CARDIFF Doctor Who’s time-travelling Tardis hides a secret that may disillusion his legion of fans – it is transported not by the intergalactic power of dilithium crystals but like an Ikea wardrobe, flat-packed on the back of a lorry.

The shocking truth was discovered by diehard fans of the BBC’s long-running science fiction television series, who had been waiting for the arrival of its star, David Tennant. Technicians – who were not wearing white laboratory coats – were seen using ordinary tools to put the Tardis together, with not a sonic screwdriver in sight.

Sue Bishop, 32, said: “What a disappointment. I expected the Tardis to beam down from some far-off galaxy but it looked more like some flat-pack furniture from Ikea when it was pulled from the back of the lorry to be screwed together. It’s the last of my childhood fantasies shattered.”

The Tardis (Time and Relative Dimensions in Space) is best known for being bigger inside than it is outside. It is modelled on the blue police boxes that were a familiar sight in Britain in the 1950s.

Rhodri Jenkins, 22, said: “It was a bit of a shock. It took a while for them to put it all together.”

CORRECTION: I may well have had my extra-terrestrial technologies confused (writes Simon de Bruxelles). Only earlier versions of the Tardis were powered by finite energy crystals of the kind used in the USS Enterprise, though known by a different name. A little online research reveals that the Tardis itself has a direct transcendental link to the Eye of Harmony on Gallifrey using a dynomorphic converter.

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