STEVE HATCHER on twenty years of "New Who"

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on March 23rd 2025.

This week, perhaps rather astonishingly, March the 26th will bring with it the twentieth anniversary of DOCTOR WHO returning to our television screens in its shiny new incarnation after a rather lengthy break which found it pretty much adrift in the time continuum for over a decade and a half, despite the odd big night in to entertain us with.

During those “wilderness years” there had been several glimpses of the old Time Lord who simply refused to fade away, and the show had been managing to flourish in other formats, but it was only when RUSSELL T DAVIES presented his own uniquely updated take on the show, now featuring CHRISTOPHER ECCLESTON in the lead role alongside BILLIE PIPER as ROSE TYLER, that the true potential of this once hugely neglected science fiction masterpiece was rediscovered, and became something of an unexpected television smash hit in the year 2005.

Since then the show has become something of a cornerstone of the television schedules, not least around Christmastime and continues to go in and out of fashion and divide its fans and enemies almost in equal measure, with several fine actors DAVID TENNANT, MATT SMITH, PETER CAPALDI, JODIE WHITTAKER, and NCUTI GATWA taking on the role across the last two decades.

This week we welcome back our old friend STEVE HATCHER who specifically asked if he could come back to talk about DOCTOR WHO for this anniversary, which prompted what I hope you will find an enjoyable meander around the many lives of the Time Lord and their fans.

PLEASE NOTE - For Copyright reasons, musical content sometimes has to be removed for the podcast edition. All the spoken word content remains (mostly) as it was in the broadcast version. Hopefully this won't spoil your enjoyment of the show.