Doctor Who star Fenella Woolgar is making a return to the Whoniverse.
The actor, perhaps best known for Call the Midwife, played Agatha Christie in the season 4 episode 'The Unicorn and the Wasp' in 2008.
She isn't reprising her role, or even appearing on screen or in the main show this time. Instead, she's appearing in the brand-new Torchwood audio drama from Big Finish, alongside Hugh Fraser, Sid Sagar and Rachel Atkins.
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Torchwood: Rictus is set in 1901 and features Woolgar as Princess Beatrice, who has inherited the mysterious Torchwood Institute from her mother, the late Queen Victoria.
As she investigates what Torchwood actually is, she finds herself drawn into a world of danger. In this case, it's the shape-shifting Zygons, while there are also reports of someone called The Smiling Man on the loose.
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Still, it sounds like Beatrice will be a force to be reckoned with.
"When you're playing somebody real, it's fun to do the research and find out about who the person was," Woolgar said. "I've done this before, of course, with Agatha Christie in Doctor Who.
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"Beatrice is a rather gung-ho, youngish woman who wants to have some adventure in life because she's been kept sheltered by Queen Victoria for many, many years. Now that her mother is dead, there's a freedom that she wants to exploit.
"She has a certain naivety, but also has that entitled attitude of, 'it doesn’t matter that I'm rubbish at this – I'm going to do it anyway'."
If this all sounds pretty interesting to you, you'll be glad to know this new audio drama is out today. You can purchase it from Big Finish digitally, or in a digital and collector's edition CD combo.
Doctor Who returns on April 12 to BBC One in the UK and Disney+ elsewhere. Classic episodes of Doctor Who are available on BBC iPlayer in the UK.
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Joe Anderton is a freelance news writer at Digital Spy, having worked there since 2016. In his time, he's covered a host of live events and interviewed celebrities big and small. A big fan of TV and movies both mainstream and obscure, Joe also enjoys video games and in particular PlayStation. Joe currently does not use Twitter, but he only ever used it to tell people to watch the film Help! I'm a Fish.
