Rose Tyler

Rose Tyler works a dull shop job in London, living with her mum and drifting through an ordinary life, until a strange man with a northern accent grabs her hand and tells her to run. She's quick-witted, loyal, and instantly curious rather than frightened, ready to leave everything behind for something bigger.

She's the audience's way in, but the writing never lets her stay just a companion — she argues, she questions, she refuses to be rescued without a fight. Billie Piper plays her as recognisably working-class and unimpressed by wonder, which makes her wonder at it all the more infectious.