Arwel Wyn Jones designed the latest Doctor’s first series of adventures - and came up with a crystalline concept for the control room of her TARDIS…

Interview by MARK WRIGHT

“Jodie’s a very physical actor, so we added more spin handles and switches to the console.”

An unusual view of the latest TARDIS control room, looking up at the ceiling.

An hourglass is incorporated into the console operated by the Thirteenth Doctor (Jodie Whittaker).

“When the opening line of a script is ‘We’re in a warehouse, which is the entire surface of a planet’ - you think, ‘Oh my God! How do we start that?!’” With these words, Arwel Wyn Jones sums up the dilemma facing Doctor Who’s production designers from 1963 to the present. As production designer for the 2018 series, the first starring Jodie Whittaker, Arwel was responsible for defining the look of the current Doctor’s adventures - including that ‘space warehouse’ episode, Kerblam!

Arwel’s experience in television - and with Doctor Who - goes back much further, however. “I started as a runner,” he says, recalling his early days in Welsh television. “Because I grew up on a farm, you turn your hand to anything you need to do. The art department was more my side of things. I started off thinking I wanted to direct, and then helped out doing standby props on a Welsh show years and years ago and found an aptitude for that. From there I worked my way up.”

In 2004, Doctor Who was set to return to television, with Wales becoming its new base of operations. “I had already designed for Welsh television,” continues Arwel, “and I was art directing on something else. I had a phone call to go and see [production designer] Edward Thomas about the second block of Doctor Who [Series 1] in 2004. I went in for a chat, really liked Ed and the environment, so I decided to take a step back and go onto a standby art director role on a bigger production.