People love dressing up as the Doctor. You see it at every convention, signing and special occasion. The Cardiff premiere of Deep Breath, the series eight opener, was jam-packed with people in Matt Smith tweed and Capaldi cardigans. And it turns out Capaldi was thinking of these cosplayers when he chose it. Asked why he decided to match a long coat with a cardigan and boots, Capaldi explained:


“I wanted to wear something that people could emulate without going to any great expense.”

Intriguingly, before he arrived at this skinhead meets Bowie combo, Capaldi mentioned an early version of the costume from his 50th anniversary cameo that never made it on screen.

“From the start at the back of my head I had a dark thing going. When I appeared in the 50th, which was only this [gesturing at his brow], we had thrown together a costume just in case, and we had got the dark coat and dark trousers and I thought ‘oh this all looks quite good’.”

Yet despite this prototype, Capaldi went through the entire dressing up box before settling on the final version.


“We went round with lots of scarves and velvet jackets and floppy hats (everybody wants you in a floppy hat) and I wanted to be starker than that, sharper. But really it’s just a matter of trying stuff on until you feel like the Doctor, and when I tried that stuff on, I felt like the Doctor. I always thought of Doctor Who as being in dark colours, I guess because I grew up seeing the show in black and white.”