Did you know that Bradley Walsh was already a part of the Doctor Who universe?
Bradley Walsh, host of ITV quiz show The Chase, has officially been announced as one of the new companions in Doctor Who series 11, set to air in 2018.
He will star alongside Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor and fellow new companions Mandip Gill and Tosin Cole. Playing a character called Graham, Walsh will be seen in a series of ten 50-minute episodes (with the opener being a 60-minute special).
The 57-year-old entertainer is very much a Whovian and even watched the show during the First Doctor’s era. “Am I thrilled to be part of this whole ground-breaking new dawn for the Doctor? Oh yes!”
But did you know that this is not his first foray into the Whoniverse? Back in 2008, the Law & Order UK actor played a memorable role in the much-loved Doctor Who spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures.
The show was devised by writer Russell T Davies (then Who showrunner) and featured Doctor Who companion actress Elisabeth Sladen as the titular adventuress. Sarah Jane Smith made her Doctor Who debut in 1973, travelling with Jon Pertwee’s Third Doctor and Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor before leaving in 1976.
Such was the character’s popularity, Sarah Jane returned for the very first spin off K9 & Company in 1981, two years later in ‘The Five Doctors’, and then again beside David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor in the 2006 episode ‘School Reunion’.
The Sarah Jane Adventures began the following year on CBBC, with Bradley appearing in the series 2 tale, ‘The Day of the Clown’, written by Phil Ford (who would go on to pen stories for Doctor Who).
‘The Day of the Clown’ saw children in Ealing, London going missing, with the culprit being a man calling himself Elijah Spellman – enter Bradley Walsh.
But his robotic clowns gave away the fact that this guy was an alien.
Sarah Jane and her young chums soon discovered that Spellman was, in fact, an “energy entity” from the Jeggorabax Cluster. Feeding on fear, this particular one lured the children of Hamelin away from their parents after it crashed into Earth in the 13th Century, and was hence known as the Pied Piper.
We never knew Bradley had such a dark past. Here’s hoping Graham is a friendlier proposition than Eljiah…