The Shetland actor has won a legion of fans playing the Time Lord antagonist in Big Finish’s audio plays.
He might not have appeared in the television series – yet – but that hasn’t stopped The Eleven from becoming one of Doctor Who‘s most memorable foes, with Mark Bonnar playing the renegade Time Lord in various adventures for audio drama producers Big Finish since 2015.
The character – a Time Lord whose previous incarnations all live on inside his head – will next go up against the Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker) in September release Doctor Who: The Eleven.
In a new interview with Big Finish’s Vortex magazine, Bonnar – who also appeared in the TV show as a different character, in 2011 two-parter The Almost People/The Rebel Flesh – admitted that he’d be keen to face Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor next.
“It’s great to work with the Doctors,” he enthused. “As the Eleven I’ve only worked with three so far – Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann and Colin – and it’s very interesting to see how they deal with the Eleven as they all do it very differently! The Sixth Doctor is quite laid back, he takes it all in his stride and he’s very astute. They’ve all got very different energies and long may it continue.
He added: “I would love to face Tom Baker as the Eleven and record a big box set with him. He’s my Doctor! It’s great fun playing the character. I look forward to seeing what the writers have got up their sleeves for him next time round…”
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Bonnar’s complex villain has proven popular with Doctor Who fans since making his Big Finish debut six years ago in the Eighth Doctor mini-series Doom Coalition, with some calling for him to appear on-screen.
“It never stops being slightly surreal that I’m in this and that people love the Eleven,” he said. “I love the Eleven! He’s a fantastic character, a fantastic creation, and that’s due to the wonderful minds at Big Finish that invented him and nudged me in the various directions when we first started talking about him as a character and what he would be like. All the team helped with that evolution.”
You can read the full interview with Mark Bonnar in the next issue of Vortex, available free from bigfinish.com and via the Big Finish app this Sunday (1st August).
Doctor Who: The Eleven is available to pre-order now from Big Finish. Visit our Sci-fi hub for more news and features, or find something to watch with our TV Guide.