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Wednesday, 14 December 2011 - Reported by Chuck Foster
David Tennant is to narrate an hour long show dedicated to everybody's favourite ogre; Shrek: Once Upon A Time will see the actor reveal how "an ogre with a Scottish accent single-handedly changed the face of animation". The show will be broadcast on BBC3 on 23rd December and repeated on the 29th. [Teen Now, 13 Dec 2011]

John Barrowman is urging people to carry a donor card - the actor is one of a number of celebrities backing the For Cole campaign: "Get signed up and save a life. Everyone should be on it. I've carried a donor card for years. It's so easy to do now online or even by text." [Scottish Sun, 14 Dec 2011]

The actor also revealed that his favourite Christmas movie is 2003's Elf. [Digital Spy via YouTube, 13 Dec 2011]

Simon Callow (Charles Dickens, The Unquiet Dead/The Wedding of River Song) will be performing excerpts from his new book Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World in Portsmouth on Tuesday 7th February 2012 - exactly 200 years after the birth of the author in the self-same city. The performance takes place at the New Theatre Royal, which has previously staged semi-professional productions of Fury From The Deep, The Evil of the Daleks, and The Dalek Masterplan (based on The Daleks' Master Plan). [reported by John Bowman, 12 Dec 2011]

Neil Gaiman (writer, The Doctor's Wife is to appear on BBC America's Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!: Royal Pain in the News, which will be broadcast on 23rd December. The writer also reveals his favourite moments from the last series of Doctor Who during a behind-the-scenes video. [BBC America, 13 Dec 2011]

Naomi Alderman (writer, Borrowed Time) talks about the Doctor and the influence of religion: "In fact, there has been some portrayal of actual religion, including a positive portrayal of Buddhism in Planet of the Spiders. But I suspect that the answer is that the UK is a fundamentally not-very-religious country, and that Doctor Who accurately represents our suspicions and our non-confrontational but deep-rooted agnosticism. To go back in history and have the Doctor ‘prove’ that Moses, Jesus and Mohammed didn’t exist would clearly be offensive and far too confrontational for British people. But to have him meet the ‘prophet’ or ‘god’ of an imaginary civilization and find that they are either misguided or plain manipulative I think is a way of saying what - dare I say it? - most British people quietly think about religion: that it’s fine as long as it’s comforting, but shouldn’t be taken too seriously or followed blindly. The Doctor is an atheist hero." [Jewish Journal, 13 Dec 2011]





FILTER: - People - David Tennant - John Barrowman