Doctor Who: 7 Reasons Jodie Whittaker Will Make A Great 13th Doctor

4. She Has A Fantastic Acting Range

Jodie Whittaker Doctor Who
Buena Vista

Since she burst onto the scene starring alongside Peter O’Toole in the British comedy drama Venus (2006), Jodie Whittaker has played an incredibly diverse range of characters across all sorts of genres. From the quirky humour of Adult Life Skills, as Anna – who lives in a garden shed and makes videos using her thumbs for characters, to the emotional intensity of supernatural drama Marchlands as a grieving mother from 1968, Whittaker has exactly the kind of range that will stand her in good stead as the time travelling alien.

Whatever changes lie ahead for Doctor Who, it will no doubt continue to be a show where anything goes. One week it can be a horror pastiche and the next a light-hearted parody; one week set in the 1800s and the next in the year 20,000. The Doctor is able to stand outside any given culture but also effectively disguise herself within it, and Jodie Whittaker’s voice talents may well be brought to bear in that regard.

Whittaker’s natural accent is from West Yorkshire, but she has played characters with Irish (Good Vibrations), Dorset (Broadchurch), and Received Pronunciation (Attack the Block) accents amongst others, all to great effect. It remains to be seen whether she’ll be following Eccleston and Capaldi in using her native accent.

Contributor
Contributor

Paul Driscoll is a freelance writer and author across a range of subjects from Cult TV to religion and social policy. He is a passionate Doctor Who fan and January 2017 will see the publication of his first extended study of the series (based on Toby Whithouse's series six episode, The God Complex) in the critically acclaimed Black Archive range by Obverse Books. He is a regular writer for the fan site Doctor Who Worldwide and has contributed several essays to Watching Books' You and Who range. Recently he has branched out into fiction writing, with two short stories in the charity Doctor Who anthology Seasons of War (Chinbeard Books). Paul's work will also feature in the forthcoming Iris Wildthyme collection (A Clockwork Iris, Obverse Books) and Chinbeard Books' collection of drabbles, A Time Lord for Change.