David Tennant will be on campus next month shooting key scenes for an upcoming feature film.

The actor, famous for his roles in Doctor Who and Broadchurch, will again head back in time to portray R. D. Laing, a controversial figure associated with the anti-psychiatry movement.

Tennant, who was voted “The UK’s Favourite Doctor” in a Radio Times poll after starring in nearly 50 episodes of Doctor Who, said he was excited to be involved in the new project.

“This is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate and discover this important man and I am honoured and thrilled to be involved in telling this story,” he said.

200 students and staff are being asked to dress in 1960s clothing and act as extras in the historical drama, called Mad to Be Normal.

Mad Men star Elisabeth Moss and The Usual Suspects actor Gabriel Byrne will both also be on set at the University for two days.

Michael Gambon, best known as Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films, will also appear – but it is unclear whether he will be in York or not.

Parts of the Theatre, Film and Television department (TFTV) will be dressed to look like a 1960s lecture theatre before the cameras roll.

The producers of the film ask TFTV students to dress like “an audience from the late 1960s,” and are offering cash prizes to the “most authentically dressed”.

Laing ran a radical experimental community for people diagnosed with schizophrenia in East London where no anti-psychotics were administered, but LSD and cannabis were allegedly handed out instead.

Filming is expected to be completed in March, and Mad to Be Normal will be released later this year.