Christopher Eccleston: Dr Who is a boys’ club, and Cyberwomen should replace Cybermen

Doctor Who should replace Cybermen with Cyberwomen and look at history “through a female lens”, Christopher Eccleston has suggested.

Eccleston played the Ninth Doctor when the show was revived in 2005, and returns to the role this month in a series of audio dramas.

“You know, it’s great that we now have a female Doctor, and I think we should take that further in the way we look at history. Look at it through a female lens,” said Eccleston, who said he would like to see the Doctor meet Emmeline Pankhurst and Emily Davison, the suffragettes.

In an interview with Doctor Who Magazine, the actor said he would like to take on a new version of the Timelord’s enemy. “I think it’s high time we had a Cyberwoman, I must say that. I think we really need to address that.

“The Doctor with a Cyberwoman - that dynamic, feminine element of himself, which he uses so well, his flirtatious nature, his admiration for Gaia and the female would be great with a Cyberwoman,” he said.

A Cyberwoman did appear in a 2006 episode of Torchwood, the Doctor Who spin-off. Played by Caroline Chikezie, her outfit consisted of a silver bikini.

Jodie Whittaker became the first female Doctor Who in 2018. She recently announced that the next series will be her last.

Elsewhere in the interview, Eccleston explained how important it was for him to have played the Doctor with his own Salford accent.

He said: “One of the reasons why I didn’t like the show when I was a kid was I couldn’t put myself in that role. I know Tom Baker is a Scouser but he certainly didn’t sound like one to me.

“The series seemed to be saying that if you’re white and you’re middle class, you have ownership of intellect and science.” Playing Doctor Who as a working class northerner was “important, very important”.