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Doctor Who’s Joe Martin: ‘I envy the generation that grew up with the Black Doctor’

Doctor Who’s Joe Martin: ‘I envy the generation that grew up with the Black Doctor’

Now in an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.comMartin explained that she still gets goosebumps thinking about her casting.

“Colin Baker is my Doctor, I’ve been watching the Doctor ever since,” she said. “I’d use all my mum’s foil to put my cousins ​​in make-up (as Daleks) and I’d be the Doctor and they’d say, ‘But you can’t be the Doctor, the Doctor isn’t a girl, the Doctor isn’t black.’

“And when this job came along, I got to know who I was really going to be, because when I first auditioned, no one told me what I was auditioning for.

“I think if I had known, I would have failed the audition, I would have been too nervous. I’d be like, “Oh my God, it’s too much, too much.”

The Fugitive Doctor (Joe Martin) in Doctor Who is standing in a dark blue suit and looking off camera

The Fugitive Doctor (Joe Martin) in Doctor Who. BBC

Reflecting on the role, Martin said RadioTimes.com that it made her think of “the little girl in (her).

She continued: “The number of messages I’ve had from people all over the world, from Brazil to Australia to America and this country, people of color reaching out, women of color just saying, ‘Thank you.’ ‘

“And I shed a lot of tears about it, but happy tears because I’m also jealous because I wish I had this when I was younger.

“But everything has a way and times change slowly but they change and although you know the recent story we had recently where people were going crazy in the streets of this country was something, it was an eye opener I think the color of someone’s skin will still be a problem.

“But hey, in the midst of all this, we have our first Black Doctor, and I take my hat off to the BBC and everyone involved with this show for making this choice.”

Martin isn’t the only person to praise the BBC for its decision to cast Nkuti, first-time series director Waris Hussain calling the casting a “victory”.

At the show’s 60th anniversary celebration last year, Hussain said Radio Times Magazine: “Yes. I was the first British Asian in my field to do what I did. What worried me internally was working on the set and all these people watching me.

“I thought to myself, ‘They’re waiting to see me fall flat on my face.’ But I’m not going to fall on my face.”

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Speaking further about her casting as the Doctor, Martin added: “And the fact that you have a middle-aged woman, that should never happen because we’re invisible if you’re a woman over 35, if you’re a woman who’s not a size 8 , if you’re a dark-skinned woman, you’re kind of on the sidelines, you’re invisible.

“So I check all these boxes, and guess what? I can be seen and I am very proud to fly that flag.”

Martin also returns to the dynamic world of Doctor Who as her debuts at the Grand Finish in the upcoming audio drama Once and Future: Coda – The Final Act.

The audio drama will be the eighth and final chapter in Big Finish’s epic 60th anniversary celebration, and will see the Runaway Doctor clash with the War Doctor, voiced by Jonathan Carley.

The Worlds of Doctor Who – The Fugitive Doctor: Most Wanted is now available to pre-order for £22.99 (collector’s edition CD box set + download) or £18.99 (download only), exclusively from The big finish – audio dramas in full .

Doctor Who returns for Christmas on BBC iPlayer and BBC One. Previous seasons are available to stream BBC iPlayer.

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