Doctor Who: New faces play familiar characters in new Class episodes next year

Doctor Who spin-off series Class will be coming back for six new stories in 2020. But without two key members of the cast…

Earlier this week, Big Finish released a rather interesting bit of news regarding Doctor Who spin-off series Class. In April 2020, six brand new audio adventures – spread across two box sets – will be released on CD and download. Like the previous volumes released last year, these two box sets will be set during the first series rather than afterwards.

However, in terms of casting, there’s a bit of rather major news. While most of the cast have returned for these two sets, including Greg Austin (Charlie Smith), Fady Elsayed (Ram Singh) and Sophie Hopkins (April MacLean), neither Katherine Kelly nor Vivian Oparah will be playing their old roles of Miss Quill and Tanya Adeola, respectively.

Instead, their characters will be played by two actors brand new to the Class universe: Dervla Kirwan (familiar to many Doctor Who fans as the villainous Miss Hartigan in Tenth Doctor Christmas Special The Next Doctor) will be playing Miss Quill, and Joanna McGibbon will take on the role of Tanya.

Joanna McGibbon will be playing Tanya Adeola in these brand new episodes. Along with Dervla Kirwan as Miss Quill, how well with this recast work?

(Image Courtesy: Big Finish Productions)

A surprising recast

This is quite surprising news, especially as Big Finish are often keen to feature the original actors whenever possible. Oh, there have certainly been recasts in the past. But these have usually been for series or eras far older than Class and a recast is the only way possible to make them work. One of the best examples of this is The Third Doctor Adventures, which features Tim Treloar and Jon Culshaw playing the roles of the Third Doctor and the Brigadier, as originally established by Jon Pertwee and Nicholas Courtney.

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While she’s not exactly as iconic as either of these two characters, I must admit, I am a little saddened at the recasting of Miss Quill. With a scathing sense of wit and an interesting backstory, Miss Quill was easily my favorite character from the original TV series. One of the big reasons for that was Katherine Kelly herself, who was so brilliant in the role. Dervla Kirwan’s a great actress, but it’s a shame that, unlike the previous two volumes, we were unable to get more of Kelly as Quill.

A strong series

However, I will say that I will keep an open mind. Especially as the Class audios so far have been fantastic. Two particular standout episodes from the first two volumes were Tell Me You Love Me by Scott Handcock, which was a three-hander between Quill, Charlie and Matteusz, and In Remembrance, essentially a sequel to the classic Seventh Doctor story Remembrance of the Daleks. So we know that, like many Doctor Who spin-offs made by Big Finish, the audio series of Class is a strong one.

Still, when we finally listen to volumes three and four next year, it’s definitely going to be hard not to miss Katherine Kelly, who was such a key part of the series. Let’s hope the recast of Dervla Kirwan works well for the series.

Volumes three and four of Class: The Audio Adventures will be released in April 2020, both on CD as limited edition box sets and on download. You can purchase the first two volumes on download right now from Big Finish, which are currently on sale.

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Are you a fan of Class? Are you surprised by the news of the recasting? What did you think of Katherine Kelly as Miss Quill? Let us know in the comments below.

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