Fantastic Beasts: 10 Ties To Doctor Who You Might Have Missed
5. Not So Crazy After All
Paul Birchard’s cameo role in Fantastic Beasts is described by Rowling in the screenplay as a ‘tipsy hobo’. Among the crowd of witnesses at the scene he appears to be the only one aware that the cause of a crumbling building was not a gas explosion. He is about to describe the creature he saw as a hippopotamus, when Newt presumably obliviates him. In all likelihood Newt’s actions were unnecessary as the chances of the man being believed would have been virtually zero on account of his social standing and drunken state. It is an indication that Newt is either ignorant of such matters or that he is far removed from the prejudices of no-mag society.
Doctor Who has often used similar characters as the ones who are able to see the extraordinary in the ordinary. It was a particular feature of Jon Pertwee’s Third Doctor era in the early seventies, with for instance Sam Seeley the poacher finding the Nestene Pod in Spearhead From Space, and Pigbin Josh, a tramp who witnesses the Axons arrival on Earth (The Claws of Axos).
At the other end of the spectrum are the well to do, the powerful and the political classes who in both Doctor Who and Fantastic Beasts are often portrayed as unbelievers unable to accept the truth until it is too late.