Capaldi has a Secret Doctor Who Fanboy Past

For Peter Capaldi, guest starring in the upcoming Doctor Who episode “The Fires of Pompeii” is not his first Whovian connection. It was through Barry Letts that the star of the BBC’s The Thick of It gained his first taste of what television was all about. “When I was a kid,” explains Capaldi, “being a huge Dr Who fan, I wrote numerous letters to the Doctor Who office largely inquiring about how the show was made.”

It was 1972 and Doctor Who was entering its ninth season on BBC 1.“I was thrilled to have delivered to me a large package from the BBC containing two full studio scripts for the Jon Pertwee serial ‘The Mutants’, which they were making at the time.

And don’t forget: SFX’s Doctor Who special hits the shop shelves on 19 March (next Wednesday). It has 100% all-new features, covering all eras of Doctor Who, including a countdown of the Best Companions Ever, a never-before-published interview with Barry Letts and a massive behind-the-scenes look at Millennium FX, the guys who create the monster costumes and make-up for New Who. This little feature is actually a kind of “deleted scene” which was sadly didn’t make the final cut.

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