Matt Smith is to play the novelist Christopher Isherwood in a new drama for BBC Two.

Titled Christopher and his Kind, the drama is based on the memoir of the same name, written by Isherwood in 1976. It covers the ten years in the writer's life-from 1929 to 1939, when he left England for Berlin, the capital of the young Weimar Republic, drawn by its reputation for sexual freedom. It talks about the gay Berlin of the 1930s and Isherwood's struggles to save his companion, a German man named Heinz, from the Nazis. Isherwood's experiences in the city later inspired him to write his 1939 novella Goodbye to Berlin on which the Broadway musical Cabaret was based.

The drama will also star Lindsay Duncan, who played Adelaide Brooke in The Waters of Mars, as Isherwood's mother. It will be directed by Geoffrey Sax, who directed the 1996 Doctor Who TV movie.

The drama is written by acclaimed playwright Kevin Elyot (My Night With Reg) and produced by Celia Duval for Mammoth Screen.

Filming on Christopher and his Kind starts in May. The 90-minute drama is likely to screen on BBC Two in the autumn.

Two Doctor Who Proms have been announced by the BBC and will take place over the weekend of 24th/25th July 2010.

This will be the second time music from Doctor Who has been featured at the Proms. Founded in 1895, the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts are an eight-week summer season of orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in South Kensington. Since 1927 they have been run by the BBC. In 2008 a Doctor Who Prom showcased the work of Murray Gold, who has composed the incidental music for Doctor Who since its return in 2005 along with other space related pieces of classical music.

The 2010 season will follow the same format comprising a mix of traditional and modern music. The two proms will have the same running order and both will be hosted by Matt Smith and Karen Gillan and feature the London Philharmonic Choir and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

A number of Who related events have been organised over the weekend.

Tickets will go on sale, online, by telephone and in person on Tuesday 4 May at 8.00am.


SATURDAY 24 JULY 2010

SUNDAY 25 JULY 2010

The BBC Press Office has announced that The Sarah Jane Adventures will have two special guests when it returns for a fourth series this autumn. In a special two-part story written by Russell T Davies, Matt Smith will appear as the Doctor, and Katy Manning will guest as the Doctor's former companion Jo Grant. Manning starred in Doctor Who opposite the Third Doctor, Jon Pertwee, from 1971 to 1973. Manning has recorded audio adventures for Big Finish Productions, but this will be the first time she has played Jo Grant on television in thirty-seven years.

The press release includes reactions from Elisabeth Sladen, who plays Sarah Jane Smith, Manning, and Sarah Jane Adventures executive producer Nikki Wilson:

Just a reminder that the new series of Doctor Who - starring Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor and Karen Gillan as Amy Pond - premieres in Australia, Canada and the US this weekend.

In the US, The Eleventh Hour, by Steven Moffat, hits TV screens on BBC America tonight (Saturday), at 9 p.m. ET. The opening episode will be preceded at 8 p.m. ET by Doctor Who: The Ultimate Guide, a documentary introducing the world of Doctor Who to new viewers.

Canada premieres The Eleventh Hour tonight (Saturday) on SPACE, also at 9 p.m. ET, with Doctor Who: The Ultimate Guide showing before it at 8 p.m. ET.

In Australia, The Eleventh Hour will be broadcast on ABC 1 on Sunday (April 18) at 7.30 p.m. The series has already premiered in Australia on ABC iView, the station's Internet broadcasting service. Also, Series 1 of K9 continues to be broadcast weekly on Saturdays on Channel Ten.

The new series is receiving masses of press attention in all three countries. Digital Journal continues its coverage, running three separate pieces for the US launch, the Canadian launch and the Australian launch.



Meanwhile, in the UK, Matt Smith's Series 1 (Doctor Who, Series 31) continues tonight on BBC 1 at 6.30 p.m. with Victory of the Daleks, by Mark Gatiss. A report on the history of the metal menace has appeared on BBC News. As reported by us yesterday, immediately after this episode, there will be a trailer on BBC 1 for the fortcoming downloadable episodes of Doctor Who: The Adventure Games. Episode 3 of Doctor Who Confidential follows on BBC 3 at 7.15 p.m.

The Telegraph is to give away a series of Doctor Who Audio adventures starting next weekend with an early release of Matt Smith reading a brand new adventure for the Eleventh Doctor, The Runaway Train. It is understood this will be in the paper on Saturday 24th April.

The news comes from Doctor Who author Peter Anghelides, whose own story, Pest Control, featuring the Tenth Doctor and read by David Tennant, will be the second story released on the 25th and 26th April.

The promotion is part of a deal with BBC Audiobooks. Commissioning Editor Michael Stevens says
Other stories included are: Slipback, the Colin Baker story originally heard on BBC Radio 4 in 1985; Genesis of the Daleks and Exploration Earth featuring Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen; and finally Mission to the Unknown, the soundtrack of the 1965 story, which was the one Doctor Who television episode not to feature the Doctor or any of his companions.

The Doctor Who promotional tour of the states continues with Matt Smith and Karen Gillan making appearances ahead of the series launch on BBC America this Saturday.

The official site has a report on the preview showing of The Eleventh Hour at the Village East movie theatre on Wednesday night. The event, attended by Smith, Gillan and executive producer Steven Moffat, drew fans from around the country with the queue forming as early as 6.30am. The Daily Mail reports on the event, continuing its fascination with the outfits of Karen Gillan. BBC America have uploaded video of Matt Smith signing his first head to their Facebook page.

Meanwhile the Paley Centre for Media has uploaded a video of the question and answer session which took place last Monday, and there is a report on the event on Newsarama. BBC America have uploaded a video of Smith and Gillan at the Apple store in SoHo.

The stars have also given interviews to a number of local TV stations such as WCSH6 based in Portland, Maine, with Steven Moffat talking to FilmSchool Rejects.

Doctor Who was even mentioned on the BBC's flagship current affairs programme Newsnight, when a guest from Washington said the leadership debates, taking place in the UK tonight, may draw an audience as big as that achieved by the arrival of a new Doctor Who.

In Canada a special preview of The Eleventh Hour took place last week and is covered by The National Post. Steven Moffat talked to the event via Skype. We understand a 9 minute clip of The Eleventh Hour is available as a free download from iTunes Canada.

On the other side of the world the new series also launches in Australia this weekend. Fans are reporting that the ABC is so heavily promoting the fact that the first episode will be available online from midnight on Friday via its iView service that a lot of viewers are missing the fact that it will actually be shown on ABC1 on Sunday, with ABC announcers specifically mentioning the iView showing but not the Sunday one.

This article asks: “Is this the Doctor Who general election? And are Labour hoping that some of the popularity of the show will rub off on them?” The forthcoming UK general election and Doctor Who do seem to be becoming evermore interlinked.

The new issue of Radio Times, harking back to its 30 April to 6 May issue from 2005 (opposite), shows the Daleks in the colours (blue, red and yellow) of the three main UK political parties, David Tennant, earlier this year, declared his support for the UK’s Labour Party and Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the party’s current leader. Earlier this week, the Labour Party turned to the Doctor and a son of the Doctor in it’s campaign to win re-election in the contest.

The first party-election broadcast of the campaign premièred on YouTube before airing on UK television channels. In the Labour Party broadcast, The Road Ahead, the third Doctor Jon Pertwee’s son, Sean Pertwee, appeared, while the tenth Doctor David Tennant provided the voice-over.

See our earlier story about this week’s Radio Times and the interview with Brown, who reveals that Tennant is his favourite Doctor, and that he saw him recently in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

In recent months, both Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat have separately warned against David Cameron’s Conservatives winning the election, fearing the future of the BBC would be under threat. Citing Moffat’s comments, the Daily Mirror claimed that Saturday’s episode, The Beast Below, featured a message blasting the Tories:

In February, the Sunday Times claimed that writers wove anti-Tory propaganda into Doctor Who scripts in the 1980s.

As for the Liberal Democrats, their candidate for Blaenau Gwent, Wales, is one Matt Smith!

The Doctor Who team have arrived in New York as part of the publicity tour in the run up to the new series launch on BBC America this coming Saturday.

On Monday Matt Smith and Karen Gillan attended an industry screening of The Eleventh Hour at the Paley Center for Media where, along with executive producer Steven Moffat, they answered questions from the specially invited audience.

Smith talked about his audition and how he had to shoot 12 takes of the infamous fish custard scene in The Eleventh Hour. Moffat said his inspiration for the scene came from the Winnie-the-Pooh books, specifically the scene where Tigger claims to like everything, but then proceeds to reject all the foodstuffs offered to him.

Smith and Gillan had time for some sight seeing as well as attending a 'Meet the Cast' event at the Apple SoHo store and giving an interview to TV Guide Magazine and the New York Times.

The trio will attend a special screening of The Eleventh Hour on Wednesday at the Village East Cinema.

The BBC has announced the production of four new 'interactive episodes' of Doctor Who which will be available from the official website, bbc.co.uk/doctorwho.

These four new adventures will take the form of downloadable computer games available for PC and Mac, in which players assume control of The Doctor and Amy as they embark on new adventures which complement the new TV series. The games have been produced by a team drawing on the very best talent from TV and gaming. The interactive episodes are executive produced by Steven Moffat, Piers Wenger, Beth Willis and Anwen Aspden from BBC Wales Interactive, alongside Charles Cecil, one of videogaming's most revered creators.

The games are being developed by Sumo Digital, one of the UK's best game designers. Stories and scripts are by Phil Ford, who co-wrote The Waters Of Mars and James Moran who has written for Torchwood.

The project has been commissioned for BBC Online by the Vision Multiplatform team, headed up by Simon Nelson, and is being driven by BBC Wales Interactive.

Matt Smith and Karen Gillan have been digitally recreated in-game, and have provided full voice-overs. Music has been provided by TV series composer Murray Gold. An additional cast will portray original characters and classic enemies.

Steven Moffat, executive producer, Doctor Who, says
Piers Wenger, Head of Drama, BBC Wales, and executive producer, Doctor Who, added
Simon Nelson, head of BBC multiplatform in Vision, said:
Anwen Aspden, executive producer, BBC Wales Online, concludes:
The exact titles of the four episodes are being kept secret for the time being, but the four original stories will take players on a journey throughout time and space, including one location from the Doctor Who series which has never been seen before on screen. Players will encounter new and original monsters, in stories which form part of the overall Doctor Who canon.

The first episode of Doctor Who – The Adventure Games will be available to download for PC and Mac from bbc.co.uk/doctorwho in June 2010. Its title will be revealed at a special press event on 21 April in Sheffield.

The new Matt Smith action figure has been released, and ITN have reported on how the figure was made. The character comes in two versions, one showing the Doctor's crash outfit as he appeared in the majority of The Eleventh Doctor and one showing the Doctor in his new outfit.



Reviews on The Eleventh Doctor continue to be published and you can find a full list in Doctor Who in the Media.

Neil Gaiman has blogged about watching the episode and his daughter's reaction to the story. In his blog he reveals that the story he has written for Matt Smith's second series was originally planed for inclusion towards the end of the current series. He is now rewriting it to fit in its new slot.