Above: That nice Peter Davison chap in "Time-Flight", available on DVD now.
We don't normally bother with unconfirmed Doctor Who rumours, since most of them are clearly barking mad, but there just might be something in this one...
The Sun is reporting that Peter Davison will be returning to his role as the fifth Doctor for a Children in Need special, to be written by Who scribe Steven Moffat.
Our confidence in this story is ever-so-slightly undermined by the fact that a. it's in The Sun , b. they go on to say he'll be "pulling on his famous trenchcoat again" (his what?! ) and c. they can't spell Steven Moffat's name properly (we've got a special rhyme to help remember it: "Steven with a 'V'; two 'F's, one 'T'"). Quality journalism, boys.
But confirmation does seem to come from a Doctor Who event in New Zealand at the weekend, where apparently Sylvester McCoy let slip that Davison would be returning in a "multi-Doctor episode".
If it does happen it won't be the first Children in Need crossover, of course. 26 and 27 November 1993 will live in infamy as the transmission dates of "Dimensions in Time" , a multi-Doctor EastEnders/Who crossover that still makes us shudder at the memory. And the Ninth/Tenth Doctor gap was bridged by another special scene, of course. Moffat also has form for this kind of thing - back in 1999, he penned the lavatorial Comic Relief spoof
"Doctor Who and the Curse of the Fatal Death"
, which starred Rowan Atkinson as the Doctor and Jonathan Pryce as the Master.
Anyway, we'll know the truth soon: Children in Need night is on Friday 16 November.
