Russell T. Davies felt it was important to acknowledge "racism" in 'Doctor Who'.
Russell T Davies wanted to acknowledge racism
The 60-year-old showrunner cast Neil Patrick Harris as The Toymaker in recent special 'The Giggle' - which included Ncuti Gatwa's debut as the new Time Lord - and deliberately wrote the script to make the villain offensive because of a previous incantation of the character in a 1966 storyline, which featured a white actor in Chinese regal outfits.
He told 'Doctor Who: Unleashed': “It is said, and I understand this, there’s a history of racism with the original Toymaker. The Celestial Toymaker. The word ‘celestial’, and I did not know this, but celestial can mean of Chinese origin in a derogatory way. It also means from the sky, but it can also mean Chinese in a kind of imperial way, in a British Empire sort of way.
“And there’s a lot of debate about why was the original Toymaker a white man dressed up as a Chinese mandarin? Why? And that’s not the actor’s fault. I’m not blaming the actor at all. He was just, I dunno how much of that was unconscious at the time. Nonetheless.
“I think you have to do it because I can absolutely guarantee on transmission people will pipe up and say in 1966 this was a racist character and if we haven’t acknowledged that in some way we are ignorant.
“I’m very, very aware of it. And it’s baked into him and that’s part of the reason bringing him back, I found he’s a villain.
“Of course he’s going to do terrible things and that’s one of them. I did not want to whitewash the Toymaker then, so I gave him this side of putting on accents.
“He’s a murderer. He’s a mass murderer. So I like the fact there’s a very slight thin thread of him playing with race, playing with voices, playing with accents, using it as an attack.”
Russell admitted he was stunned award-winning Neil accepted the role.
He said: “We offered him the part and we all held our breath thinking, does he need to do this? He doesn’t need to do this. Will he like it? And he loved it. He got it straight away.”
Tagged in Neil Patrick Harris Russell T Davies Ncuti Gatwa