A 100-foot high picture of a Dalek, made entirely from bed linen laid out on the ground, has appeared on the side of a hill overlooking the city of Belfast in Northern Ireland.

The Dalek was placed on the hillside to promote a science-fiction charity event themed around Doctor Who, Sarah Jane and Torchwood to be held on the 3rd of May. It was created by Denis Rush of the group UT Events. He gained permission from the owner of the field in which the Dalek appeared due to the fact that proceeds from the convention will be going to charity.

Other stunts have been giant projections of Daleks on city buildings and local landmarks and even costumed characters like Ood and Clockwork Droids roaming the streets

The Dalek was made from 500ft worth of bed linen pegged into the mountain slope, it stands aprox 100ft high and took two days to make. Local radio stations who have been receiving alot of calls and have been teasing the listeners with invasion plots and other possible reasons before spilling the beans on the event.

More details on the event and the Dalek can be found on the UT Events website.

BBC News also has a report on the Dalek.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts has announced the nominees for the BAFTA Craft Awards, and Doctor Who has been nominated in three categories. Russell T Davies has been nominated in the Writing category for "Midnight"; The Mill has been nominated in the Visual Effects category, for their work on the episode "The Fires of Pompeii"; and Philip Kloss has been nominated in the Editing Fiction/Entertainment category for his work throughout Series Four.

Doctor Who has been nominated for the BAFTA Craft Awards several times since its return to television, and has won once. The series received five nominations in 2008, including a win in Writing for Steven Moffat's "Blink" script. Doctor Who was also nominated in two categories in the 2007 awards, and in three categories for the 2006 awards (each honoring television broadcast in the previous year).

The winners of this year's BAFTA Craft Awards will be announced on Sunday, 17 May at a ceremony in London.

Doctor Who executive producer Russell T Davies has confirmed that Bernard Cribbins will be returning to the series.

Speaking this morning on BBC Breakfast Davies said Cribbins would be the Doctor's companion in David Tennant's last two episodes, due to be shown at Christmas 2009.

Bernard Cribbins first played Wilfred Mott, Donna's Grandad, in the 2007 Christmas special and throughout Season 4. His return was expected after members of the Doctor Who Forum photographed Cribbins on the Doctor Who set. At the age of eighty, Cribbins becomes the oldest companion in Doctor Who history.

Also on the programme Davies confirmed that Saturdays special, Planet of the Deadwas only completed late Monday night. He said he expected the next special to be shown "Novemberish".

Davies' BBC Breakfast interview can be seen on the BBC News website.

According to the website of the Doctor Who Information Network there's a new home for Doctor Who in Canada. Reports have been received that cable networkSPACE is the new permanent home for the series. The first four series of the newDoctor Who aired on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC was a co-production partner for at least part of those four seasons. Despite an initial strong commitment to Doctor Who the CBC came into criticism from fans and viewers in recent years for delays in broadcasting new episodes, decreasing promotion and failing to air the annual Christmas specials in 2007 and 2008.

Upcoming special Planet of the Dead will air on SPACE on Saturday June 20th, 2009. It is reported that Series Five will follow in 2010.

Doctor Who premiered on SPACE in March when the channel aired The Next Doctor but it was not known at that time if the the move was permanent or just a one-off.

Big Finish has released details - including titles and release schedule - of its upcoming of Doctor Who: The Lost Stories season, starring Colin Bakerand Nicola Bryant as the Doctor and Peri.

In 1985, as the the 23rd Series of the programme was well into the planning stages, the show was placed on hiatus. Plans for Series 23 were scrapped, and when the show returned to screens 18 months later, at the end of 1986, it was with a new Series 23, the "Trial of a Time Lord" season. Big Finish is now releasing new adaptations of the stories that were lost as result of that hiatus.

Doctor Who: The Lost Stories season will include:

The Nightmare Fair, written by Graham Williams, adapted for audio by John Ainsworth

Mission to Magnus, written by Philip Martin

Leviathan, written by Brian Finch, adapted by Paul Finch

The Hollows of Time, written by former script editor Christopher H Bidmead

TBA (details are not yet available)

Point of Entry, written by Barbara Clegg and Marc Platt

Paradise 5, written by PJ Hammond and Andy Lane

The Space Whale, written by Pat Mills

The Nightmare Fair will be released November 2009, and the season will run through June 2010. The series is available for pre-order and subscription.

Please visit the Big Finish website for full information on all of these stories

The BBC has confirmed that Planet of the Dead will get three transmissions over the Easter Weekend.

As reported the first showing will be Saturday on BBC One at 6.45pm. This broadcast will be simulcast with the BBC HD channel, which is available free to air on Freesat as well as on Sky and Virgin Media. The programme is sandwiched between the Disney film Finding Nemo and the drama seriesRobin Hood. ITV1 will be showing Primeval from 6.15 - 7.15 clashing with the first half of Doctor Who. The second half is up against New You've Been Framed. On BBC2, Doctor Who faces the natural history series Planet Earth while Channel 4 is showing the News followed by Henry VIII: Mind of a Tyrant.

Planet of the Dead gets a second showing on the digital channel BBC Three at 7pm on Easter Sunday. For this showing satellite and cable viewers will be able to access a Red Button commentary from David Tennant, Julie Gardner andJames Strong.

The final showing will be on BBC One on Easter Monday at 5pm. This showing will follow the Disney film Bedknobs and Broomsticks and will be up againstTaste the Nation on ITV1. It will be simulcast on the BBC HD channel which is also showing the HD version of Doctor Who at the Proms on Monday afternoon.

Doctor Who Confidential also gets a number of showings over the weekend with a programme exploring behind the scenes as the cast and crew travel to Dubai. First shown on Saturday at 8.30pm on BBC3, the programme is repeated on Sunday at 4.10am and 8pm.

As we begin the run-up to "Planet of the Dead", the British media has been full of Doctor Who coverage. In a wide-ranging interview in The Times,Russell T Davies and David Tennant talk about the writing and filming of the Tenth Doctor's last adventures. Tennant says that he cried while reading Davies' last script (currently being filmed in Wales), while Davies reveals that he considered a Doctor Who/Star Trek crossover before the last Star Trek series went off the air. Davies is also interviewed by Scotland on Sunday, including some intimate details about the themes which surface in his writing.

The Sun has several Doctor Who stories this week. They started off with an item about Eighth Doctor Paul McGann(who light-heartedly suggests thatMatt Smith was cast because of his hair), and followed it up with items on David Tennant (recycled from The Tennant Tapes videos on the BBC's Doctor Who site and quotes from Doctor Who Magazine) and Michelle Ryan (who says that her appearance in "Planet of the Dead" is only a one-off). The latter story was also picked up by the Press Association, while Hello! picks up the Sun's Tennant item.

County Times reports that Theatr Hafren in Newtown, Wales will host a theatrical viewing of "Planet of the Dead" on Good Friday. Newtown is one of three towns where special viewings will be held; according to Digital Spy, the other two are Denbigh and Newport.

Digital Spy also has an interview with Freema Agyeman, in which the actress primarily discusses her work on Law and Order: UK, but also mentions Doctor Who.

For fans of classic Doctor Who, The Times has an essay by novelist Esther Freud about her role as the Cryon Threst in the 1985 serial Attack of the Cybermen. Freud is married to "The Next Doctor"'s David Morrissey.

Finally, several sources have reported on actors who have been spotted on location during filming of David Tennant's final story. Those who wish to avoid spoilers should not follow these links, or read the text in the spoiler box below. The news of the actors seen on location, reported by Den of Geek (twice),io9 (twice) and Wired, has been largely drawn from set reports in the Doctor Who Forum's Set Reports/Photos thread. The Sun also had a story on the filming, using (without credit) a photograph taken by a Forum member.

Thanks to Chuck Foster, Ron Mace and "PolyG" of the Doctor Who Forum.

On Saturday 11th April, David Tennant and Catherine Tate will be standing in as the presenters of Jonathan Ross's BBC Radio 2 show, live from 10.00am to 1pm. Guests will include Tennant's favourite band, The Proclaimers (playing live), and John Barrowman. Further details will be available on the programme's website from tomorrow.

The programme will also be broadcast live, and available to listen to again for one week following transmission, on the BBC iPlayer. This applies internationally, BBC radio programming being freely available outside of the UK.

The BBFC have now classified DVD extras for the Sylvester McCoy story Delta and the Bannermen; these are listed as:

00:21:31:24 STRIPPED FOR ACTION - THE STORY OF DOCTOR WHO COMICS
00:08:19:11 DELTA AND THE BANNERMEN DVD EXTRAS - PHOTO GALLERY
00:03:16:20 DOCTOR WHO
00:30:28:09 DOCTOR WHO - DELTA AND THE BANNERMEN - PART ONE
00:02:14:14 (DOCTOR WHO - DELTA AND THE BANNERMEN DVD EXTRAS - WALES TODAY)
00:06:06:18 (DOCTOR WHO - DELTA AND THE BANNERMEN DVD EXTRAS - BUT FIRST THIS)
00:07:02:12 (DOCTOR WHO - DELTA AND THE BANNERMEN DVD EXTRAS - HUGH AND US)
00:05:39:20 CLOWN COURT
00:16:31:04 DOCTOR WHO - DELTA AND THE BANNERMEN DVD EXTRAS - INTERVIEW RUSHES)


The story is currently cited for release on 22nd June 2009 on DVD retailer websites

A preliminary trailer for the forthcoming K9 series has been released on YouTube and can be seen below.

The trailer was made to promote the series at the MIPTV festival in Cannes. Series co-creator and associate producerPaul Tams notes that "All music and titles and K9's voice are for demo purposes only and [are] not the actual voice, etc. that will be used in the programme." Tams also says that monsters designed for the series remain "under wraps".

The trailer shows the first glimpses of the redesigned K9 in action, as well as revealing the series' human characters. Filming for K9 continues in Australia through April; the BBC is not involved in the series' production. K9 is expected to air on Australia's Network Ten and UK digital channel Jetix/Disney XD in the autumn.