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C2E2 2026 • Chicago, Illinois • March 28, 2026
The Ninth Doctor made a rare American convention appearance at C2E2 in Chicago, delivering frank thoughts on the show's future, his love of theatre, and why bananas are strictly a casual commitment.
Christopher Eccleston — the actor who in 2005 introduced a generation of viewers to a battle-scarred, leather-jacketed Doctor Who with a Northern accent and a fierce moral compass — made a rare US convention appearance at C2E2 in Chicago on Saturday, March 28th. The packed panel at McCormick Place saw Eccleston in characteristically direct form, fielding questions from fans across the Midwest and beyond on everything from the Time Lord's future to Shakespeare, football (not soccer, he was keen to stress), and the music of Donny Hathaway.
For Anglophiles and Whovians alike, the morning session produced one genuinely newsworthy moment — and quite a few memorable ones besides.
The Big Revelation: He'd Come Back — For the Right Showrunner
The question everyone in the room was waiting for came from a fan from Indiana (not me, honest!), who asked simply whether, given that David Tennant had recently returned to the role, Eccleston might consider doing the same.
His answer was unambiguous — and came with a pointed condition. He would return, he said, but not with the four people currently running the show. Instead, he outlined a specific dream scenario: a little girl who was six or seven years old when his series aired in 2005 grows up, becomes showrunner, and asks him back. He was emphatic that Doctor Who has never had a female showrunner, calling that a significant omission and framing a future return as contingent on that changing.
It was a characteristically Eccleston answer — enthusiastic about the show's potential, unsparing about its present leadership (which is also the past leadership he was unhappy with).
On the Doctor He Played
Eccleston spoke with obvious affection for the Ninth Doctor's defining qualities, and some frustration at how the character has evolved since. He expressed unease at the show's increasing use of violence and romance, noting that he was never entirely comfortable with an episode in which his Doctor used a gun. He preferred the pacifism that defined his tenure, and suggested the relationship between the Doctor and companion is more profound and mysterious than any romantic subplot could capture.
Asked about multi-Doctor stories — the type of crossover episode that has become a staple of the modern series — he was equally blunt: he doesn't like them. His preference is for the classic dynamic: the Doctor, and the companion.
When asked to name a favourite episode, he cited three with evident emotion. Father's Day held particular resonance — his own father was seriously ill with dementia and cancer during the filming of Series One, and the episode's exploration of a child who never knew a parent struck him deeply. The Dalek, he said, gave him the chance to do something genuinely iconic by showing the Doctor's capacity for tyranny. And the two-part The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances he recalled simply as stories where they knew they were doing something special.
Billie Piper, and the Joy of Watching Someone Become Themselves
Asked about his favourite moment on set, Eccleston didn't hesitate. He spoke movingly about watching Billie Piper grow across the course of the series. She was petrified at the start, he said — a pop star at fifteen suddenly working alongside a very experienced actor — but she was always listening, always watching. By the end, he said, she was the best thing in it. He described it as "watching Billy become Billy," with a warmth that brought the room to a brief and appreciative silence.
Theatre, Shakespeare, and Another Go at Macbeth
The panel opened with a theatre question, and Eccleston returned to the subject gladly throughout. He expressed a strong desire to have another go at Macbeth — a role he has played before but feels unsatisfied with — alongside ambitions for King Lear, Richard III, and The Tempest. He was characteristically pragmatic about the economics of it all: theatre pays the soul, he said, but film and television pays the bills.
He also offered an unexpectedly illuminating explanation of the "Scottish play" superstition, arguing that the curse has nothing to do with witchcraft. In Elizabethan times, he suggested, telling another actor you were performing Macbeth was essentially a distress signal — theatres put it on because it reliably drew audiences, so hearing it was a sign the house was in financial trouble. An economic curse, not a supernatural one.
On the subject of casting a hypothetical future Lady Macbeth, he argued the marriage should be a spring-winter pairing — she should be considerably younger than him — and that the tension between them is the engine of the play.
His Northern Accent — and Why It Mattered
An audience member from Milwaukee asked about Eccleston's decision to use his own Northern accent as the Doctor — a choice that broke sharply with the received-pronunciation tradition of every previous Doctor. Eccleston explained that it was a conscious statement. All previous Doctors, he noted, had sounded like Hugh Grant — posh, Home Counties, educated. The implicit message to working-class children was that authority, morality, and intelligence were the preserve of the upper classes. He cited Alan Turing's codebreaker, who came from Moss Side in Manchester, as evidence of how wrong that message was. Using his own Salford dialect was deliberate: a signal that you didn't have to speak a certain way to be the hero.
Football, Capitalism, and Manchester United
A fan from Elmhurst asked Eccleston — a lifelong Manchester United supporter — about Manchester City's financial fair play situation, and whether any penalty should involve transfer of ownership away from the Glazers. The actor didn't shy away. He described football as the world's game, a dream, but expressed sadness at what capitalism has done to it. Manchester United, he acknowledged, is now a corporate monster — a fact that clearly pains him.
He also weighed in firmly on the soccer/football debate when a fan mentioned that the word "soccer" actually originated in Britain, derived from Association Football. Eccleston's response was swift: even if it came from England, it had been "perverted by Americans." The panel host confirmed the etymology — the word was shortened from "assoc" to "soccer" — and the room took it in good humour.
Books, Documentaries, and a Mini TARDIS He Once Stole
Eccleston revealed he is currently deep into a debut novel called The Daffodil Days by first-time author Helen Bain, which draws on the life of Sylvia Plath, and recommended it enthusiastically to the audience. He also praised a recent West End production of Othello featuring David Harewood and Toby Jones, and named the ESPN documentary OJ: Made in America as the greatest documentary he has ever seen — the documentary, he stressed, not the drama.
His documentary ambitions, should anyone give him free reign, would include an investigation into whether Shakespeare was genuinely the man from Stratford, a history of the working classes worldwide beginning in Britain, and a documentary about the soul singer Donny Hathaway.
On a lighter note, he confessed to stealing a souvenir from the Doctor Who press launch in Cardiff: a miniature TARDIS that had been sitting on a table in the hotel, which he quietly slipped inside his jacket. He added, somewhat sheepishly, that he is no longer entirely sure where it is.
On Hobbies, Music, and a Life Well Lived
Asked about hobbies, Eccleston described himself as obsessive by nature. Exercise is essential to him — running, weights, boxing. Music is a passion that borders on academic: he has a deep love of Black American music, from soul and funk to Jamaican rocksteady and reggae, and confessed to knowing who played harmonica on albums recorded in 1962. Reading is the other constant. If everything else were stripped away, he said, he would keep the exercise.
A Doctor Still Very Much Alive
A Chicago librarian who works with teenagers told Eccleston that the Ninth Doctor continues to resonate powerfully with young viewers — that teens, in particular, are drawn to his incarnation in ways that feel fresh even twenty years on. He received the observation with visible pleasure, and the two briefly dreamed up the idea of a Big Finish audio adventure in which the Doctor becomes a public librarian, serving, as he put it, "the people."
It was, in miniature, everything that made the Ninth Doctor so important in the first place: a Time Lord who belongs to everyone, not just the posh. Christopher Eccleston, at 62, hasn't lost a molecule of that conviction — and if the right showrunner ever comes calling, it sounds like the Doctor isn't done quite yet.
One More Thing: On Bananas
No C2E2 Doctor Who panel would be complete without a nod to the Tenth Doctor's famous fondness for bananas — and a Chicago fan duly obliged, asking Eccleston how he personally feels about the fruit. His answer was considered, measured, and deeply revealing of a man who knows his own mind: he doesn't mind a banana, he said, but he wouldn't get into a long-term relationship with one. More of a ships-in-the-night situation. When pressed on his actual favourite food, he clarified that he is fundamentally a savoury person — and that given a straight choice between a roasted banana and a whole bulb of roasted garlic, he would take the garlic without hesitation. The audience, delighted, briefly rechristened him the Roasted Garlic Doctor.
After the panel, Eccleston returned to Autograph Alley to sign for fans and take more of their questions. I should note that the line was quite long, showing that the 9th Doctor has not dimmed in popularity over 20 years!
