A video of the guest panel at the BFI's screening of the colour-restored The Mind of Evil is now available to watch online.

The event was held on Sunday 10th March to mark the Third Doctor's era as part of the BFI's Doctor Who At 50 season.

Once the closing titles for the final episode had rolled, director Timothy Combe, script editor Terrance Dicks, and actors Richard Franklin, John Levene, and Katy Manning were welcomed on stage by season co-curator Justin Johnson to talk about their time on the show.


The next event - marking the Fourth Doctor's era - is a screening of The Robots of Death on Saturday 20th April, with Tom Baker, Louise Jameson, producer Philip Hinchcliffe, and visual effects designer Mat Irvine as guests. Although currently sold out, returns and stand-bys are possible.

It will be followed on Saturday 4th May with a screening of The Caves of Androzani, celebrating the Fifth Doctor.

Waterstones in Piccadilly, London are to hold a special event in celebration of Doctor Who’s 50th Anniversary, featuring several of the authors represented in the recent re-issue of classic novels by BBC Worldwide.

Steve Cole (Ten Little Aliens), Terrance Dicks (Players), Ben Aaronovitch (Remembrance of the Daleks), Justin Richards (Dreams of Empire), Jonathan Morris (Festival of Death) and Gary Russell (Beautiful Chaos) will be in the store on Saturday 6th April from 3:00pm, where they will be discussing their classic Doctor Who novels and the world of the Doctor, plus signing copies of their respective novels.

Entrance to the event is via a ticket, which are redeemable against the price of one of the books on the day. They can be booked in person in Waterstones Piccadilly, via Facebook (subject to booking fee), or by phoning 02078512400. Tickets will also be available on the day, but anyone wishing to attend should arrive early to avoid disappointment.

Overwhelming demand for events in the BFI's Doctor Who At 50 celebratory season has led to a rethink on ticket allocation.

As part of the season, the organisation is showing one story per Doctor per month with an accompanying guest panel, and all events so far have sold out to members - who get priority booking - immediately after being made available to them, which has led to huge numbers of fans who are not members missing out and being left disappointed.

As a result, the BFI is introducing a ticket ballot system for May's screening onwards. The Caves of Androzani, which marked the end of the Fifth Doctor's era, is being shown on Saturday 4th May at 2pm, and seats are being restricted to two per buyer, with a ballot also being run to try to ensure the fairest possible allocation.
BFI Champions can apply from Monday 1st April and BFI Members from Tuesday 2nd April. They will be able to apply via e-mail up to 8.30pm on Friday 5th April saying how many seats they would like, but will only be allowed a maximum of two. These will then be allocated by ballot, and not on a first-come first-served basis.

Ticket applicants can ask for specific seat numbers in their e-mail and the BFI says it will do its best to meet those requests. If applicants are happy to sit elsewhere in the auditorium if their choice is unavailable they should state this in their application and the BFI will try to seat them as near as possible to where they wanted to be. If people only want their specified seats or are happy to be seated anywhere in the auditorium they are similarly asked to state this in their application.

Any tickets that are left over following the ballot plus about 25 set aside for the public will then go on release to non-members on Tuesday 9th April when, again, purchasers will be restricted to two seats each.

As in the past, returns and stand-bys are also always a possibility once an event has sold out, so keep checking back with the BFI.

The second in the range of classic Doctor Who soundtracks has been announced by Silva Screen Records, this time focussing on the Second Doctor with the electronic soundscape created by Brian Hodgson for The Krotons.


The soundtrack is due to be released on the 13th May 2013 on CD and download, and will also be released as a limited edition 10" Vinyl disc on the 24th May.

Competition:

Thanks to Silva Screen we have three copies of the CD for our readers to win. To be in with a chance, simply answer this question:


Please send your answer to krotons-competition@doctorwhonews.net with the subject line "Winner-Gond!", along with your name, address, and where you read about this competition. The competition is open worldwide, and the closing date will be on the 30th April 2013. Only one entry per household will be accepted.

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There is still time to enter our The Caves of Androzani soundtrack competition - see here for more details (closing date 31st March).

Today sees special Royal Mail stamps going on sale to mark the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who.

Each of the 11 TV Doctors is represented on his own first-class stamp (60p), as is the TARDIS, while four enemies – Dalek, Cyberman, Ood, and a Weeping Angel – feature on second-class stamps (50p). The enemies and TARDIS are on a five-stamp miniature sheet, while the stamp design for the Doctors sees the face of each one set against relevant opening title sequences along with a relevant logo. Since the first two Doctors' eras were broadcast in monochrome, the first two stamps are also black and white.

As well as the stamps - which are being sold at more than 9,000 Post Office branches in the UK, online, and via phone (08457 641 641) - a wide variety of associated products is also available, ranging from first-day covers and postcards to stamp sets and stamp strips plus a pin badge of the TARDIS stamp. Some of the items on sale include series information penned by Doctor Who writer, director, and script editor Gary Russell.

Royal Mail - which said it had had an unprecedented number of pre-registrations for the stamps since they were unveiled in December - is also creating unique postmarks in the home towns of the actors to have played the 11 TV Doctors. All stamped mail sent from those locations will have a special postmark celebrating 50 years of Doctor Who, with the name of the actor who played the Doctor plus the length of time they were in the role.

Andrew Hammond, the managing director of the stamps and collectibles division at Royal Mail, said:
Fiona Eastwood, the product development director at BBC Worldwide Consumer Products, said:
Royal Mail's Special Stamp programme has been commemorating and celebrating events and anniversaries relevant to UK heritage and life for nearly 50 years itself. All UK stamp designs are approved by the Queen before they are printed.

The stamps are available to purchase from the Post Office.

Pre-issue event:

A special public affairs event marking the issue of the anniversary stamps was held by Royal Mail at BAFTA in London earlier this month, with Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Paul McGann, Steven Moffat, Jenna-Louise Coleman, Jon Pertwee's son Sean Pertwee, and William Hartnell's granddaughter and biographer Jessica Carney mingling among the invited guests, who included MPs, stakeholders, and key Royal Mail customers.

Speeches in praise of the show and the stamps were given by Moya Greene, Royal Mail's chief executive, and Steven Moffat. The showrunner also introduced a video message from Matt Smith, as the actor had been unable to make it to the function, plus an extended trailer for Series 7b.

Props made by the officially-licensed company Rubbertoe Replicas were on show, as were displays of the stamps, with Daleks and a police box also adding to the atmosphere.

Competition to follow:

Doctor Who News will shortly be running a competition connected with the release of the stamps and there's a fabulous prize to be won, courtesy of Royal Mail, so keep checking back for details!

BBC Worldwide have announced a new partnership with Sony DADC New Media Solutions to bring Doctor Who to the millions of fans with Playstation Home. The service will be provided through LOOT Entertainment, DADC’s interactive development group.

The press release stated:

Simon Hutson, senior vice president for BBC Worldwide's digital development, said:
David Sterling, vice president for business development at LOOT Entertainment, added:

Further details from BBC Worldwide indicated:
A gallery of images can be seen via their website.




The service launches on Playstation Home on 27th March.

Sunday 24th March sees the broadcast of the four-part 1974 Jon Pertwee story Death to the Daleks in Australia and New Zealand. The story is the 12th instalment in the 50th Anniversary season of Doctor Who stories on the UKTV channel.

The story is scheduled in New Zealand at 4:15pm and in Australia at 4:30pm. New Zealand gets an additional screening on Monday 25th March at 4:40am.

Death to the Daleks was first broadcast in Australia in 1975. New Zealand got to see it in 1976.

The UKTV billing describes the story as follows:

A power failure in the TARDIS draws it off course, the Doctor & Sarah Jane Smith end up stranded on the planet of Exxilon. They must find out what is draining their power.

UKTV is showing stories throughout the year in the lead-up to the anniversary in November. Death to the Daleks is the last in a set of four stories featuring Jon Pertwee's Doctor broadcast during March. The series will take a break next week for Easter.

Next month UKTV will present six Tom Baker stories in four weeks: The Ark in Space (7th April), Genesis of the Daleks (14th April), Pyramids of Mars and The Hand of Fear (21st April), and The Robots of Death and City of Death (28th April).

Up-and-coming broadcasts from both 20th and 21st Century series of Doctor Who can be found via UKTV's Doctor Who sections  for Australia and New Zealand.

The first in a new range of classic Doctor Who soundtracks will be released next week by Silva Screen Records, delving back to the end of the Fifth's Doctor's era with Roger Limb's score for The Caves of Androzani.


The soundtrack has been restored by Mark Ayres, who explained to us the differences between these new CD presentations and the isolated scores that have been presented on some of the classic series DVDs in the past:


The Caves of Androzani is released on the 25th March 2013 and is available for pre-order.

Competition:

We have three copies of the CD up for grabs, courtesy of Silva Screen. To be in with a chance to win a copy, please answer the following question:
Send your answers to this email address with the subject "curiousity has always been my downfall", along with your name and address. The competition is open worldwide, and the closing date is the 31st March 2013.

The Caves of Androzani is to be shown by the BFI to represent the Fifth Doctor's era in its Doctor Who At 50 season, it announced today.

Written by Robert Holmes and directed by Graeme Harper, the four-part adventure - which first aired in March 1984 - saw the final regular appearance of Peter Davison as the Doctor.

The "regeneration" adventure will be shown on the big screen at BFI Southbank on Saturday 4th May, as reported earlier this week, with the start time for the event now confirmed as 2pm. The names of the guests for the accompanying panel discussion will be announced nearer the time.

Dates for when tickets go on sale are also yet to be announced. BFI Champions get first pick, followed by standard members and then the general public. So far, all the events in the celebratory season have sold out to BFI members in advance of tickets being released to the public, but returns and stand-bys are possible.

A video of the guest panel at last month's screening of The Tomb of the Cybermen at the BFI has been uploaded to the organisation's YouTube channel.

The event, marking the Second Doctor's era, was held on 9th February as part of the BFI's Doctor Who At 50 season, and the discussion saw director Michael Ferguson and actors Anneke Wills, Bernard Holley, Deborah Watling, Shirley Cooklin, and Michael Kilgarriff in conversation with season co-curator Justin Johnson about working with Patrick Troughton.


The next event takes place on Saturday 20th April, marking the Fourth Doctor's era, and will be a screening of The Robots of Death, with Tom Baker, Louise Jameson, and Philip Hinchcliffe as guests. Although it is currently sold out, returns and stand-bys are possible.

It will be followed on Saturday 4th May with a screening in honour of the Fifth Doctor, with the story title and guests for that event yet to be announced.