John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness)

Born in Glasgow, John moved to Joliet, Illinois, with his family when he was eight years old. At high school, he starred in an end-of-term musical and never looked back. On a visit to the UK in 1989, he chanced upon an open audition for a West End production of Anything Goes and, after wowing leading lady Elaine Paige, was plucked from obscurity to star in the Cole Porter classic. Acclaimed roles in a string of hit musicals followed, including Miss Saigon, Phantom Of The Opera, Sunset Boulevard and Beauty And The Beast.

A life-long fan of Doctor Who, John admits that his home is stuffed with Captain Jack memorabilia, including his racy leather trousers, squareness gun and the bullets he aimed at the Daleks when we last saw him.

It’s no surprise, then, that he was every bit as eager to find out more about Jack as the Time Agent’s fans (or “Woodies” as John dubs them). “When we first met Jack last year, he was a bit of a rogue, an intergalactic con man who had become that way because of something in his past. Two years of his life had been wiped from his memory and he had no idea why or what went on. Now he’s on a mission to find out more about himself,” he explains. And there’s no better place to do that than Torchwood, which is located on a rift in time and space in modern-day Cardiff. “Jack’s not a time traveller, he’s a Time Agent and he can only travel through time with the assistance of someone like The Doctor. Now, Cardiff has this rift in it and so it’s one of the places the TARDIS is likely to return to, so Jack is just waiting. He never leaves, he never sleeps,” says John.

John loves working in Cardiff and has even bought a house overlooking the bay, which he shares with his partner, architect Scott Gill, and their two cocker spaniels, Penny and Lewis. “When you see Cardiff on film, it looks like LA; it looks amazing,” he says. “I’ve seen the first episode and Cardiff surprised even me. I think a lot of people are going to want to come here, not just because of Torchwood but because it’s such a great place – it’s buzzing every single day and it’s beautiful.” John and Scott are even planning to cement their 13-year relationship with a civil partnership in the city later this year. “All my family are coming over from the US to celebrate with us in December. It’ll be a family thing; it won’t be a Posh and Becks wedding,” says John.

John is also hoping to find the time to give his family a guided tour of the state-of-the art BBC studio complex where Torchwood is filmed. “It’s a great place to work,” says John. “Doctor Who is filmed there, too, and the TARDIS and the Hub are right next to each other – the only thing that separates us is a curtain. We all arrive at work and go off to our separate areas and then we have a big shared lunch place. So you might sit down with your salad next to a Weevil or share a pizza with a Dalek … that’s pretty normal for us,” he laughs. But not everyone shares the actor’s enthusiasm for the BBC canteen. In fact, it was all a bit much for one little boy, the son of one of the Torchwood crew, who recently accompanied his dad to work. John explains: “We were having lunch and suddenly this very recognisable alien walked by and the child just freaked out. He screamed and his dad grabbed his hand and said, ‘You’ll be fine – you’re with me’. But the kid shouted: ‘No! You can’t do anything – I have to be with Jack!’ He literally ran over, grabbed onto my leg and wouldn’t let go. And the poor old alien was only going outside to have a cup of coffee and a fag!”