Doctor Who writer Russell T Davies brought ‘racism’ into anniversary specials

The writer of the Doctor Who 60th anniversary specials has explained how he brought “racism” into a landmark episode.

Russell T Davies was speaking about the story in which Ncuti Gatwa is introduced in the lead role, taking over from the returning David Tennant.

He admits he wrote the script to make the villain, the Toymaker, played by the American actor Neil Patrick Harris, an offensive character.

The character is based on a 1966 Doctor Who storyline that featured a white actor dressed in Chinese regal outfits whose name was prefixed with the word “Celestial”, a term that Davies has asserted carries historically racial connotations regarding Asian cultures.

The award-winning executive producer made sure that he included the Toymaker, without the Celestial part of his moniker, making threats in foreign accents.

Davies said: “It is said, and I understand this, there’s a history of racism with the original Toymaker. The Celestial Toymaker. The word ‘celestial’, and I did not know this, but celestial can mean of Chinese origin in a derogatory way. It also means from the sky, but it can also mean Chinese in a kind of imperial way, in a British Empire sort of way.

“And there’s a lot of debate about why was the original Toymaker a white man dressed up as a Chinese mandarin? Why? And that’s not the actor’s fault. I’m not blaming the actor at all. He was just, I dunno how much of that was unconscious at the time. Nonetheless.”

Davies felt that he had to make the Toymaker, watched by about five million fans in Dec 9’s episode, have a “deliberate” racist aspect.

He stated: “I think you have to do it because I can absolutely guarantee on transmission people will pipe up and say in 1966 this was a racist character and if we haven’t acknowledged that in some way we are ignorant.

“I’m very, very aware of it. And it’s baked into him and that’s part of the reason bringing him back, I found he’s a villain.

“Of course he’s going to do terrible things and that’s one of them. I did not want to whitewash the Toymaker then, so I gave him this side of putting on accents.

“He’s a murderer. He’s a mass murderer. So I like the fact there’s a very slight thin thread of him playing with race, playing with voices, playing with accents, using it as an attack.”

In one scene the Toymaker tells an Anglo-Asian character: “I apologise for the rain outside, you must be used to sunnier climes.” To which the reply comes: “I was born in Cheltenham.”

Davies said that he was stunned the Emmy-winning actor Patrick Harris accepted the role.

He said: “We offered him the part and we all held our breath thinking, does he need to do this? He doesn’t need to do this. Will he like it? And he loved it. He got it straight away.”

Davies was speaking to the presenter Steffan Powell on the BBC3 show Doctor Who: Unleashed.

The BBC has announced that an animated version of The Celestial Toymaker is being officially released after the original master tapes of the 1966 story were wiped.

The fourth episode of the four-part story was the only episode in the BBC archives after a recording from Australia was given to the BBC in 1984.

‘We’re not going anywhere’

The official Doctor Who account on Twitter, formerly known as X, confirmed that the animation is coming soon to DVD, Blu-ray and SteelBook, and shared a snippet of the footage.

The 1966 story features the Doctor, played by the original actor William Hartnell, and his companions Steven Taylor (Blue Peter legend Peter Purves) and Dodo Chaplet (Jackie Lane) pitted against The Celestial Toymaker, an immortal villain played by Michael Gough.

On Doctor Who: Unleashed, Davies explained how he decided to revive the Toymaker for the show, which saw Tennant’s departure and Gatwa’s introduction as the Doctor.

Gatwa told a BBC radio special that his casting and debut in the Toymaker episode as the first black actor to take on the show’s lead role will be seen as symbolic.

He said: “I think it means that we’re here and we’re not going anywhere.

“I mean, Doctor Who is a show that kind of reflects where Britain is at, in a way, because it’s so quintessentially British.

“It’s been on our screens for so long, it’s a bit of a mirror to where we are in society.

“And so I think it’s showing that we’re here, and we’re part of the cultural landscape. And we’re not going anywhere.”

Doctor Who will air next at 5.55pm on BBC One and iPlayer on Christmas Day. Gatwa’s first full season as the Fifteenth Doctor will begin in 2024.