While on leave from Coronation Street, he has played roles such as the part of Adam Mitchell in the 2005 series of Doctor Who appearing in two episodes, "Dalek" and "The Long Game", and provided an audio commentary for the DVD of these episodes. He also filmed a small role in the feature film The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse, released in June 2005, as well an episode of Dalziel and Pascoe and the little-seen film Halal Harry in 2006, and read Horace for BBC Radio 7.
On 30 October 2005, he appeared on stage at the Old Vic in London in the one-night-only play Night Sky with Christopher Eccleston, Navin Chowdhry, David Warner, Saffron Burrows and David Baddiel.