While we’re still a good few months away from the Doctor Who Christmas special, fans are clamouring for more details – and thankfully, some new castings have now been revealed!

Joy to the World, written by former Doctor Who show runner Steven Moffat, will star Nicola Coughlan as a character called Joy, with Ncuti Gatwa of course returning as the Fifteenth Doctor.

Audiences at San Diego Comic-Con were treated to a glorious preview of the new special, which saw the Doctor delivering the goods – a ham and cheese toastie and a pumpkin latte at different points across time and space.

Plus, it featured a fair few new faces, with those actors now being confirmed in the new issue of Doctor Who Magazine.

The Christmas special stars Dark actor Peter Benedict as Basil and Casualty star Julia Watson as Hilda (the pair at the Queens Hotel in Manchester, during the Second World War).

 

We then see actress Niamh Marie Smith as Sylvia with a copy of Agatha Christie’s novel Murder on the Orient Express, before we see actor Phil Baxter as Edmund Hillary and Samuel Sherpa-Moore as Tenzing Norgay.

Steph de Whalley plays Anita, who shows Joy to her room at the Sandringham Hotel in 2024, while a Silurian called Melnak, played by Sherlock regular Jonathan Aris, wanders into her room despite the locked door.

Coughlan has described her character Joy as “a determined woman whose life is changed forever when she meets the Doctor”.

Moffat, who’s returning after penning the season 14 episode Boom, has also teased that we may endure some heartbreak during the Christmas special too – so prepare yourselves!

He previously said of returning for the festive adventure: “It was just fun and it was quite nice that I had my old job back for exactly one episode and then I could go lie down. Russell [T Davies] has to keep toiling away all the time, constantly.”

Davies himself has also teased what fans can expect from the special.

“I can’t give away much more but work has begun on it already, and it’s mad, it’s one of the maddest Christmas specials you’ll ever see,” he said during a behind-the-scenes video on YouTube for Empire of Death. “It’s epic, it goes to so many different places. And it’s a great story of who the Doctor is when he’s alone.”

The latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine is out now.

Doctor Who will return at Christmas on BBC iPlayer and BBC One.