The Impossible Planet Press Release

This week's Programme Information from the BBC Press Office previews the episode The Impossible Planet with an interview with Will Thorp, guest starring as Toby in both this episode and the second-half airing the following week, "The Satan Pit". "Former Casualty and Strictly Come Dancing star Will Thorp is drawn to the dark side in the second, two-part story of this season's Doctor Who. In The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit he plays Toby, an archaeologist in a team of space explorers from Earth trapped on a planet in the orbit of a Black Hole. After leaving Casualty's Holby General, and honing his dancing skills on Strictly Come Dancing, Bristol-born Will could hardly believe his luck when he received a couple of scripts from Doctor Who executive producer and lead writer Russell T Davies and producer Phil Collinson. It didn't take much for him to decide to accept the part. 'I would have said 'yes' to it whatever [the part] was,' says Will. 'It was the fact that it was Doctor Who! I read the script and it was a fantastic part, especially as I had previously been playing a regular role of a cheeky chappy - he's an intense, moody guy. To be sent a couple of scripts doesn't happen that often, and certainly not for something like that. I feel really lucky to have got the role.' In the two-part story, penned by Matt Jones, the Doctor and Rose arrive on a desolate planet in the orbit of a Black Hole, and soon find themselves trapped with Will's character, Toby. 'Toby is a twenty-something uptight archaeologist, and he's one of a crew of space explorers,' explains Will. 'They've been on a mission in space, exploring certain planets, and they get stuck on this planet which is right next to a Black Hole. Bits of the planet are coming off and being sucked into the Hole, which make it impossible for them to leave, so they set up base there. They've made a space station, and have basically spent the last couple of years just exploring the planet, digging and seeing what is around. And it seems that there have been signs of life in the past - that there was a life form millions and millions of years ago.' The group come to realise that they are in danger, as something ancient beneath the planet's surface begins to awake, and it's soon a race against time for the Doctor and Rose to prevent them all from being sucked into oblivion. And for Will, the experience of working on Doctor Who was, indeed, almost out of this world. 'It was surreal, really! You're kind of sat there, with the Tardis in the corner, a couple of Cybermen stacked up… I had to keep on pinching myself to make sure it was real. It was like being in the playground,' Will says laughing. 'Can we play on the Tardis for 20 minutes before we do any work?' A massive Doctor Who fan, Will watched Tom Baker (the Fourth Doctor) as he grew up, and made sure that he tuned in for the series' return last year. 'I watched the very first episode and I thought it was great. When you bring back a series and it's been successful, there's a risk it can flop, but I think because it has someone like Russell T Davies, executive producer Julie Gardner and Phil Collinson behind it, what they managed to do, which is incredible, is that they captured the essence of Doctor Who. They won the Bafta recently, which was brilliant, and it will just go from strength to strength. Every episode in this series is a winner.' Currently, Will is on an 18-week national tour, performing in the play Strangers On A Train, a psychological thriller which was made into a film by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951. But Will can't shake off the Doctor Who connection. 'Funnily enough, I'm working with Colin Baker [the Sixth Doctor] – he's in the play. So that was really strange - I finished seven weeks filming Doctor Who, I had one day off, started rehearsing the play, and I'm with one of the old Doctors. It was weird – a very small world'"

The Programming Information document for Saturday 3 June features details on the episode as noted below.