Can the TikTok generation fans of Ncuti Gatwa save Doctor Who?

His new part was announced to great acclaim and some shock yesterday, given Hugh Grant, Lenny Henry, Michael Sheen and Michaela Coel were all mooted.

But Mr Gatwa will take over from the first female Doctor to become the latest in a long line of distinguished names to play the 900-year-old Time Lord, following on from three other Scots – Sylvester McCoy, fellow Royal Conservatoire graduate David Tennant and Peter Capaldi.

One of the stars of Netflix’s British comedy-drama series Sex Education, actor and model Ncuti has approaching 3million followers on Instagram.

TikTok videos featuring the star, also a fashionista, have had more than 100million views.

In contrast, the outgoing Doctor Who, Ms Whittaker, is not believed to be on social media at all.

The show, which drew in a peak of 10.7million viewers 12 years ago, only had 3.9million viewers for an episode in 2022. The average number of viewers has dropped from close to 8million to around 5.4million.

Brand expert Mark Borkowski called casting a young black actor with a large social media following a ‘great formula for publicity’, especially when the BBC show ‘badly needed a revamp’.

He said: ‘I think it’s a great idea to cast a Black Doctor. Therefore if the casting and the scripts are outstanding it will prove to be an epic moment in the show’s history’. But in a warning about what could happen to the brand if Ncuti Gatwa fails, he said: ‘Hype works as long as it delivers’.

Ncuti joins Doctor Who during a state of flux for the show.

Showrunner Chris Chibnall is leaving to be replaced by Russell T Davies, who was behind the programme’s 2005 revival.

Davies has since had success with Channel Four’s It’s A Sin, which charts the lives of a group of gay friends during the Aids epidemic.