Karen Gillan is clearly not ready to leave the Tardis just yet. Not only is she returning to the Doctor and his bigger-on-the-inside blue box for season 2 of the hit BBC serial, she will be exploring alternate realities on her own in Romeo and Brittney.

The fantasy drama, which director David Baddiel is pitching as “Shakespeare in Love meets Clueless”, falls into a small but growing genre.

“We both love literate teen comedies and we wanted to do our own version. After all, 10 Things I Hate About You was based on The Taming On the Shrew just as Clueless was based on Jane Austen’s Emma and Easy A is inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. And what is Twilight if it’s not Romeo and Juliet with vampires and werewolves?”

While I would counter that perhaps Baddiel is giving Twilight a little too much credit, such comparisons stand Romeo and Brittney in good stead. Such literate teen comedies have proven successfully, both commercially and critically, with their respective source materials giving them a little extra credibility.

Spinning Shakespeare’s original on its head by throwing Gillan’s Britteny into the mix and casting her friends and family in the lead roles, the tale will hopefully live up to its rather esteemed forebears.

While Baddiel has written The Infidel, he is still best known as a novelist and comedian. With Gillan similarly typecast, the duo will have much to gain from proving their respective diversities. Filling out the cast as Romeo, Robert Sheehan will hopefully prove a winning foil for Gillan’s to-date rather hammy, if charming, shtick.