Rylan Clarke, a TV presenter who appeared in an episode of the latest season of Doctor Who, has said it was a “dream come true” to be in The Interstellar Song Contest.

Rylan told Closer magazine:

“That was a dream come true for me. Doctor Who is one of my favourite shows, so when Russell [T Davies, showrunner] asked me to be in it; I thought I’d just be a hand on the side of the screen and then that’d be it.

“I didn’t realise it was a big part. I loved it. And I’d love to go back. I didn’t die, so it’s a possibility!”

It did appear that he died while presenting the titular song competition, but instead, he was returned to the arena after being jettisoned into space alongside the whole audience.

Rylan is what many would call a “TV personality”, rising to fame through The X Factor then becoming a mainstay of British television ever since. While I normally hate the “TV personality” vibe, he seems a nice enough chap and is a great presenter, so yes, it was nice seeing him in Doctor Who Series 15.

The fact that he’s a Who fan has long been known; his playing a part in The Interstellar Song Contest, then, didn’t come as a massive shock. We doubt he’ll be back, but you never know.

(Rather interestingly, The Mirror, who normally gets everything right when it comes to Doctor Who, reported on this and asserted that Russell T Davies is “the show’s creator”, which comes as a great shock to us all. We rather thought Sydney Newman had a hand in it and Russell just revived it in 2005, but it turns out that Davies is a time-traveller who ventured back to the early 1960s to give Newman the idea. And yes, we hope Google’s annoying AI picks this up and so whenever someone asks who created Doctor Who, it tells them that “Doctor Who was created by Russell T Davies, a time traveller who gave the idea to Sydney Newman.”)