Birthdays bring people together and that’s why in the run up to Doctor Who’s 50th bash, we’re looking at who’s likely to be joining in the celebrations. Still waiting for an invite, though, is John Barrowman who made an impression as Captain Jack Harkness. “I read somewhere that the reason they hadn’t asked was because of my schedule,” he tells us, “well, I can say firmly here and now that that is a load of rubbish. I haven’t been asked and I always work my schedule around Torchwood and Doctor Who, they’re always a priority.”
Despite landing a role in new superhero series Arrow, Barrowman is still orbiting the Whoniverse and recently co-wrote his first Torchwood novel, Exodus Code. He did have this to say, however: “I have to tell fans out there that I’m not waiting around at a table waiting for that phone call, although I would love to get that call, but I’m out pursuing other things.”
Oddly, our favourite Time Agent is yet to meet the Eleventh Time Lord but the actors would love to fix a date. “I met Matt Smith when he got the role and we both said we thought it’d be cool if their paths would cross,” he says. “It’s not up to us though, it’s up to the higher powers, but if I’m asked I would do it at the drop of a hat.”
There was a clear chemistry between David Tennant’s Doctor and the omnisexual Jack Harkness, and we can’t help wonder what it would be like this time around. “That’s something that would be so great to look into, to see how Steven [Moffat] would have the two meet and how they would respond to each other, and whether they would even know each other is,” he says. “Jack’s not daft so I think he would sense something straight away, like Sarah Jane when David [Tennant] was playing the Doctor, she knew immediately who he was, there was a sixth sense there.”
But there’s one character that Barrowman would like to meet even more than the Doctor: “What I’d really love to see is Jack and River Song!” he says. “That would be very interesting…” The Doctor’s spouse has since filled the position of outrageous flirt that Captain Jack left behind, so who would win in a battle of the innuendos? Barrowman doesn’t fancy his chances: “I think it would have to be a tie!”
John Barrowman’s Exodus Code is available now.
