DOCTOR WHO'S NCUTI GATWA TEASES 'BEAUTIFUL' NIGERIA-SET EPISODE

The Doctor will "feel more at home" than ever before in the newest episode of Doctor Who, which premieres on Saturday 10 May.

Ncuti Gatwa spoke of how meaningful the upcoming storyline is to his character at a press event for the iconic BBC show, naming The Story and the Engine as his favourite episode of the whole series. The episode is set in Lagos, Nigeria, where the Doctor and companion Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu) meet a mysterious figure named the Barber who rules supreme.

There, the Time Lord learns of how stories can hold real power as he is forced to confront a Spider that is weaving a vengeful web in Lagos. Gatwa shared why the episode meant so much to him: "The Doctor goes to Lagos, Nigeria. It's just so exciting, we've not seen that before. 

"Inua Ellams wrote an incredible and beautiful, beautiful script that was so poetic and incredible. We've been seeing this alien go on adventures for a long time and it's a creature that's able to walk into a room and claim space, and take charge. 

"And so with this situation we see that character go back to somewhere, on Earth, that makes him feel more at home. So I just thought it was really, really beautiful."

The actor has had an incredible run of episodes so far this series, including a thrilling stealth sequel to a Doctor Who classic and a unique animation-led horror. It's only expected to get better with a Eurovision episode given an interstellar twist, and a thrilling two-part finale that showrunner Russell T Davies has teased is one of the show's best yet and will reveal the identity of Mrs Flood (Anita Dobson).

"The story of Belinda getting back to 24 May, 2025 is [exciting]," Davies said at the event. "Episode 7 goes out on 24 May 2025 and that's only episode 7, there's episode 8 still to come. So it just keeps refreshing itself, the whole point of saying that is it's new every single week. So The Doctor has managed to keep himself new since 1963, it's an amazing show."

Gatwa also spoke of how he feels more comfortable in the role on his second time around: "It's so exciting. We're so excited to come back, to just explore where we're going to be going this season. 

"We had done a whole season and so the character felt a little bit more soaked into the skin, there wasn't that manic first day of school, new kid on the block, energy. I felt a little bit more settled this time, so it was very exciting to get back and to work with Russell again and Millie [Gibson], and obviously we've got a new companion. There were lots of new things to discover this season."

Doctor Who airs Saturdays at 7:10pm on BBC One with episodes also available on BBC iPlayer.

This article originally appeared on Yahoo TV UK at https://uk.news.yahoo.com/doctor-who-ncuti-gatwa-nigeria-episode-085138502.html

2025-05-09T09:07:57Z