Doctor Who actor Peter Capaldi stars in online film on surrealism

The Scottish actor explores the history of the surrealist art movement in the five-minute short

He will soon be embarking on a journey through time and space as the twelfth Doctor, but before that, Peter Capaldi is starring in a new film about surrealism.

The five-minute film called Unlock Art: Exploring the Surreal features The Thick of It actor giving a brief history about the surrealist art movement and the key artists involved.

Dressed in a white shirt and blue suit, which look very much like his new costume for his incarnation of the Time Lord, the Scottish actor briefly explains the humble beginnings of surrealism in a Parisian café in 1924 and its influence on culture today.

Using quirky animations interspersed with Capaldi talking about surrealism, the film details how the movement began and developed.

The playful video even pokes fun at the "luxuriant" hair styles and beards of those involved in the surrealist movement.

Surrealism took its cue from The Interpretation of Dreams, the psychoanalytic work of Sigmund Freud.

Capaldi explains "A lot of surrealist art is about sex, that's because Freud believed the primary motivation for all things in life was sex - he changed his mind later."

Artists like Salvador Dali, Joan Miro and Dorothea Tanning applied these theories to their art, often putting together objects not normally associated with each other.

The video has been created in a joint venture between the Tate gallery and Le Méridien and is the seventh in the Unlock Art series. Previous films have been presented by Alan Cumming, Frank Skinner and Dawn O’Porter.

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