Monday News Clips

A brief update for the second series of Doctor Who: various of our sources have been reporting the past few days (and we think, quite believably) that the title of the fourth episode of the new series, written by Steven Moffat, is The Girl in the Fireplace. While it's not official (like "New Earth," the rumored title of the first episode), we think that it's likely the current working title for the episode.

Memorial services for Michael Sheard have been announced; a public memorial/funeral will be held at the Isle of Wight Crematorium this Wednesday 7 September at 3pm, and all are welcome. (There is a private wake afterwards for family and close friends only.) The family has requested that any donations in place of floral tributes be sent to the Earl Mountbatten Hospice, Halberry Lane, Newport, Isle of Wight PO30 2ER. Sheard passed away last week as we previously reported.

John Barrowman can be seen on the ITV chat show "Loose Women" hosted by Kaye Adams on Tuesday 13 September at 1.30pm.

Doctor Who is now available on the NTL On Demand Service. Says our correspondent, this means "you can catch the week's BBC3 episode whenever you want to, the week after transmission. If you have digital NTL, select channel 106 and press the red button. You should (eventually) get a menu bar down the side of the page. If you select 'TV Pick of the Week', Doctor Who should be listed alongside episodes of Eastenders, Casualty and the like. Select it and you can watch the week's episode, as well as being able to fast forward, rewind and pause."

An article in The Independent says "Stand up for the man who made the BBC's golden age possible"... "As the television industry celebrates the 50th anniversary of the arrival of multi-channel television - Britain went from one channel to two with the arrival of ITV in 1955 - there has been a lot of speculation about who has had the most influence over British television in the years since the BBC launched the world's first television service in 1936. ... My vote for top slot wouldn't have gone to Murdoch, but instead to Hugh Carleton Greene, who was director general of the BBC from 1960 until 1969. He was also the man responsible for the creation of British television, as we know it today." The article notes that Greene was the man who set about "home-grown programmes that were both challenging and accessible; programmes like Play for Today, Z Cars, The Forsyte Saga, That Was the Week That Was, Dr Who and dozens of others." The full article is available at the link.

This week's print issue of The Stage will feature an interview with Rob Shearman, who talks about his new play "Toward the End of the Morning" (see update September 2) as well as his other radio, TV and theatre projects -- and there's a little mention of his time writing "Dalek"; plus a feature on Big Finish audios and their transition to broadcast on BBC7; and an obituary for Michael Sheard. The articles will only be available in the print edition for a short time, but will soon follow up on the web, with the Big Finish article much expanded (probably); we'll let you know the links when we get them.

According to Yahoo News, stars from Emmerdale - including Frazer Hines - will be appearing in a variety of pantomimes this year, as usual. Hines will appear in "Peter Pan" at the Palace Theatre in Newark.

TV Fodder covers 'The Regeneration of "Doctor Who"' today. "The key to the success of 'Who' lay in the clever invention of the main character's ability to regenerate. William Hartnell was the first actor to play the Doctor, and when he left the program it easily could have been curtains for the whole shebang. But it wasn't, of course. Three years after his initial appearance, the Doctor regenerated into a new body and was suddenly portrayed by a different actor: the inimitable Patrick Troughton. Five more thespians would step into the enviable role for the original series. There would be a couple of highly regarded films starring Peter Cushing (hunting daleks rather than vampires for a change) and an American television movie starring Paul McGann and Eric Roberts. Outside of novelizations and radio broadcasts, that was about it. Until 2005, that is. Enter Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor and Billie Piper as his assistant, Rose: the two main ingredients in the resurrected 'Doctor Who' series that recently finished airing its first season. The special effects are a lot better than in the classic program, and the episodes tend to move along at a more accelerated clip (there was actually a six-hour story back in the '80s!), but Doctor Who fans can breathe a collective sigh of relief, as the new series is every inch a chip off the old block. Season one is over now, and so is Eccleston's stint as the renegade Time Lord. But there's no sign that the program is in any danger of fading out. Great writing and a sky-high production value have formed a solid foundation for the new incarnation of 'Who.' If producer and writer Russell T. Davies is smart--and he seems to be--he'll build on that foundation to take the program into even more daring waters for its second season." Read more of the article at the website.

The Telegraph discusses the plummet of BBC1 ratings this summer toward an all time low. "Figures produced by Barb, the Broadcast Audience Research Bureau, for the week ending August 14 show that the channel had only six programmes in the national top 20 - four of which were editions of its ailing soap, EastEnders. Even this flagship programme is struggling to maintain its position. The highest rating edition of the show, which was actually the channel's most popular programme, peaked at number six in the national chart. [BBC Controller] Peter Fincham said that although ratings were important they were not the sole measure of a channel's success - and insisted that a total eradication of repeats from the channel could be counter-productive. 'The use of ratings as the only way of measuring programmes is old-fashioned,' he said. 'We have so many different ways of measuring the impact of programmes. Let's take a programme like A Picture of Britain, which was accompanied by A Digital Picture of Britain on BBC4. More than 85,000 people sent in pictures to that programme. Hits on websites, which we can now measure, have also produced some extraordinary figures. Dr Who, for instance, gets millions of hits.'"

Billie Piper was mentioned in the "Evening Gazette" in which she discusses her health regimen. "It's hard to believe that she was called Billie Bunter at school. 'I was always struggling with my weight,' says the 5ft 5in singer-turned-actress. You won"t find her in the gym working out, but she does visit a health farm occasionally and goes for long walks. She is also keen on yoga exercise and swimming. 'I was brought up on bread and butter as a kid and have at least two slices every meal - no wonder I had weight trouble at school,' she says. She made an effort to keep trim in her pop star days, but after marriage to Chris Evans in 2001, she piled on the pounds because she says she ate and drank the wrong things. When she was offered the role as Doctor Who"s assistant Rose in the TV remake, she went on a strict diet. 'The pounds rolled off and I actually dropped a dress size.' Now she is very careful what she eats. 'And if ever I relent and succumb to something I shouldn't have, then I make up for it by watching my intake afterwards.'"

Other notes: coverage of Russell T Davies' appearance at the Mardi Gras Fringe Benefit in Cardiff next week aticWales; the DeHavilland site and Digital Spy talk about Barrowman in the "Simply Musicals" series on BBC1.

(Thanks to Paul Engelberg, Steve Tribe, David McIntee, Paul Hayes, Joey Reynolds, Paul Phipps, Scott Matthewman, Peter Weaver)