Friday’s episode of The Graham Norton Show, John Bishop, seated opposite Tom Cruise and Felicity Jones, was asked by Norton about a faux pas he’d made over Doctor Who.
Bishop explained that during lockdown “I did a thing for some drama students in Liverpool, you know [a] big Zoom thing, and it was a Q&A; it was just talking about acting and how you got into it and how you got into stand-up comedy,” he recalled.
“Then one of the questions was: ‘Can you tell us anything about your character in Doctor Who?’ You know, ‘Where does he come from?’
“I went: ‘Well, where do you think he comes from? Have a guess!’ You know what I mean, I’m not Tom Cruise. I can act as long as the character happens to look and sound a lot like me…” laughed Bishop.
However his answer sent the Whovian grapevine into overdrive. Not content with knowing that Bishop’s character, Dan, was obviously going to be a Scouser they took it one stage further with rumours that Series 13 (season numbering began again in 2006) would be set in Liverpool.
Bishop continued, “Then the BBC phoned me up and said: ‘You’ve broke the cardinal sin. You’ve told them something about Doctor Who…’ and I went, ‘I haven’t told them anything! Anybody who looks at me knows he’s from Liverpool, let’s be honest!'”
