Richard Osman has said the cancellation of Doctor Who’s upcoming Christmas special was necessary to secure the show’s future, while also revealing who he’d like to take on the legendary role.
The BBC revealed last week that the previously planned 2026 Christmas special has been cancelled, while also confirming that the programme would be put out to competitive tender – prompting renewed speculation about the future of the programme.
But speaking recently on The Rest is Entertainment podcast, Osman reassured fans: “It has not been cancelled. It has been the opposite of cancelled, continued I guess.”
He explained that it had actually always been the plan for the show to be put out to tender, but that the BBC moved the process forward, meaning that the 2026 Christmas special – which would have served as a gap filler – would only have acted as “an enormous Christmas-shaped bomb in the middle of that”.
He said: “What happened was, 2025, Disney pull out, the BBC are still absolutely saying ‘no, we’ll carry on with Doctor Who, what we’ll do is put this out to tender in 2028/2029.’ At which point everyone says, ‘Let’s do a Christmas special to bridge the gap.”
“And because the BBC were dealing with [the legal case involving President] Trump and Charlotte Moore, who was the chief content officer, was leaving and Kate Phillips was coming in, there was a lot of churn at this point.”
He continued: “As soon as Kate Phillips got her feet under the table she said, ‘Let’s put it out to tender at this point, because the whole point of putting it out to tender is it’s a big deal for us, it’s the opposite of saying we’re going to rest it, it’s the opposite of saying we’re putting it out to pasture. We want to give it multiple series, we now need production companies to pitch.’
“As soon as you say you’re putting it out to tender, you can’t make the Christmas special, because the canon of the show will be affected so much by what they were about to do with [the regeneration of] Ncuti Gatwa to Billie Piper. You can’t lay that on companies who are working on where they’ll take the Doctor Who universe. If you’re about to drop an enormous Christmas-shaped bomb in the middle of that, it makes that process impossible for everyone.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Osman tipped SNL’s George Fouracres as the new Doctor Who.
“Wouldn’t he be amazing?” he said, before adding: “All the best Doctor Who’s can really do comedy – Matt Smith, Tennant, Capaldi.
“They can really do comedy but you could stick them on Shakespeare and they can really do that as well. And George Fouracres is a great Shakespearean actor and a great comic.”
Want to see this content?
This page contains content provided by Google reCAPTCHA. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as Google reCAPTCHA may use cookies and other technologies. To view this content, choose ‘Accept and continue’ to allow Google reCAPTCHA and its required purposes.
Read more:
- Peter Capaldi reveals his Doctor Who exit was due to “direction” concerns and argues there have been “too many regenerations”
- Doctor Who icon Carole Ann Ford reacts to Christmas special cancellation news – and reveals Susan return hopes
Doctor Who is available to stream on BBC iPlayer. Dive into our Doctor Who story guide: reviews of every episode since 1963, plus cast & crew listings, production trivia, and exclusive material from the Radio Times archive.
Add Doctor Who to your watchlist on the Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more.
Check out more of our Sci-fi coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what’s on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
