Peter Capaldi's Doctor Is Apparently A Real Space Oddity

Gradually, piece by piece, we're getting a picture of the kind of man Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor will be when he eventually makes his proper debut on long-running sci-fi Doctor Who this August, but UK tabloid The Daily Express reckons it knows a little more than most.

In a piece titled The Thin White Doc (hey, credit where it's due), the paper claims inside knowledge on the creative direction of the good Doctor's twelfth set of threads, pointing to Capaldi's own affinity for none other than David Bowie as the inspiration for the look's aesthetic.

“He explained he drew inspiration for his Doctor Who look from his 'scrapbook of ideas'," the Express quotes "an inside source" as saying.

"He thought Bowie was the perfect look.”

Take the comment with as many grains of salt as you care to - but know that Capaldi isn't exactly secretive about his lifelong Bowie fandom.

For example, writing in a foreword of a book about famed rock photographer Harry Papadopoulos, the former Thick Of It star mentions memories of seeing Bowie as a young man, "I could only afford three nights of the four he did at Glasgow's Green's Playhouse ... Everyone was there."

Regardless, the spider-like enigma would be an appropriate source of inspiration for Doctor #12, especially given Doctor Who's strong musical past, the fact that Bowie's songs have previously been featured on the show, Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor explicitly named him as one of our time's greatest musicians, and his name was bestowed upon Mars station Bowie Base One in the David Tennant-era The Waters Of Mars.

The eighth-season premiere of Doctor Who, Breathe Deep, will air on ABC1 in late August.