Alan Cumming cast in Doctor Who season 11

Alan Cumming let it slip on the Homo Sapiens podcast that he has been cast in the newest season of Doctor Who.

Cumming says he will be playing King James I in what may become a recurring role in season 11 opposite new Doctor Jodie Whittaker.

Cumming, who has an extensive stage and screen career, would best be known to Broadway fans as the Emcee in Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret (although I know from personal experience he played an amazing one-person MacBeth).

TV fans would best know him as Eli Gold on The Good Wife or as Billie Blaikie in The L Word. Film fans would know him as Nightcrawler in X-men 2 or as Fegan Floop in Spy Kids.

He’ll always be Saturninus in Julie Taymor’s Shakespearean revenge tragedy Titus to me.

Cumming is in some hot water with the BBC for releasing the top secret news without permission. While he released a video “apology” for the slip, he is perhaps not as contrite as the BBC could want.

Rumor has it that along with King James I, there will be an episode focusing on Rosa Parks. Jodie Whittaker joins the cast as the 12th Doctor and is the first incarnation to be a woman.

Chris Chibnall, who worked with Whittaker and 10th Doctor David Tennant on Broadchurch, takes over as showrunner from Stephen Moffat.

Next: Eccleston says Doctor Who ruined his career

The ten-episode season (shorter than the usual 12 episodes, but longer than Tennant’s “four-special season) will premiere in the Fall of this year with a feature-length episode.  

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