Doctor Who: Rebecca Root to play the Doctor’s first transgender companion

Doctor Who is making history as it introduces the Doctor’s first transgender companion. In the past, the series has brought in trans actors and writers, including Bethany Black, who appeared in season 9’s “Sleep No More”, as well as writers Lilah Sturges, Juno Dawson and Niki Haringsma, who have all penned Doctor Who comics and novels. But this is a step.

Joining their ranks is trans actress and comedian Rebecca Root, who is set to join Big Finish’s Doctor Who audio series, “Stranded.” This series follows the adventures of Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor, and will mark the first time an openly transgender character will have this big a role.

Root will playing a character named Tania Bell, and recently spoke to Nerdist about the new role. “She’s a person like all the other people I have played and hope to play in the future. She’s not perfect, but she’s not a mess, and certainly, I don’t think her gender identity has any influence on her behavior in the story.”

Nerdist asked Root what a character like Tania Bell would have meant to her while she was growing up. “It would have been amazing to see a Trans person in a show like Doctor Who. In fact, to see a Trans person period would have been amazing. But I [grew] up in the ’70s and society was differently populated back then, and gender ID was not really ‘a thing.'”

Photo: Doctor Who: Stranded 1.. Image Courtesy Big Finish Productions

Speaking of Doctor Who audio series, a familiar face will be lending their talents to yet another one: I’m talking about none other than Arthur Darvill, aka Rory Williams. “It seemed like an offer I couldn’t refuse,” Darvill said. “As soon as I read the scripts, I was like, ‘Oh well, they totally get it, they’ve really nailed his voice’.”

We all remember Rory as the goofy guy in love with Amy Pond and who joined her and the Doctor on their adventures across the universe. While we know how that story ended, there’s a lot of space between that could be filled up.

Specially, there was a storyline where an artificially created version of Rory watches over Amy, who’s been put in stasis, for two thousand years, becoming known as the Last Centurion. This new audio series will explore what he was up to during that time, with Darvill returning to the role.

Doctor Who: The Lone Centurion. Image Courtesy Big Finish Production

Here’s how Big Finish describes the story:

"Legend tells of the Lone Centurion — a mysterious figure dressed as a Roman soldier who stood guard over the Pandorica, warning off those who would attempt to open it; a constant warrior whose story appeared in the folk history of a dozen civilisations.Only… he seems to have misplaced it."

The first volume of “The Lone Centurion” will consist of three stories: “Gladiator” by David Llewellyn; “The Unwilling Assassin” by Sarah Ward; and “I, Rorius” by Jacqueline Rayner. The first volume, which will release in May 2021, already sounds like a ton of fun: “Traveling to Rome in search of the Pandorica, Rory finds himself forced to perform as a gladiator in the Colosseum… where he attracts the attention of the Imperial household.”

The second volume is set to release in July 2022, so this is a very long-term project. Rory’s time with Karen Gillen’s Amy Pond and Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor was one of my favorite stretches of Doctor Who, so I’m definitely on board.

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h/t RadioTimes.com