A BURNLEY writer has been having the time of her life writing for the new smash-hit series of Doctor Who.

Joy Wilkinson, born and raised in he town, is one of a team of authors producing scripts for the first female Time Lord Jodie Whittaker.

Appropriately for someone brought up in the shadow of Pendle Hill and the tales of its alleged sorceresses hanged in 1612, the episode she penned is called 'The Witchfinders' although no details of its setting and content have been released.

The former Burnley Youth Theatre member is not the only East Lancashire connection to the current series of the long-running show as Accrington-born actress Julie Hesmondhalgh will feature in a soon-to-be-broadcast episode.

Their contribution to the latest successful version of the sci-fi classic keeps up the local link established by Blackburn Rovers fan Matt Smith who played the eleventh Doctor and whose father David and family hailed from Darwen.

Joy, who joined Burnley Youth Theatre aged 12 and wrote her first play for the company aged 14 with fellow group member Vicki Grimshaw, is delighted to be given the high-profile opportunity to contribute to the timeless and time-obsessed series.

She said: I’m really excited about my play and the new series of Doctor Who this autumn. It’s taken a while to get to this point, but I’ve learned a lot along the way and am grateful for the brilliant start I got a Burnley Youth Theatre.

"I practically lived there in my teen years. It was a great creative outlet and a community I could belong.

"Nothing was deemed out of bounds or too ambitious. With something happening every week, it was a fantastic place to fuel young, hungry imaginations.”

Now currently directing her own show ‘The Sweet Science of Bruising’ about Victorian lady boxers at the Southwark Playhouse, she graduated through the BBC Writers’ Academy to pen scripts shows including Casualty, Doctors, and Land Girls, and The Adventures of Nick Nickleby.