Thirty-nine reasons why we love David Tennant

Actor David Tennant takes the lead in Richard Wilson's production of John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger and presents an associated documentary, Tennant Looks Back At Osborne – both programmes are broadcast on Radio 4 on Saturday 30 April. Normally we try and be all impartial and neutral. But not so much, this time. We LOVE David Tennant. Love. Him. Here are a few of the reasons why… and believe us these are just the tip of the iceberg…

• He chose Eddie Izzard and Tim Minchin in his Desert Island Discs.
• On his first outing in Radio 4’s Just a Minute he did the full minute (of COURSE he did – just click on the sound clip to hear him).
• He often wears a hoodie, as he believes it makes people avoid him. 'Presumably they think you’re about to murder them.'
• He’s scared of mice.
• A reviewer made him cry when he made his second stage appearance in King Arthur. The critic said he 'lacks any charm or ability whatsoever.'
• Someone once asked him for his autograph while he was in the shower. It wasn’t us.*

*Yes it was... (Ed.)

• As Doctor Who he turned pinstriped suits with Converse into A Thing (see the outfit in the video clip)...
• He kept his sonic screwdriver from when he was The Doctor.
• His heroes are Derek Jacobi and John Cleese.
• He took the chemistry he had with Catherine Tate in Doctor Who on to the West End stage, in Much Ado About Nothing.
• He played Casanova and everyone suddenly realised how Casanova got away with it.
• Spookily, when he was 13, David Tennant wrote in a school essay called 'Intergalactic Overdose' that he was 'convinced' he was 'going to play the part of the Doctor on TV'.
• One of his first appearances was as a patient in BBC Scotland’s Takin’ Over the Asylum, which starred Ken Stott as a DJ on psychiatric hospital radio.

David Tennant as Davina in Rab C Nesbitt

• In 2008 he was awarded Greenest Star on the Planet. Time travel has a low carbon footprint, apparently.
• He uncovered his dark side as Kilgrave, the terrifying control freak in Jessica Jones.
• He is married to Georgia Moffett who is the daughter of Peter Davison, the cricket whites-wearing Doctor, and Georgia played David’s daughter in Doctor Who. Still with us?
• One of his first TV appearances was as a transsexual called Davina in an episode of a Rab C Nesbitt series.
• He’s a huge Hitchcock fan.
• He put people off ever going near cliffs in Broadchurch.
• He auditioned six times for Taggart and never got a part.
• He suffers from acute stage fright.

David Tennant as Richard II

• When he was voted Sexiest Actor in 2005 he claimed to have voted for John Barrowman.
• He gives great raffle prizes to his local school summer fair.
• He dislikes astrology and McDonalds.
• Comedian Arabella Weir was his landlady and he’s godfather to her eldest child.
• He is immensely kind to his fans, even recreating a Doctor Who clip for an ill child.
• He played Richard II with a long wig and brocade gown.
• He loved Doctor Who as a child and carried a Tom Baker doll around school.
• He describes Twitter as 'like being stalked by committee'.

• The first single he bought was Madonna’s Like a Virgin.
• During Tennant’s tenure the Tardis was slightly whiffy as he was often engaged in a farting competition with John Barrowman.
• He was caught speeding on deserted roads in the middle of the night, twice. In Wales. In a Skoda.
• He gave us the saddest Doctor Who exit ever when he was separated from Billie Piper as Rose.
• He gives great Hamlet (watch the 'coward' soliloquy in the video clip). The theatre sold out of tickets in three hours.

• He nicked the 'Tennant' part of his name from Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys. His real surname is MacDonald but for Equity he had to change it. As he got the name from a copy of Smash Hits, he points out that he could have been 'David Kajagoogoo.'
• Appearing in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was, he says, odd. 'You sit on the set with the cream of the National Theatre and the RSC, all clutching wands or wearing witches’ hats.'
• He decided on acting as a career when he was three.
• He made his grandma knit him a Tom Baker-esque scarf when he was little.
• He loves us. That’s definitely true. Yes.