Doctor Who meets Boy George for an onscreen biopic kiss

Douglas Booth, who recently starred as Boy George in a BBC film about the Culture Club singer’s early life and career, and Doctor Who star Matt Smith are to star together in a new film about the writer Christopher Isherwood.

The movie, Christopher and His Kind, which is based on Isherwood’s 1976 memoir of the same name, is being shot in Ireland ahead of Smith’s return to Wales in the summer to film his second series of Doctor Who. Douglas, 17, starred recently as the young Boy George in the BBC premiere of Worried about the Boy. He received high praise for his portrayal, including from the singer himself, who acted as a consultant on the film. In Christopher and His Kind, the Burberry model will play Isherwood’s lover, a street cleaner the writer met while living in Berlin in the 1930s. The 90-minute drama will also star Pip Carter and Lindsay Duncan – as Isherwood’s friend W. H. Auden and mother, respectively – and Toby Jones. In 2009, Duncan portrayed the former British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, in Margaret and, also in 2009, appeared in Doctor Who – as the Doctor’s assistant, Adelaide Brooke – with David Tennant and his robot companion, Gadget. Duncan and Smith have already played mother and son, in the 2008 West End play, That Face, by Polly Stenham. She told Doctor Who Magazine recently that she is a big fan of Smith and would welcome the chance to star opposite him in the science-fiction series. Jones, meanwhile, appeared with Smith in a recent Doctor Who story, Amy’s Choice, as the Dream Lord. Background Matt Smith, 27, and Douglas Booth, 17, are both fast-rising stars. Neither actor set out to be such: Smith trained as a professional soccer player until injury put a stop to that career path; Booth is a fashion model, most famous for the Burberry range. Smith made his professional TV acting debut in 2006 in Philip Pullman’s Ruby in the Smoke, which Billie Piper, who plays Rose Tyler in Doctor Who. Less than three years later, he was cast as the eleventh Doctor, at 26 becoming the youngest actor to take on the role. Smith’s first appearance as the Time Lord was broadcast in the UK on New Year’s Day 2010, when he took over from David Tennant. Booth made his screen acting debut in 2009 in From Time to Time. Recently, he shot to prominence in the Boy George biopic Worried About the Boy, for which he’s received critical acclaim. His next film project is Geography of the Hapless Heart.