Saturday 1st June sees a big screen, one-night only, celebration of Doctor Who's 50th anniversary across Australia and New Zealand.

A double bill of episodes from Series 7, Asylum of the Daleks and The Angels Take Manhattan will screen at 48 cinemas across Australia and New Zealand, including Event, Dendy and Village cinemas in Australia, and Event Cinemas in New Zealand.

This will be the second one-off simultaneous cinema screening in both countries this year. The first was for The Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon on 14th March.

On the same night as the cinema screenings, a light show featuring Doctor Who projections will be staged in Sydney.

A series of specially-created 3D-mapped images will be projected on to the façade of Sydney’s Customs House at Circular Quay.

The Doctor Who projections are part of the 18-day Vivid Sydney festival, taking place from 24 May to 10 June. The festival is organised by the New South Wales Government Government’s tourism and major events agency, Destination NSW.

“This is a one-night only celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who, and sees Australian creative innovators, The Spinifex Group, working with the Doctor Who team to create projections that will deliver a show-stopping, unique anniversary celebration for Doctor Who’s legion of fans.” - Andrew Stoner, NSW Deputy Premier and Minister for Trade and Investment.

“We are delighted to partner with Destination NSW and Vivid Sydney to bring this unique night of Doctor Who entertainment to life in Sydney. Vivid Sydney is the perfect platform for this Anniversary celebration, which will see the Doctor projected 7m high onto one of the city’s most historic buildings. The Spinifex Group has done a tremendous job of creating a display which makes the most of Customs House’s amazing façade.” - Sharon Wilson, Head of Marketing, Global Brands, BBC Worldwide Australia and New Zealand. 

A video of the guest panel at last month's BFI celebratory screening of The Robots of Death can now be watched online.

The event, which was held on Saturday 20th April as part of the BFI's Doctor Who At 50 season, marked the Fourth Doctor's era.

The BFI has uploaded a four-minute excerpt featuring Tom Baker, which can be seen below and on its YouTube channel.


The fuller, 32-minute presentation, which also features former companion actress Louise Jameson and ex-producer Philip Hinchcliffe, can be seen here. The discussion was led by season co-curator Justin Johnson.

The BFI says it will be uploading the panel video from last Saturday's Fifth Doctor event next week.

As reported earlier, the next celebratory screening will be The Two Doctors on Saturday 15th June at 2pm. Because demand for all the events so far has been so high, tickets are now being allocated on a ballot basis.

The BBC have launched a new Doctor Who related competition for schools, this time focussing on creating music for the show; winners will hear their compositions at the Doctor Who Prom this summer.

The competition is being run in conjunction with BBC Learning and BBC Proms, the aim of which is to produce a new soundtrack for one of the 'clean' clips provided from last Christmas's The Snowmen. It is open to UK secondary school pupils in two categories, aged 11-14 and 15-16, and entries are to be judged by a panel of music education experts appointed by BBC Proms. Winners are to be judged based upon these criteria: Musical idea, Originality, Creative use of soundtrack methods, and Interpretation of action through soundtrack.

Full details, including the terms and conditions, can be found on the BBC's competition page, including an introductory video by composer Murray Gold and arranger Ben Foster on creating music for the series.


BBC Learning have run Doctor Who related competitions for schools over recent years, with their Script to Screen initiatives resulting in the production of minisodes Death is the Only Answer in 2011 and Good As Gold in 2012.

Actors Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton, and Janet Fielding will join director Graeme Harper and Radiophonic Workshop composer Roger Limb as the special guests at the BFI Southbank big-screen showing of The Caves of Androzani next month.

The four-part story is being shown on Saturday 4th May to mark the Fifth Doctor's era, as part of the BFI's Doctor Who At 50 season.

The adventure saw the Doctor regenerate into his sixth incarnation, played by Colin Baker, and today the BFI revealed that the story picked to mark the Sixth Doctor's era will be The Two Doctors, to be shown on Saturday 15th June at 2pm.

The three-part adventure, written by Robert Holmes, co-starred Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor and was first broadcast in 1985, pitting both Doctors against the Sontarans. It also saw the return of Frazer Hines as Second Doctor companion Jamie. Location filming was carried out in Spain.

BFI Champions and members are entitled to priority booking for the event, whose guests will be announced nearer the time, but because of the overwhelming popularity of the Doctor Who At 50 season a ballot system will be in operation once again for tickets. Two ballots are being run - one each for Champions and members - via e-mail to memberballot@bfi.org.uk. Champions can enter from Monday 6th May, while members can enter from Tuesday 7th May. Champions can enter both ballots.

The ballots will close on Friday 10th May and will be run over the weekend of 11th and 12th May, with all entrants being notified on Monday 13th May as to their success or failure. Any tickets that have been reserved for Champions and members through the ballot will be held until 8.30pm on Friday 17th May, and those left unclaimed will be released for public sale on Saturday 18th May.

However, on Wednesday 15th May the official Doctor Who Facebook page will have a small number of tickets set aside for purchase by members of the public, whereby people will have to correctly answer a question to be in with a chance of booking.

Although all the celebratory screenings have been immediate sell-outs, returns and stand-bys are a strong possibility, so if all else fails do keep checking with the BFI!

.As previously reported, Splendid Chaps is a year-long performance/podcast project to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who hosted by comedian Ben McKenzie (Dungeon Crawl, Melbourne Museum Comedy Tour) and writer John Richards (ABC1 sitcom Outland, Boxcutters podcast)

Described by its creators as part intellectual panel discussion, part nerdy Tonight Show, Splendid Chaps is a combination of analysis, enthusiasm and irreverence. The first episode went to number 1 on the iTunes TV & Film Podcast chart in Australia, and to number 4 in the UK.  The podcasts to the first few episodes are now available at www.splendidchaps.com or at  iTunes.

Tickets are now on sale for their 5th Doctor show!
On Sunday May 19 they’ll be celebrating the era of the 5th Doctor, the cricket-and-celery-loving Peter Davison, and exploring the notion of Fear in Doctor Who. When is Doctor Who scary, and why? Guests will include comedian Tegan Higginbotham (from comedy duo Watson and The Comedy Channel’s Whatever Happened To That Guy?) and horror author Narrelle M Harris. That’s at The Public Bar, 238 Victoria Street, North Melbourne, at 5pm.

Splendid Chaps: A Year Of Doctor Who: "Five: Fear"

Space: The Public Bar, 238 Victoria Street, North Melbourne
Time: Saturday 19 May 2013, 5 PM
Accessibility: This venue is wheelchair accessible.
Tickets: All tickets $15 (plus booking fee where applicable)
Bookings: via trybooking.com, or buy tickets at the door (subject to availability)
Podcast: not yet available, released 23 May 2013.

The BBC have announced the summer line-up for this year's BBC Proms, which will once again feature performances dedicated to Doctor Who:


The prom is to be performed twice, with "Prom 2" taking place on Saturday 13th July from 7:30pm (tickets start from £14), and "Prom 3" the following Sunday morning at 10:30am (tickets at £12, restricted to maximum of six per booking). Booking for the Proms season opens on the 11th May.

The proms will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, and also recorded for broadcast on BBC One.

The Doctor Who-themed comedy stage show Who, Me is to be performed at festivals Down Under to mark the programme's 50th anniversary.

Rob Lloyd originally staged the show - which sees the programme put on trial - to full houses at the Melbourne Fringe Festival in 2011. He subsequently had similar sell-out success at the 2011 Armageddon Cultural Expo in Melbourne, the 2012 Adelaide Fringe Festival, and the 2012 Melbourne International Comedy Festival, as well as both the Whovention: Gold convention in Sydney and Lords of Time convention in Melbourne this year. Now he is to perform it not only in Australia but New Zealand as well.

Lloyd describes the production as "a show about obsession and its many faces", with himself (Fan Number One) investigating whether the TV programme is guilty of inciting in him a debilitating obsession or whether it has shaped him into a well-rounded, mentally-sound member of society.

It starts in Australia at the Sydney Comedy Festival (30th April to 4th May), then transfers to Auckland for the New Zealand International Comedy Festival (7th to 11th May), before returning to Australia for the Perth International Comedy Festival (15th to 18th May).

Music heard in the first episode of Doctor Who is to be made exclusively available on vinyl as part of this year's Record Store Day.

Three Guitars Mood 2 is the song that introduces the Doctor's granddaughter Susan, who is listening to it on a hand-held transistor radio when the audience first sees her. It is attributed by her to John Smith And The Common Men, and they are the title artists of a three-track EP, Sounds From The Inferno, which is being released on Saturday 20th April on the Hysterion Records label.

The back cover of the 7-inch EP includes a guide to the hand movements performed to the song by Susan.

The B-side has the tracks Latin Gear and The Eyelash, which are two pieces of music heard in The Inferno nightclub in the season 3 closing story The War Machines.

Hysterion Records' Ronnie Shame said: The EP - or extended play - is a numbered limited edition of 1,000 copies and will only be available from independent record shops. Copies will be sold on a first-come first-served basis and cannot be pre-ordered or bought online. A list of retailers taking part in Record Store Day is available here.

Three Guitars Mood 2 was actually composed by Nelson and Raymond, performed by The Arthur Nelson Group, and originally released on the Conroy label, while The Eyelash and Latin Gear were composed by Johnny Hawksworth and included on the album The Mood Modern, brought out on the Keith Prowse Music label.

As previously reported, Splendid Chaps is a year-long performance/podcast project to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who hosted by comedian Ben McKenzie (Dungeon Crawl, Melbourne Museum Comedy Tour) and writer John Richards (ABC1 sitcom Outland, Boxcutters podcast).

Described by its creators as part intellectual panel discussion, part nerdy Tonight Show, Splendid Chaps is a combination of analysis, enthusiasm and irreverence. The first episode went to number 1 on the iTunes TV & Film Podcast chart in Australia, and to number 4 in the UK.  The podcasts to the first few episodes are now available at www.splendidchaps.com or at  iTunes.

Tickets are now on sale for a special bonus show all about Doctor Who books!

Books have always been an important part of Doctor Who, from the Target novelisations of the pre-video recorder age to the New Adventures and Eighth Doctor novels that continued the story after the original series went off air. Ben, John and Petra will be joined by editor and JOY 94.9 host Katie Purvis, and filmmaker, writer and podcaster Dave Hoskin for a discussion and reading of some of these works, plus a look at the stranger end of the publishing spectrum (the Doctor Who Cookbook, anyone?). And there’ll be a special reading from comedian Lawrence Leung!

Splendid Chaps: A Year Of Doctor Who: "Who and Books"

Space: Northcote Library, 32-38 Separation Street, Northcote, Melbourne
Time: Saturday May 4 2013, 4:30 PM
Accessibility: This venue is wheelchair accessible.
Tickets: All tickets $10 (plus booking fee where applicable)
Bookings: via trybooking.com, or buy tickets at the door (subject to availability)
Podcast: TBA.

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.