When you’ve spent seven years in charge of two of the biggest dramas on British TV, it’s fair to say you deserve a break.


So with Sherlock on hiatus and his time as Doctor Who showrunner about to come to an end, Steven Moffat is planning a holiday.

“I’m going to go on a family holiday where [my wife] doesn’t book me an extra room where I have to go and write,” Moffat told an audience at the BFI & Radio Times Television Festival on Sunday. “I’m just going to sit on the balcony with a gin and tonic, talk to my kids, talk to my wife and have a bloody good time.”

After that, though, it’s back to writing, and Moffat has a fair few ideas he’s keen to work on – including a series previously approved by the BBC and one particular project with his friend and Sherlock co-creator Mark Gatiss.

“I’ve got a few ideas that I really like,” said Moffat. “There was one script I actually had greenlit by the BBC before Doctor Who and Sherlock came along… it needs a massive re-write but I still really like it, I might have another go at that.

“Obviously Mark and me, we can’t have a conversation without inventing some sort of TV series and we’ve got a notion we might like to do…

“And I’d like to write a play because it would be so completely different. My main enthusiasm though is just to be at the beginning of something as opposed to well into it.”

Moffat and Gatiss famously came up with the idea for their modernisation of Sherlock Holmes during a series of train journeys, so could their latest idea echo the extraordinary success of Sherlock? Moffat knows he’s set the bar high.

“I’m aware that I’ve lived through my highlights,” he said. “I’m never going to top being the guy who does Doctor Who and Sherlock at the same time. I’m not sure I even want to, it’s an amazing thing.”


Doctor Who series 10 begins on BBC1 at 7:20pm on Saturday 15th April