A Timelord is heading back to school, with the BBC officially confirming that Peter Capaldi will be joining its BBC3 Doctor Who spin-off Class. Forget the bike sheds, the cool kids will be smoking behind the Tardis now.
The Doctor will appear in episode one of Class, ‘For Tonight We Might Die’, on 22 October. Coincidentally (or not), it falls exactly a decade after Torchwood first aired. The second episode, ‘The Coach With The Dragon Tattoo’, will land on the same day.
Class will be set at Coal Hill Academy, a key locale in Who lore and a Hogwarts-like seat of learning for in the Whoniverse. “The Doctor Who family is growing, and it’s fantastic to be able to welcome the young new cast of Class into the Whoniverse," said Capaldi.
“Coal Hill has existed in Doctor Who since literally episode one,” Class’ creator Patrick Ness explained in a recent issue of Empire. “The Doctor’s granddaughter went there. So we thought, ‘All that time activity at the school, has that caused any problems?’ Well, what do you know, it has!”
That cast of character – pictured below – includes Charlie (Greg Austin), April (Sophie Hopkins), Ram (Fady Elsayed) and Tanya (Vivian Oparah), along with physics teacher Miss Quill (Katherine Kelly).
“We’re not telling stories of the ‘chosen ones’,” Ness says. “It’s happenstance that puts these people [at the centre of things]. What if your timing is just weird and things happen to you? How do you deal with it? I’m interested in real consequences. The Doctor is always exciting, but he never stays. He goes off on the next adventure. What happens to real people?”
Find out when Class debuts on BBC3 on 20 October.