Let’s be candid. Selling the series to the Americans is the key to any show’s long-term survival these days. A name that every American will recognise at the top of the cast list can only help there.
Stiller can do funny, he can do serious, he can do ever so slightly nuts. Is it such a big deal if his accent betrays a few years spent on the other side of Gallfrey?
4. Amy Schumer
We’ve gone American. Why not go for broke? Let’s get an American woman in the Tardis. Even in its darkest, most hide-behind-the-sofa moments, Doctor Who has an undercurrent of humour.
Tom Baker’s run exemplified that best, maybe it’s time for another offbeat take on the Daleks’ nemesis. And we know that Larry David is busy.
3. Sacha Baron Cohen
You want versatility? Baron Cohen’s got it. Who better to play a shape-shifting alien than the man who has convinced us that he was an Eastern European naif, a dishonest French innkeeper and the baddest gangster in Staines?
Capable of being funny, brainy and showing that slight undertone of menace that every Tardis pilot needs, Sacha Baron Cohen is, in our unscientific opinion, the third best-qualified Jew in the world to star in Doctor Who.
2. Jason Isaacs
No stranger to genre fiction, he was Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter series and is set to appear on our screen in the next Star Trek series,Isaacs has the mixture of approachability and slight edge that every Time Lord needs. He’s got Hollywood star power, and he’ s not exactly unpleasant on the eye.
Jason Isaacs is our second-strongest contender, easy.
1. Sophie Okenedo
Who better to play the fearless, galaxy-roving charmer who is everybody’s friend but at the same time is always doomed to be an outsider?
‘I certainly felt stared at when I went to synagogue,’ she told the JC when we spoke to her last year. If you’re going to be the centre of attention anyway, do it in style…
