Jodie Whittaker records a scene for The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos on the set of the TARDIS control room.
What are your enduring memories of the latest series of Doctor Who? Mine were formed before The Woman Who Fell to Earth was even broadcast. Earlier in 2018 I was lucky enough to visit the set at Roath Lock Studios, where I watched scenes from several episodes being recorded. I’ve been a fan of the show for as long as I can remember, but this was the first time I’d ever been in a studio where actual episodes were taking shape. Months later, when I was watching Rosa and The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos, I immediately spotted the scenes I’d witnessed. Or rather the scenes I’d listened to, because when they were being recorded I was standing on the other side of a thin wall on the sets of Slim’s Bar and Paltraki’s spaceship. Between takes I would glance over at one of the nearby monitor screens to try to get some idea of what the finished scene would look like. On several occasions I remained glued to the monitors, sometimes wearing a pair of headphones, watching the building bricks for entire sequences being painstakingly assembled, while the directors talked through every move, every line of dialogue, with the cast.