The ubiquitous actor David Tennant has confessed to being three identical siblings. Via a statement from his agent he confessed ‘I regret misleading the public in this way, and blame my heartfelt ambition to get to the top of my trade in the film, stage, TV, advertising, radio, chat show and theatre world.

‘Now I realise that exploiting this accident of births is tantamount to cheating. Clearly luck was on my side, because not only did I have a formidable talent and two accents, I had two brothers who looked just like me, who could also act. This meant as the parts kept rolling in, I could actually take three times the number of roles that my rivals could. That’s how I achieved the stardom for which we are justly rich. That’s why I and more often we am in everything, all the time on all stations. People thought it was sheer hard work. In actual fact, quite often two of me worked while the third was on holiday, usually in separate resorts. I now realise I have abused the trust the public has put in me. Or should I say us. Or should we say us? We realise it’s a lot to take in.’

Now though, in a departure for the versatile actor, Tennant will appear together as themselves in a TV drama documentary explaining how the hoax was carried out on an unsuspecting public, who knew nothing about the ruse until now. It’s understood Tennant’s mother was also an actress, and when she gave birth to identical thin triplets she made her mind up. ‘I suddenly saw the possibilities,’ she told Hallo Hallo Hallo magazine. ‘We sent the boys to school on alternate days, registering them as one person. This kept uniform costs down as well. They learned more about acting from each other than they did from drama school, which they attended on the same basis.

‘They were as thick as thieves. But they weren’t stupid. They were never seen in public together and when they all got married to the same woman, she was not told either, and seemed very happy, despite occasional noises from the spare room. Now that the secret is out she is planning to divorce two of them on an eeny-meeny-miny-mo basis, and has sold her story to the Daily Mail.’

The Tennants, meanwhile, are preparing for new roles in the National Theatre’s new season, which will include Three Gentleman of Verona; Three men, one Guvnor, and a yet to be decided Number of Men in a Boat. ‘Two of us are really sorry we misled our fans,’ said two of them. ‘The third of us is filming a commercial at the moment, but he’ll say he’s sorry when he gets home.’