Paul Simper
Published December 3, 2025 12:00pm
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Russell Tovey is back in the Whoniverse after starring in Doctor Who almost 20 years ago (Picture: BBC)
Key Points
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- Russell Tovey stars as Barclay, an ordinary man thrust into extraordinary circumstances in the new Doctor Who spin-off.
- The series, The War Between the Land and the Sea, explores themes of environmentalism and human connection, delivering hope and adventure.
- Tovey reflects on how Doctor Who shaped his career and shares insights into the show’s engaging and heartfelt storytelling.
Who would be the unlikeliest person in the Whoniverse to save the Earth and humankind from an alien threat if The Doctor and his Tardis companions were unavailable?
Meet Barclay, the regular Joe who books the taxis for the bigwigs at fictional military science organisation UNIT. Played by Years and Years, Juice and Being Human actor Russell Tovey, he is the latest every person from the imagination of writer showrunner Russell T Davies, with the power to achieve extraordinary things if only he knew it.
‘Barclay is just the most brilliant, flawed, emotional, scared but heroic character ever,’ says Russell Tovey. ‘He’s somebody who runs the Uber account at UNIT. That’s as much responsibility as he has in his job. He turns up, he takes his pay packet, goes down the gym, meets his mates, goes to the pub, tries to be a great dad to his teenage child, and he’s a divorcee. He’s a nice guy, but he’s just drifting.’
That all changes when a Human Resources admin error plucks Barclay from his humdrum life, plonks him on a remote island in Scotland and brings him face to face with The Sea Devils, one of Doctor Who’s classic foes from the early 1970s Jon Pertwee era, a marine race who ruled the earth before humanity.
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‘Barclay is picked out from among billions of people to be given this huge responsibility, and as terrifying as it is, he realises that suddenly he has got purpose,’ says Russell, 44, who first joined the franchise in the 2007 Doctor Who Christmas Special as a midshipman on a starship replica of the Titanic with Kylie Minogue.
‘People are seeing things in Barclay that he has never recognised in himself his whole life, and that propels him forwards. That activates a sense of purpose in him. The most wonderful thing you can have in life is a purpose.’
Russell first joined the franchise in 2007, where he played midshipman Frame (Picture: BBC Studios/Bad Wolf/Alistair Heap)
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Previous Page Next PageIf Barclay’s fate is the result of a happy accident, then Tovey also enjoyed his own sliding doors moment thanks to his first Doctor Who casting.
‘Julie Gardner, one of the show’s executive producers [and co-founders of Bad Wolf], was also producing a pilot called Being Human about a ghost, a vampire and a werewolf who all live in a house together. I got cast as George the werewolf. That show changed my life. If I hadn’t done Voyage of the Damned, Julie Gardner might not have considered me, and where would I be now?’
He might possibly have been working in transport like Barclay. Russell’s mum and dad ran their own coach service in Essex, ferrying passengers from Romford to Gatwick airport. Although the only time that Russell put a shift in for them, it doesn’t sound like he gave it his best shot.
Being Human was Russell’s breakout hit (Picture: BBC/Todd Antony/Touchpaper/RDF)
Russell would also work on Years and Years (Picture: BBC/Red Productions/Guy Farrow)
‘I worked on a Saturday, I turned up late, I sat in the kitchen and made myself a cup of tea, and then I think I left after lunchtime,’ says Russell. ‘That was it. I think at one point they wanted me to do a course in driving coaches, and I said no because I knew what would happen. I would get a call in the middle of the night saying a bus has broken down on the M25, you’ve got to get there and take the passengers to Stansted airport. That sounded to me like hell on earth. Obviously, I’m so proud of what my parents achieved and how hard they worked when I was a kid, but I was meant for the stage, not being behind a wheel.’
In terms of themes and emotional impact, The War Between is closer to another Russell T Davies drama, Years and Years, than it is to regular Doctor Who. The It’s a Sin writer’s dystopian vision of Britain from 2019 to 2034, with the country rocked by political upheavals and economic instability, cast Tovey as Daniel Lyons, a family member and housing officer whose life with his Ukrainian refugee partner Viktor played out devastatingly. The concerns of The War Between are again what we are doing to our planet and to each other.
‘I think it’s art’s responsibility to show what’s happening in the world and who we are,’ says Tovey. ‘If you see it through a character’s eyes and can put yourself in their shoes, suddenly you understand what is going on. Look at shows like Adolescence and how that changed everything for so many. And Mr Bates vs The Post Office. I was lucky enough to be a part of Suspect, which held people accountable for the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes. This show is hopefully going to make people sit up and go, “Wow, I can do something, and we need to do more.” It’s a show that gives people hope.’
The Homo Aqua (or Sea Devils) leader Salt (Picture: BBC Studios/Bad Wolf/Samuel Dore)
Russell Tovey on Russell T Davies
The two Russells have worked together on Doctor Who, Years and Years and now The War Between.
‘I admire Russell’s bravery when it comes to storytelling and the way he speaks about the world. He doesn’t shy away from the dark realities of what we are all living through. His Bafta Cymru speech was so stirring. He is such an important voice.
‘He has been a real constant for me, being a young gay man trying to work out who I was, seeing queer dramas like Queer as Folk. Looking for similarities, not differences, making it exciting and creating a safe space for me to see myself.
‘His ear for dialogue is next level, but if you read his scripts, just the way he does scene directions, there is no one else like him. It’s like a comic strip. He puts sound effects in. He has so much energy.
‘I’m in awe of his ability to watch and read everything in the news, read every single book under the sun, watch every single TV show, he is aware of everybody from the oldest person to the youngest and what they are doing.
‘What he does when he is part of a company is that he will text you after every day’s shoot, when he has watched the rushes, and he will do that with every single cast member and every single head of department. He will never copy and paste. They are all unique, individual texts. Every single person who works with him – you feel seen. It unites everyone because the boss is patting you on the back, going: “Great work, keep going.”’
If that makes it sound like The War Between is a rather earnest environmental tutorial, then it’s not. It’s a smart, funny, Russell T Davies and Pete McTighe sci-fi adventure with formidable adversaries, especially Sea Devils/Homo Aqua leader Salt, played by the charismatic Gugu Mbatha-Raw (The Morning Show, The Girl Before).
‘My friend was staying who is not the biggest sci-fi fan,’ says Russell, ‘but she was like, “Put another one on!” We watched all five in one sitting. I just thought that never happens. The last episode is incredible TV in the way that Russell T Davies can do it. You think about Years and Years and when that episode four hit. People are still haunted by that.
‘Although this show is in the Whoniverse, you can watch it without knowing anything about Doctor Who. The War Between is its own thing. It is completely accessible on so many levels. It’s a show that you can watch multi-generationally. It’s epic, it’s an adventure, but at its heart is love and the need for understanding and looking for similarities rather than differences, which as a society and planet right now we need to do when people are being othered.’
Russell admires Russell T Davies’ bravery when it comes to storytelling and the way he speaks about the world (Picture: Jeff Moore/PA Wire)
‘Barclay is just the most brilliant, flawed, emotional, scared but heroic character ever,’ says Russell (Picture: BBC Studios/Bad Wolf/Samuel Dore)
It is also a show that loves television. One of its best gags is when Barclay’s Gen Z teenage kid Kirby says they are now watching terrestrial TV because what’s happening with the Sea Devils is so gripping. Did Russell have his own appointment-to-view telly recently when his fellow Him & Her actor Joe Wilkinson was on Celebrity Traitors?
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‘I watched it all, and I cried my eyes out at the end with Alan [Carr],’ says Tovey. ‘What brilliant TV. Claudia Winkleman is one of the best assets we have. She is phenomenal. She is just very, very, very good at her job. I also watched the TV show What It Feels Like for A Girl, which is incredibly important and incredibly moving. Again, looking for similarities, not differences, showing us drama that humanises rather than demonises.’
And on land and sea, that battle goes on.
The War Between the Land and the Sea launches with a double bill on BBC iPlayer and BBC One at 8:30pm on Sunday 7th December.
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