Doctor Who: 10 Actors Who Could Play The Sixteenth Doctor

10. Mathew Baynton

Mathew Baynton has quietly become a recognisable face on British television, and his popularity is at a real peak thanks to the massive success of BBC’s Ghosts and his recent stint on Taskmaster.

In Ghosts, Baynton plays the hopelessly romantic Regency-era poet, Thomas, a character that is, for the most part, endearingly silly but more than a bit pretentious. Thomas spends much of the show expressing his unrequited love for the main character, but Baynton plays him with such sincerity and charm that you can’t help but love him.

Despite this being a primarily comedic role, there are hints of Baynton’s emotional chops throughout the series, and this ability to inhabit a character who is goofy on the surface but emotionally grounded underneath is Doctor 101.

Baynton's career has been built on versatility. He’s written and starred in Ghosts, Horrible Histories, and Yonderland, playing multiple characters, both recurring and one-off, in each. He’s a bit of a chameleon, shifting seamlessly between dozens of roles across a multitude of time periods, and he has a keen passion for history that is a marriage made in heaven for the show.

Baynton sits within an age bracket that’s been under-explored in NuWho, striking a balance between the youthfulness of Gatwa and the maturity of Capaldi. His work suggests he could deliver a clownish Doctor with real eccentricity and heart, something in the vein of Matt Smith or Patrick Troughton.