BBC Worldwide have released their latest in a series of interviews with the writers of the Puffin e-Books to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who, with the third instalment The Spear of Destiny, written by Marcus Sedgewick, due to be published on 23rd March. The author chats about his love of the Third Doctor and his fright of the Master, the influence of the Vikings on British culture, what he would do if he could travel in the TARDIS, and why he thinks the Doctor has proved so popular in the last 50 years.



An excerpt from the e-book can be read via The Guardian.

Details are available for the fourth release in BBC AudioGo's Destiny of the Doctor series, due out in April. It stars Lalla Ward, who played the second on-screen incarnation of Romana.


The third in the series, Vengeance of the Stones with Richard Franklin, is out now.

Tom Baker, Louise Jameson, and Philip Hinchcliffe will be the special guests at next month's BFI screening of The Robots of Death.

The announcement was made at yesterday's première of the colour-restored story The Mind of Evil. Big-screen showings with guests are being staged by the BFI for each Doctor this year as part of its Doctor Who At 50 season.

The four-part adventure is being screened at BFI Southbank on Saturday 20th April at 2pm to mark the Fourth Doctor's era. Tickets go on sale to the general public at 11.30am tomorrow. They were made available to Champion members last Monday and to standard members last Tuesday. All three screenings held so far sold out to members before tickets were due to go on general release, but returns and stand-bys are possible.

It was also announced yesterday that the story marking Fifth Doctor Peter Davison's era will be shown on Saturday 4th May. The title is due to be revealed later this week.

BBC Worldwide have announced the re-issue of eleven books featuring all eleven Doctors as part of the celebration of Doctor Who's 50th Anniversary, each featuring a new cover and special introduction.

The books hail from various periods in the history of Doctor Who in print, and feature a variety of well-known authors:

• The First Doctor: Ten Little Aliens, by Stephen Cole (2002)
• The Second Doctor: Dreams of Empire, by Justin Richards (1998)
• The Third Doctor: Last of the Gaderene, by Mark Gatiss (2000)
• The Fourth Doctor: Festival of Death, by Jonathan Morris (2000)
• The Fifth Doctor: Fear of the Dark, by Trevor Baxendale (2003)
• The Sixth Doctor: Players, by Terrance Dicks (1999)
• The Seventh Doctor: Remembrance of the Daleks, by Ben Aaronovitch (1990)
• The Eighth Doctor: Earthworld, by Jacqueline Rayner (2001)
• The Ninth Doctor: Only Human, by Gareth Roberts (2005)
• The Tenth Doctor: Beautiful Chaos, by Gary Russell (2008)
• The Eleventh Doctor: The Silent Stars Go By, by Dan Abnett (2011)

The BBC has announced details of a special three day event to be held in London in November to celebrate 50 years of Doctor Who.

The three day Doctor Who 50th Celebration Weekend will be held at the ExCeL centre in London, beginning on Friday, 22 November with tickets for over 15,000 fans available.

More details about the event, including guests, itinerary, ticket prices and booking information will be revealed soon with fans invited to sign up to the doctorwho.tv newsletter.

Amanda Hill, Chief Brands Officer at BBC Worldwide said:

The event follows the two day convention which took place in Cardiff last year and which saw fans get a chance to meet the current stars of the show and take a trip to the TARDIS set.

The last time the BBC celebrated an anniversary of the show with a convention was in 1983 when thousands of fans attended an event to celebrate the 20th anniversary at Longleat House in Wiltshire.

Sunday 10th March sees the broadcast of the five-part 1971 Jon Pertwee story The Daemons in Australia and New Zealand. The story is the tenth instalment in the 50th Anniversary season of classic Doctor Who stories on the UKTV channel.

The story is scheduled in New Zealand at 3:45pm and in Australia at 4:00pm. New Zealand has a additional screening on Monday 11th March at 3:40am.

The Daemons was first broadcast in New Zealand in 1985. The following year, Australians got to see it for the first time.

UKTV is showing stories every week throughout the year in the lead-up to the anniversary in November. The Daemons is the second in a set of four stories featuring Jon Pertwee's Doctor scheduled to screen in March. The next two stories are The Three Doctors (17th March) and Death to the Daleks (24th March). No story is scheduled on the last Sunday of this month.

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.

Award winning author Marcus Sedgwick has been revealed as the author of the third instalment in Puffin’s series celebrating the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who.

Sedgwick has re imagined the Third Doctor, played by Jon Pertwee, and created a brand new Doctor Who adventure called The Spear of Destiny, to be released globally on 23rd March. The Spear of Destiny follows on from Michael Scott’s Second Doctor story, The Nameless City, and A Big Hand for the Doctor – a First Doctor adventure from Eoin Colfer.

In total there will be eleven short stories in this ebook series, each based on one of the Eleven Doctors, released on the 23rd of each month from January to November 2013. Each story is written by a different author, bringing together some of the best known names in children’s fiction.

Marcus Sedgwick was born and raised in Kent in the South-east of England. Alongside a 16 year career in publishing he is established as a widely-admired writer of young adult fiction and winner of many prizes, most notably the Branford-Boase Award for a debut novel (Floodland), and the Booktrust Teenage Prize (My Swordhand is Singing). His books have been shortlisted for over 30 other awards, including the Carnegie Medal (four times), Edgar Allan Poe Award (twice) and Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize (four times). Talking about the new book Sedgwick said
The authors of the subsequent eshorts will continue to be unveiled on the BBC Worldwide Doctor Who Facebook page on the first Tuesday of every month throughout the year.

Sunday 3rd March sees the broadcast of the four-part 1970 Jon Pertwee story Spearhead from Space in Australia and New Zealand. The story is the ninth instalment in the 50th Anniversary season of classic 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 has a additional screening on Monday 4th March at 3:50am.

Spearhead from Space was first broadcast in Australia in 1971. New Zealanders first got to see it in March 1975 (38 years ago this month).

UKTV is showing stories every week throughout the year in the lead-up to the anniversary in November. Spearhead from Space is the first of a set of four stories featuring Jon Pertwee's Doctor scheduled to screen in March. The next three stories are The Daemons (10th March), The Three Doctors (17th March), and Death to the Daleks (24th March). There is no story scheduled on UKTV on the last Sunday of March.

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.

After some four weeks of recreating the 1960s, today finally saw the completion of principal photography for An Adventure in Space and Time, with producer Matt Strevens saying: "So that's a wrap. It's off down the pub if someone will let me out of this box. Goodbye AAISAT it's been special.". Meanwhile, writer/executive producer Mark Gatiss reflected: "Sadly, the end of the Adventure. But it's far from being all over..."

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Nicholas Briggs has spoken about his experience filming the drama in the latest Vortex Magazine from Big Finish:

Forbidden Planet have announced a set of limited edition prints to celebrate the 50th Anniversary, with the first three to be released featuring the First, Second and Third Doctors, as played by William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee respectively.


The prints are limited to 50 of each Doctor, and are released on the 10th March.