Posted By John Bowman

Russell T Davies and Benjamin Cook will be signing copies of their forthcoming book, Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale, at bookshops in England and Wales next month.

The dates, venues and times are as follows:

October 8: Waterstone's, Piccadilly, London, 6pm

October 9: Waterstone's, High Street, Birmingham, midday, and Waterstone's, Trafford Centre, Manchester, 6pm

October 10: Borders, Bristol, 12.30pm, and Borders, Cardiff, 5.30pm.

Only copies of the book will be autographed.

The 512-page tome is published by BBC Books on September 25.

Posted By John Bowman

The specially commissioned episode of Torchwood that was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 last Wednesday as part of Big Bang Day will be released by BBC Audio tomorrow.

Lost Souls will be available in CD and download formats.

The CD, which is 75 minutes long, will feature a bonus programme, Torchwood: All Access - a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the TV show - which was first broadcast on BBC Radio Wales and has interviews with Russell T Daviesand members of the TV series cast and crew.

The download will not have any extra material.

Russell T Davies's comments from his new book, excerpted in today's issue of The Times and reported yesterday on the Doctor Who News Page (see below) have been widely reproduced across the British media today. The two main angles being focused on are Davies's suggestion of actor Russell Tovey (Midshipman Frame in "Voyage of the Damned") as a possible Eleventh Doctor, and his idea of basing the 2008 Christmas special around an appearance by Harry Potter author JK Rowling.

BBC News, CBBC Newsround, Digital Spy, The Mirror and The Guardian, amongst many others, all make the Tovey casting suggestion the focus of their story, with Guardian columnist Daniel Martin suggesting that the next Doctor "...has to be someone with a massive future who's never had their one defining part."

Under the headline "Dr exterminates role for Rowling", The Sun make JK Rowling's non-appearance in the programme their focus of the story, as does another piece in The Guardian. Here Lindesay Irvine points out that: "it's not entirely certain that Rowling was tapdancing at the idea herself."

Meanwhile, The Times themselves have published the second part of their preview of "The Writer's Tale".

Doctor Who's Australian ratings continue to impress on Sunday evenings. Midnight averaged 1,095,000 viewers in the five major capital cities, whileTurn Left rated even more with 1,169,000. The latter episode being the Time Lord's best Aussie ratings since the record 1.248 million for 'Voyage of the Damned', 'Left' even beating Channel Seven's high-rating 'Dancing with the Stars'. The Confidential Cutdown versions of 'Look Who's Talking' and 'Here Come the Girls' also had excellent ratings gaining 853,000 and 941,000 viewers respectively, the latter being the programme's best Australian ratings ever.

Meanwhile, in the local media, Russell T. Davies has told Michael Idato of The Sydney Morning Herald that 'there is a fundamental format to Doctor Who, which should never change-he's a wanderer...You're never changing the character, you're just putting more and more material into it and a bigger range of emotions...It's not like I think of 13 ideas and pick the ones I want, it's about thinking which writers will do what ideas well and keeping things spinning...In each season you want a historical story, a futuristic story, a modern-day story; some which are funny, some which are dark and there are some things you want to revisit. There are certain tent poles in the series that help you know where you are'. He also says of his successor Steven Moffatt that while 'he's famous for writing episodes that explore darker aspects of the story...he's also written some of the wittiest dialogue...Steve will do a brilliant job.' CitySearch previews 'Turn Left' writing that 'it makes for engrossing, tense and sometimes jaw-dropping television. Tate pretty much carries this episode on her own, and what a great job she does, too. It's around about this episode that all her critics should be quietly retracting their earlier comments.' Meanwhile Pat Sheil also of 'The Sydney Morning Herald', previews The Stolen Earth and laments that while the new series has 'lost its sense of the ridiculous' this episode is 'a hoot.'

Meanwhile, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation has confirmed that it is showing the full 65 minute episode version of 'Journey's End' with the 25 minute Confidential Cutdown at the later time of 10.45pm on Sunday 28 September.

Thanks to the contributors to the Australian forums

The Times newspaper in the UK has today published on its website a series of extracts from "The Writer's Tale", the forthcoming book by Russell T Davies and Benjamin Cook about the making of the new series of Doctor Who. The book is due to be released in the UK on September 25th.

The same newspaper has also made a news story out of the extracts, focusing on Davies's suggestion of Russell Tovey as a candidate for the Eleventh Doctor, and the fact that he considered attempting to get Harry Potter authorJK Rowling to appear in the 2008 Christmas special.

Further extracts will be published in Wednesday's paper.

Thanks to PolyG on the Doctor Who Forum

Posted By Brigadier Bill

With some people camped out overnight and some 270 people lined up outside, 6,000 tickets for Hamlet starring David Tennant at the Novello Theatre in London sold out in under three hours, BBC Newsreports.

"We're very pleased that the play is accruing so much interest," an RSC spokeswoman said.

Tennant has been playing the title role with the RSC at Stratford-upon-Avon. It transfers to London in December for a short run.

Some tickets for the Novello performances will be available at the box office on each performance day for that day only.

"The great news for us is that it's encouraging that younger contingent of theatre-goers, which is one of our real aims. David has been wonderful in encouraging those people to come," the spokeswoman said.

The Sun is reporting inside information on some major cast news for the 2009 specials starring David Tennant. Details are found in the Spoiler box below.

Remember, consider all such information as strictly rumour until confirmed publicly by the BBC.

UPDATE - SEP 12: The BBC today rejected one of the claims. The details are in the Spoiler box.

Various sources in the British media are today reporting fresh speculation about a potential Doctor Who feature film. A report in The Sun newspaper has suggested that series star David Tennant is negotiating with the BBC about starring in series five of Doctor Who in 2010, with the proviso that a feature film version of the series comes as part of the deal.

The Sun's report quotes a "show source" as saying: "For ages, BBC Worldwide held the rights and were planning to make a movie, but it got held up and former BBC1 boss Lorraine Heggessey decided to bring back the TV series in 2005. But everyone is keen now and the fans are clamouring. Part of David’s conundrum is that he wants to do films, so this looks like it would solve both issues."

The story has also been picked up by The Daily Telegraph, Metro, What's On TV and TeleText, amongst many others.

Posted By John Bowman

Doctor Who and its two lead stars were winners in the TVQuick and TVChoice magazine awards last night.

The ceremony at The Dorchester hotel in London saw David Tennant take the Best Actor honour for the second year running for his portrayal of the Doctor, while Catherine Tate was named Best Actress for her role as Donna Noble.

The show itself took the Best-Loved Drama title for the third year.

Phil Collinson made a jokey oblique reference to the ITV phone-in scandal when he accepted the Best-Loved Drama gong. He said: "I'm really glad that I'm producing a show that stars Catherine Tate that actually gets given an award."

A surprised Tate said at the ceremony: "I genuinely don't know what to say, because Judi Dench was nominated and other great people. This is the first nomination I've ever had for anything that's not comedy-related."

Bernard Cribbins, who played Donna's grandfather Wilf Mott, was presented with Tennant's award, and Collinson told the official website: "The biggest thrill of the night . . . was hearing the huge cheering and applause Bernard Cribbins received when he took to the stage to collect David's award. It was a special moment and something I'll always remember."

Readers of both listings magazines voted for the awards.

BBC Radio Four this Wednesday 10th September at 14.15 UK time as part of the station's Big Bang Day coverage.

The 45-minute episode, Lost Souls, was written by Joseph Lidster and stars John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Gareth David-Lloyd and Freema Agyeman.

The story is set in CERN, the home of the Large Hadron Collider, which this week will attempt what is described as the most powerful physics experiment in history. The Radio 4 website features an article on the use of CERN in science fiction, including the episode of Torchwood.

The play can be heard in the UK on BBC Radio 4 FM and around the world via the Radio 4 website. It will then be available for one week via the Listen Again feature.