climate, to see a woman become involved and go, ‘All right aliens, let’s go!’ And I think Chris will be really clever about all that gender stuff and it won’t be on the nose. It will be really intelligent and Jodie’s very funny. I can’t wait.”

Actually, we’ll all have to wait until autumn 2018 to see Whittaker’s first full season in the Tardis, but details are already trickling out. Her co-stars will be actors Mandip Gill, Tosin Cole and 57-year-old ex-Coronation Street star Bradley Walsh. She’ll wear signature mustard-yellow braces, navy culottes and sensible leather boots. “She is practically attired, fashionably timeless,” declared Tamsin Blanchard in the Guardian.

As for her approach to the role, Whittaker is still making up her mind. “The overwhelming sense of this is it is such an exciting journey you’re about to go on, and it’s to be enjoyed,” she said. “There’s no advice you can give because no person plays this part the same.” One thing is for sure: come Christmas Day at 5.30pm, Whittaker’s life and career will be forever upended. As Tennant told the American talkshow host David Letterman in 2014, “It’s a bit like being the president. You’re always the Doctor.”

THE WHITTAKER FILE

Born Jodie Auckland Whittaker on 3 June 1982 in Skelmanthorpe, West Yorkshire. Trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Married to American actor Christian Contreras; one child.

Best of times Starred in the three series of the hit drama Broadchurch. And, of course, emerging from behind a dark hood in July as the first female Doctor Who in 54 years.

Worst of times Still to come, perhaps, as her fiercely guarded privacy is invaded by the world’s media.

What she says “I was the attention-seeking child in class who needed everyone to look at meee…”

What they say “A fireball of mischief and humour and energy.” – Peter Moffat





This article was amended on 4 January 2018 to correct the name of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.