 In this story the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and his travelling companion, Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu), visit Lagos in Nigeria. There, they get trapped in Omo's Palace - The Doctor's favourite barbershop - by an enigmatic figure, known only as The Barber, who uses the power of stories to power an engine he has constructed.
This story was written by Inua Ellams. He was first recommended for the job by Ncuti Gatwa.
This story shares many themes and ideas with other work by Inua Ellams. Namely the Barber Shop Chronicles which he wrote in 2017 and which prominently explored barbershops as places of friendship and culture. It featured many barbershops, including one in Lagos. A version of the story about Yo-Yo Ma and the shaman was part of this play.
Inua Ellams also used themes from his 2019 play The Half-God of Rainfall which depicted a world in which the gods of all religions coexist as separate figures who interact and fight with each other.
The 2020 poetry book The Actual, by Inua Ellams, included a poem about the renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma, as well as a poem comparing rapping to time travel which mentions Doctor Who. The Yo-Yo Ma anecdote is based on the musician's trip to Botswana which was filmed for the 1993 documentary Distant Echoes: Yo-Yo Ma & the Kalahari Bushmen.
Initially, a different idea had been developed for this story but was rejected by Russell T Davies because it was too similar to another script that was already being developed for the show. After that writer was ultimately unable to complete their script, Russell T Davies suggested to Inua Ellams that he write a story based on the stage play Barber Shop Chronicles. Despite the play and this story containing independent ideas with original characters, Inua Ellams viewed them as having ‘connective tissue’ for their underlying concepts.
The idea for the character of The Barber came to Inua Ellams when he made this story’s antagonist an African male who had written stories for the masses but had not received any credit for their work. This was later connected to Anansi, a West African mythological character known for associations with stories. He also considered it as a companion piece to the 2024 story "Dot and Bubble". At one time, there were concerns over whether or not The Barber was ‘too frightening’. This story also explores themes of ‘identity, displacement and destiny’.
With the exception of flashback scenes, this story features a cast entirely comprising people of colour. The Barber Shop Chronicles also features a cast largely comprising people of colour.
Ariyon Bakare guest stars as The Barber. He previously played the part of Leandro in the 2015 Twelfth Doctor story "The Woman Who Lived". Ariyon Bakare has also voiced several characters for Big Finish Productions. It has been reported that he made his character similar to Anansi and the biblical figure Samson.
Sule Rimi appears as the barbershop's owner, while Stefan Adegbola, Jordan Adene, and Michael Balogun are customers. Michelle Asante portrays Abena.
Sule Rimi and Michael Balogun had previously worked with Inua Ellams, both performing in the Barber Shop Chronicles. Sule Rimi has also made an uncredited appearance as a UNIT soldier in the 2005 Ninth Doctor story "Aliens of London/World War Three".
Writer Inua Ellams makes a cameo appearance in this story as a market seller. This came about after he made a joke about appearing in this story during a pre-production meeting. His cameo appearance in this story marks the second time a person has written and acted in the same story - following Mark Gatiss in the 2010 Eleventh Doctor story "Victory of the Daleks".
Jo Martin reprises her role as the Fugitive Doctor. Showrunner Russell T Davies stated that because this story explored The Doctor's ethnicity it ‘felt like Jo Martin was missing’ and that he wanted to acknowledge her and show that she still exists.
The remainder of the guest cast includes Adrian Pang and Anita Dobson. While Sienna-Robyn Mavanga-Phipps makes a brief appearance – apparently reprising her role as Poppy, from the 2024 story "Space Babies", with her appearance to Belinda unexplained during this story. Eighty extras were also used in the Nigerian market scene.
This story was directed by Makalla McPherson. The production team initially considered actually filming this story in Lagos, Nigeria, where this story is set, but found the prospect of the full cast and crew travelling there to be too expensive. Instead, a set was built on a soundstage at Wolf Studios Wales in Cardiff. Some footage however, was recorded in Lagos, Nigeria - namely establishing shots using a drone - with the primary goal to make the soundstage set look authentic.
This story was primarily filmed at Wolf Studios in early 2024 and was placed in this season’s fourth production block along with the following story, "The Interstellar Song Contest". Although both stories recorded in a single block would normally be overseen by the same director, complexity of the next story required them to have individual directors.
The Nigerian market scene was filmed on the 19th February 2024. Only one day of shooting was allocated to this scene, before the sound stage began conversion to the exterior of the barbershop and alleyways. The back of the barbershop and engine room were constructed on a separate soundstage.
Director Makalla McPherson used pre-visualisation to see a three-dimensional virtual version of the set prior to construction, which was used to plan blocking, action sequences, and set design. She said that the main obstacle was creating a proper dynamic among the cast since this story had a single main set.
Multiple Nigerian consultants were involved with various areas of production to ensure authentic representation of sets, hair styles and spoken languages.
Filming on this story coincided with Ncuti Gatwa's appearance at the 96th Academy Awards for Barbie: The Movie, in which he played the part of Ken.
All of the previous incarnations of The Doctor appear in archive footage. When The Doctor overcharges the engine with his endless story, clips from previous stories are shown. These include: the Second Doctor in "Tomb of the Cybermen", the Third Doctor in "Spearhead From Space", the Ninth Doctor in "The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances", the Tenth Doctor in "Voyage of the Damned", the Twelfth Doctor in "The Zygon Invasion/The Zygon Inversion", the Thirteenth Doctor in "The Power of The Doctor" along with audio from "The Woman Who Fell to Earth", audio of the Fifth Doctor from "The Five Doctors", the Eleventh Doctor in "Vincent and The Doctor", the Fourth Doctor in "Pyramids of Mars", the Eighth Doctor in "The Night of The Doctor", the First Doctor in "The Daleks in Colour", Tegan Jovanka, Vislor Turlough, and the Fifth Doctor in "The Five Doctors" (saying the same line heard earlier), the Sixth Doctor in "The Ultimate Foe" and the Fifteenth Doctor in "Space Babies". Clips of the Fourteenth Doctor in "The Giggle", the First Doctor in "Flashpoint" (the final episode of "The Dalek Invasion of Earth"), the Twelfth Doctor in "Heaven Sent/Hell Bent" and a still of the Fifteenth Doctor in "Boom".
The Barber claims to be Anansi, Dionysus, Sága, Loki, and Bastet. In return, The Doctor relates encounters he had with all of those deities: winning a bet against Anansi, having a drinking contest with Dionysus that caused a drought in Athens, watching Marvel movies with Sága, and losing a game of chess to Bastet.
Notably, the first appearance of Anansi in Doctor Who was just a month before this story's broadcast, in the Big Finish Productions Short Trips Seventh Doctor and Ace audiobook anthology "Emerald Isle", written by Christian Markham and read by Kaye Brown.
Omo and The Doctor both mention their first meeting at a fire, as depicted in What I Did On My Holidays By Omo Esosa. This was a short story written by Inua Ellams that was made available, on the Doctor Who website on the 8th May 2025, to act as a prelude for this story. Some of the artwork was shown on the shop window in this story when Omo Esosa tells his story of The Doctor.
Mrs Flood's cameo, for the first time, occurs in a flashback rather than the present. In this story The Doctor recounts about how Belinda saved a patient's life. Belinda is seen walking down a hospital corridor just before she meets the patient again and is given some flowers.
The Doctor recognises Abby from his encounter with Anansi when he was the Fugitive Doctor, indicating that he now has access to some of the memories that were erased by The Division - the shadowy organisation founded on Gallifrey by the early Time Lords (see "Ascension of the Cybermen/The Timeless Children" and "Flux").
Belinda sees an apparition of Captain Poppy (see "Space Babies") just before she reaches the barbershop. When she later tells The Doctor about seeing the little girl, he guesses it was due to stories from the Story Engine leaking out.
The Story Engine room has a large collection of artefacts related to stories. The room of shelves includes a human skull, several mirrors, a bronze statue of Ra, a life-sized statue of a bearded man, sheet music, a helmet, copies of The Old Man and the Sea, A Moveable Feast, and To Have and Have Not, and a statue of a charioteer. The area around the heart has a statue of a dancing Hindu goddess, a gong, a clock, a statue of an Indian elephant, a model ship, several televisions, Jumanji, and a marionette.
The Doctor announces that he once met Ernest Hemingway and challenged him to write a story in six words which appears to be referencing For sale: baby shoes, never worn, a story miss-attributed to Ernest Hemingway.
The Doctor again is seen using the Vindicator, as he previously did in "Lux", "The Well" and "Lucky Day".
This story has a smooth transition from the ‘cold opening’ into the title sequence, with the title sequence first appearing in the shop window, and then the camera slowly zooming closer until the image fills the frame and the window fades away.
The title of this story was revealed on official social media on the 22nd March 2025.
For the UK debut on the BBC iPlayer, this story was first released as an audio description version only. The standard version of this story was then released shortly after.
Sienna-Robyn Mavanga-Phipps as Poppy and Jo Martin as the Fugitive Doctor were omitted from the advance credits.
This story was watched by 2.7 million viewers and received mixed reviews. Praise was given for Inua Ellams' writing, the story's settings, and its unique atmosphere. But it has been criticised for its lack of identifiable stakes, especially that they were not well-defined until halfway through the story, and that the men trapped in the shop were then all but forgotten once the true danger was identified. Jo Martin's appearance as the Fugitive Doctor has also been described as being ‘wasted’. This story though has been described as having one of the most original and ambitious storylines that this show has produced in years - namely its unique way of telling its story.
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The Firsts:
The first Doctor Who story written by Inua Ellams.
The first Doctor Who story to be directed by Makalla McPherson.
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