9:17am UK, Saturday March 20, 2004

Actor Christopher Eccleston is to be the new Doctor Who when the cult sci-fi show returns to our screens next year.Eccleston, 40, star of Flesh and Blood and The Second Coming, will appear as the TV Time Lord in the 13-part BBC1 series to be shown in 2005.

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Christopher Eccleston

The BBC said the Salford-born actor would take the famous doctor into the 21st century in a "fresh and modern approach".

Jane Tranter, BBC Controller of Drama Commissioning, said: "We are delighted to have cast an actor of such calibre in one of British television's most iconic roles."

Executive producer and writer Russell T Davies said: "This man can give the Doctor a wisdom, wit and emotional range as far-reaching as the Doctor's travels in time and space."

The series, which first started in 1963, will be filmed in Cardiff later this year.

Eccelston, who first came to prominence in the 1994 film Shallow Grave and found further fame in the TV series Our Friends in the North two years later, will be the ninth doctor.

He follows in the footsteps of William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann.