Boy Meets Girl star Rebecca Root to make her Doctor Who debut

As Root confirms in Radio Times magazine this week, she will voice an alien in Zaltys, a new two-hour audio play from writer Matthew J Elliott. She will also feature alongside the Fifth Doctor's original line-up of TV companions - Adric, Nyssa and Tegan - reunited for the first time since March 1982.

She will play the wise-cracking, gun-toting galactic scavenger Sable, who has set her sights on the mysterious planet of Zaltys; a world under threat from an imminent asteroid strike, and whose inhabitants have put themselves into a cryogenic sleep to avoid the ensuing nuclear winter. Her plan is to grab as much booty as she can from the sleeping planet, but her plans are thwarted by the arrival of the Tardis - and by a shared enemy also bearing down upon Zaltys. An enemy, according to director Barnaby Edwars, who is, "from the Doctor’s own past. An enemy from out of legend. An enemy with a thirst for blood."

Back row from left to right: Alix Wilton Regan, Niamh Cusack, Peter Davison, Rebecca Root.

Front row from left to left: Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Janet Fielding (Tegan) and Matthew Waterhouse (Adric).

"I’ve been desperate to get Rebecca into a Doctor Who story for years," says Edwards. "She’s such a funny, sharp, strong actress and I wanted to find a role that would benefit from her talents. Sable is perfect for her - and she is perfect for Sable. You’ve never really seen sass until you’ve met Rebecca. It’s fair to say we all fell in love with her."

Root, who changed her name by deed poll from Graham after she transitioned in adulthood, made her name playing transgender woman Judy in BBC2 sitcom Boy Meets Girl. Last year, at the Radio Times festival, she told the audience that she wanted to be the first transgender Doctor.

"I know Steven actually and every time I see him I say... 'aaaand..?'— but the Scottish guy's got it at the minute hasn't he," she joked.

Well, everyone has to start somewhere.

Zaltys will be released on CD and download by BigFinish.com in early 2017