Doctor Who star Jodie Whittaker is preparing to hand over the role of the Time Lord to Ncuti Gatwa, the 14th actor to play the part.
Here are the stars who have previously played the role:
William Hartnell (1963-66)
Hartnell was the oldest actor, aged 55, to play the starring role. During a long career, he made many stage and television appearances. He also featured in more than 75 British films.
Hartnell's time on Doctor Who saw the first meetings with the Daleks and the Cybermen, two of the Doctor's most famous recurring enemies.
The First Doctor's final regular appearance was in the episode The Tenth Planet, where he collapsed after defeating the Cybermen and began to regenerate.
Patrick Troughton (1966-69)
Patrick Troughton took over as the Second Doctor after Hartnell had to leave due to poor health. He played the role until 1969 and featured in 119 episodes.
Troughton - an experienced stage and screen character actor - created a character very different to his predecessor, a deliberate shift that was aimed at making audiences accept the change of actor more readily. Hartnell was said to approve of the casting.
The BBC's Doctor Who website describes the Second Doctor as having "a more playful, whimsical air".
Jon Pertwee (1970-74)
Jon Pertwee portrayed the Third Doctor until 1974 as "confident, bold and brash, but with a soft paternal side", according to the BBC.
The actor, who was keen to win the role, had extensive TV and film experience and went on the star in the hugely popular TV series Worzel Gummidge.
While previous Doctors' stories had all involved time and space travel, Pertwee's stories initially depicted the Doctor stranded on Earth in exile.
Tom Baker (1974-81)
Baker portrayed the character for seven consecutive seasons, the longest any actor has played the role, and this was when the show experienced its highest viewing figures.
Born in Liverpool, Baker was not academic and said his Catholic family were delighted when aged 15 he joined a religious order. The actor's website said he became disillusioned with monastic life and left aged 21.
He served with Britain's Royal Army Medical Corps for his national service and then discovered acting, which became his career.
Peter Davison (1982-84)
By the time Davison became the Fifth Doctor, he was already known as Tristan Farnon in the comedy-drama series All Creatures Great and Small.
His successful career continued after Doctor Who with hit shows like A Very Peculiar Practice and At Home with the Braithwaites.
Davison, 71, was more recently seen as William Priestley in Gentleman Jack and the vicar in The Larkins.
Colin Baker (1984-86)
Baker's Sixth Doctor is described by the BBC's official website as "passionate, quick to anger... a Doctor you did not want to make enemies with".
The actor, born in a hospital in Waterloo, London during an air raid, moved to Rochdale in Lancashire as a young boy.
He later studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and starred in the TV drama The Brothers. He appeared as Commander Maxil in the 1983 Doctor Who episode Arc of Infinity before landing the lead role.
Baker, now 78, recently appeared in an episode of Emmerdale.
Sylvester McCoy (1987-89)
The Seventh Doctor was played by Sylvester McCoy and first appeared on TV in 1987.
McCoy, now 78, was well known for being a Scottish actor and physical comedian.
After the programme was cancelled at the end of 1989, the Seventh Doctor's adventures continued in novels until the late 1990s.
McCoy went on to play Radagast in The Hobbit trilogy of films.
Paul McGann (1996)
The Seventh Doctor made an appearance at the start of the franchise's 1996 movie before the character was replaced by the Eighth Doctor, Paul McGann. He bridged the gap between the end of the original series in 1989 and the beginning of the new series in 2005.
Despite being the Doctor for nine years, McGann had less screen time than any other starring actor.
Although the Eighth Doctor initially had only one on-screen appearance, his adventures were portrayed extensively in subsequent spin-offs.
In 2013, the actor reprised the role in the mini-episode The Night of the Doctor, which depicts the Eighth Doctor's final adventure and his regeneration into the War Doctor, played by John Hurt.
McGann, now 62, was born in Liverpool, and is the brother of fellow actors Stephen McGann, Mark McGann and Joe McGann. He starred in 1987 film Withnail and I and recently appeared in the Hillsborough drama Anne about campaigner Anne Williams.
Christopher Eccleston (2005)
Christopher Eccleston assumed the role of the Ninth Doctor during the first series of the show's revival in 2005.
Eccleston's Doctor is a war-torn loner who disguises his trauma behind "madcap wit and frivolity", the BBC says.
Eccleston was a well-known actor who had appeared in TV dramas Our Friends in the North and Hillsborough when he joined Doctor Who.
He was more recently seen as Maurice Scott in The A Word, a TV drama about a boy with autism and his family.
David Tennant (2005-2010)
David Tennant's 10th Doctor is seen as one of the most popular incarnations of the character.
Tennant's portrayal of the Doctor is described by the BBC as "excitable, enthusiastic and victorious".
Tennant has appeared in the TV series Casanova and played Barty Crouch Jr in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
He recently played serial killed Dennis Nilsen in the acclaimed drama Des.
Matt Smith (2010-2013)
The 11th Doctor is described on the show's website as "clever and cunning, witty and wise".
He was the last Doctor to appear alongside the Doctor's long-serving companion Sarah Jane Smith, who was played by the late Elisabeth Sladen. The series veteran passed away in April 2011 after a battle with cancer. She was 65.
Smith, now 39, from Northampton, went on to play the Duke of Edinburgh in The Crown.
Peter Capaldi (2014-17)
Capaldi, the 12th Doctor, took up the role before Whittaker became the first female doctor. Capaldi's Doctor is described by the show's website as having "a brusque manner" with "a determination to be a good man".
The Scottish actor is also well known for playing Malcolm Tucker in the political comedy The Thick of It.
Capaldi, now 64, is also a director, writer, and musician.
Jodie Whittaker (2017-2022)
Whittaker was best known for starring as Beth Latimer, the mother of murdered Danny Latimer, in Broadchurch when she became the first female to take the lead role in Doctor Who.
Born in June 1982 in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, Whittaker completed a diploma in performing arts before attending Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London.
She graduated from drama school in 2005 and made her professional debut the same year in Storm at Shakespeare's Globe theatre in London. Whittaker subsequently won her first film role in Venus (2006) alongside Peter O'Toole.
She will bow out as the "kind, funny, curious, wondering wanderer" in a Doctor Who special later this year.
Ncuti Gatwa (2022-)
❤️❤️➕🟦 https://t.co/Czu08spABG
— Doctor Who (@bbcdoctorwho) May 8, 2022
Born in Rwanda before moving to Scotland, where he was raised, Gatwa, now 29, began his career as an extra on the 2014 sitcom Bob Servant.
In 2016, he played Demetrius in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at Shakespeare's Globe theatre in London.
His big break came when he was cast in Netflix show Sex Education as Eric Effiong, a gay British-Nigerian who is best friends with Otis, the show's lead character.
Writing in The Big Issue in May 2020, Gatwa said he ended up homeless after running out of savings in the months before he landed his role in Sex Education and had developed depression.
Source: Press Association
