Donna Noble - Casting

Casting

As indicated by David Tennant in his series two video diary (included in the DVD box set), the casting of Catherine Tate was kept secret; her scene in "Doomsday" was filmed with minimal crew. His series 3 video diary mentions that this instance was one of the few occasions where the element of surprise was successfully maintained without it being revealed in advance by the media. Tate became the first guest star to be named in the show's opening credits; John Barrowman, Kylie Minogue, Peter Davison, Elisabeth Sladen and John Simm have since been credited in this manner. Her character was considered by the production team to have companion status long before the announcement of the character's return. Executive producer Russell T Davies at one time dismissed Donna's potential as an ongoing companion due to her abrasive personality, saying that "she'd get on your nerves". In fact, the character was not originally scheduled to return at all. In Davies' original conception of the fourth season, it was one-off character Elton Pope (Marc Warren) from 2006's "Love & Monsters" who was to become the Tenth Doctor's last ongoing companion. Donna did not even appear in his original conception of reunion episode "The Stolen Earth", despite planned reappearances from Martha, Captain Jack (Barrowman), Sarah Jane (Sladen), Rose (Piper) and Jackie Tyler (Camille Coduri), as well as Mickey Smith (Noel Clarke) and the cast of spin-off series Torchwood. Later still, Davies had intended the series four companion to be "Penny", a Northern woman with whom the Doctor would share a romantic attraction; actor David Jason might have played the character's father. After a conversation between Catherine Tate and the BBC's Jane Tranter, in which Tate expressed an interest in returning, Davies rewrote season four to feature Donna instead.

Tate looked to her own full-time casting as a "gamble" on the part of executive producer Russell T Davies; Tate attributes this to being "known, by the vast majority of people, for wearing wigs and comedy teeth" (in her sketch comedy The Catherine Tate Show). The actress was grateful to Davies for casting her, and joked about the prominence eventually afforded her character: " "For one brief moment I was the most important woman in the whole of the universe." Ben Rawson-Jones attributes success to the natural progression of her character, her boisterous personality being toned down for her first 2008 appearance, "Partners in Crime".