Steven wrote some scenes to give us a good steer for the part of Bill, one of which ended up being only a slightly adjusted version of the clip we filmed for the announcement.
Making Doctor Who must sometimes feel like being a spy behind enemy lines. Everyone wants to know what you’re planning, but only a select few know the truth – and if you’re in the loop, you need a way of keeping your secrets safe.
That’s why there’s such a long history of codenames in Doctor Who. With clever use of anagrams and a healthy ability to lie through their teeth, Doctor Who stars and companions have managed to keep their identities under wraps until the big reveal.
New Doctor Who companion Pearl Mackie was no different. Who casting director Andy Pryor, who has worked on the show since its revival in 2005, reveals that he, showrunner Steven Moffat and the team had a code word for talking about the new companion.
“Her codename was ‘Mean Town’,” confirms Pryor. Hmm, wonder what the significance of that is? A reference to Ninth Doctor episode Boom Town? Alittle-known Prince track?
Not exactly.
“It’s an anagram of Ten Woman,” explains Pryor. “Series ten, and also the tenth companion of the modern series.”
So there you have it, another piece of the Bill puzzle falls into place.
“These anagrams are becoming harder to think of but they’re always fun. It’s really so that nobody reads an email over someone’s shoulder and the name pings out at them,” he adds.
“The fact is, if it’s a successful codename, nobody knows about it until afterwards,” Pryor says. “It’s as much to amuse ourselves as anything else.” [x]
Not only is Pearl Mackie absolutely adorable on screen, but looking at her tweets, she isn’t afraid to raise her voice for representation.
This is great because landing the companion role always gives the actress/actor a huge media profile boost and that will enable her to get these messages to a much larger audience in the near future.
It will also inform the kinds of representation we see on Doctor Who. Like Karen Gillan and Jenna Coleman before her – who have both spoken about how they were involved in the styling choices for their characters – Pearl Mackie will have influence over Bill. Not to mention collaboration in other areas by virtue of being the second lead in the series. For instance, she strongly supports natural Black hair styles (note her exchange with Curly_KT81) and it’s come up twice now in the new companion promotion that she loves afros and Bill is a character who has afros.
I’m so happy and I can’t wait to see the wonderful things Pearl Mackie helps bring to us during her run as companion!
I really love this short trip. And our first glimpse at our new companion, Bill, looks incredible.
A couple of thoughts…
I’m getting MAJOR Ace and Donna vibes off of Bill – the sass, the directness, finding the humor and absurdity in her adventures, and her ability to completely baffle the Doctor.
I love using a short adventure to introduce us to the new companion. It gives us such a great look at Pearl Mackie, Bill, and the dynamic between the Doctor and his new companion.
Bill sounds like a really amazing character. Pearl Mackie describes her as “Fantastically written, cool, strong, sharp, a little bit vulnerable with a bit of geekiness thrown in.” This is pretty much everything I could’ve wanted.
Bill will be the first non-white companion to travel with the Doctor since Martha, and it was long past time for that to happen.
Now everyone join hands and form a nice orderly circle around Pearl Mackie and protect her because we know how this is gonna go down.
I’ve already seen comments like ‘bbc playing it politically correct’ and ‘oh she’s black and female is she going to be a LESBIAN too?’ (uh…yeah, that would be great?) so yes, please, this.
Reading the script at the audition I thought Bill was wicked. Fantastically written, cool, strong, sharp, a little bit vulnerable with a bit of geekiness thrown in – I can’t wait to bring her to life, and to see how she develops through the series. I always loved stage combat at drama school so I can’t wait to get on set and kick some evil monsters into the next dimension!
