New Doctor Matt Smith is 'amazingly clumsy'
Bumbling Doctor Who star Matt Smith is constantly breaking bits of the set during filming, the show's boss revealed. The programme's executive producer Steven Moffatt described the actor as a cross between Indiana Jones and Stan Laurel. Viewers will see the result of one of his accidents in Saturday's edition of the BBC One series, but restaged for the cameras. Moffatt said: "There's a really nice accidental moment where The Doctor hangs from the strap on the ceiling and it breaks. The very first time Matt did it, it was an accident - he wasn't supposed to do that, it's just typical Matt, breaking everything - but the director liked it, so he kept it in. "The version we see on screen isn't the real accident, it's him doing it on purpose, but I do think it is very funny. "I think particularly the looks from the girls and the fact that he doesn't mention it at all - he just tries to carry it off as a sort of Stan Laurel moment. It's extremely charming." Matt joined the series this year following in the footsteps of other recent stars Christopher Ecclestone and David Tennant. "Both Chris and David were quite cool Doctors, and while Matt certainly isn't short on cool, he has an amazing clumsiness. He's halfway between Indiana Jones and Stan Laurel," Moffatt said in a blog on the BBC website.
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Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.
An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.