Guess who’s back, back again, John Simm is back, tell a friend.

In a surprise announcement from the man himself, John Simm will be returning to Doctor Who and bringing his version of The Master back from the dead. Well, not exactly back from the dead as it appears we’ll be revisiting The Master before he regenerated into Missy.

“I can confirm that it’s true, thanks to the power of time travel I’m back. It’s always a pleasure to work with this great team of people and I can’t wait for you all to see what the Master gets up to in the next series.”

The exact nature of Simm’s reprisal remains a mystery, some fans believe it will be little more than a cameo to show his regeneration, but based on Steven Moffat’s comments, I think Simm is going to be doing a whole lot more than a cameo.

“Nothing stays secret for long on Doctor Who but you’ll have to wait a little bit longer to see exactly what the Master is up to and how he makes his return to face the Doctor. It’s been a huge pleasure to have fan favourites John Simm and Michelle Gomez face to face in the same role! It’s not often you get to see a solo personality clash.”

As hard as it is to believe, it has been almost ten years since John Simm made his debut as The Master. He would reprise his acclaimed turn as The Doctor’s ultimate adversary for David Tennant’s farewell two-parter The End of Time. I have always felt that Simm wasn’t as well used under Russell T Davies tenure as he could have been. A great surprise introduction in the series three episode Utopia promised so much, and the subsequent instalments (for me) didn’t fully live up to the lofty expectations.

Regardless of minor gripes, I am beyond thrilled that we’ll get to see Simm’s Master again, I would have loved to have seen him play against Matt Smith’s Doctor, but the take home here is that those neverending drums will be returning.

Doctor Who returns to BBC One Saturday, April 14.