Posted By John Bowman

David Tennant and Catherine Tate will be star speakers later this year at the Times Cheltenham Literary Festival, it was announced today.

They will talk about working with the Royal Shakespeare Company as well as on Doctor Who.

The event runs from October 10 to 19. Precise dates for appearances have yet to be announced.

Reported by thelondonpaper and the Press Association.

David Tennant was interviewed by Simon Mayo on BBC Radio Five on Wednesday. APodcast of the interview is available for the next seven days.

A reminder that David Tennant and Catherine Tate will be guests on Friday nights Jonathan Ross show on BBC1.

Thanks to Daniel Smith

BBC Audiobooks have revealed that David Tennant will be the reader of their latest audio-exclusive release Doctor Who: Pest Control. The adventure will be available only on CD and for download and will not be published as a book. It is due for release on the 8th May 2008.

Pest Control was commissioned from author Peter Anghelides. he said "I love David Tennant's work on the book adaptations, so I'm simply thrilled that he's reading this special audio. He phoned to discuss the characterisations, and my younger son picked up. How great is that? A phone call from the Doctor!"

The story is the first to feature Donna as the Doctor's companion and below we can offer a sneak preview of the script.

Thanks to Brian Jacob

Nominations for the Royal Television Society awards have been announced. Included in the list are:

Best Drama Series: Doctor Who
Best Actor: David Tennant (Recovery/Doctor Who)
Best Children's Drama: The Sarah Jane Adventures

The awards will be presented on Wednesday 19th March 2008. A full list of nominees is available on the RTS website.

Posted By John Bowman

Catherine Tate will be heard interviewing David Tennant on BBC Radio 4 on February 21 when Chain Reaction returns for a new series.

In it, they talk about working on Doctor Who - as well as playing extras on The Bill.

The show's format sees the interviewee becoming the interviewer of a different guest the following week, with them talking to people whose work they admire and appreciate.

Next week (February 28), Tennant will be interviewing Richard Wilson, who played Dr Constantine in The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances, while Wilson's interviewee the week after that (March 6) will be Arabella Weir, who used to lodge with Tennant and made him godfather to her youngest child.

Weir also played the Doctor in the Big Finish drama Exile - which featured Tennant playing an unnamed Time Lord and a pub landlord. (Weir will round off the series of Chain Reaction by interviewing fellow Fast Show star Paul Whitehouse.)

The half-hour programmes start at 6.30pm. The series was recorded last year.

(With thanks to Jeremy Bentham.)

Posted By John Bowman

People

David Tennant reveals some of his forthcoming work schedule in the February 9-15 edition of Radio Times. In a feature about the listings magazine's annual party for its cover stars, he says he will have all of May off and start rehearsing Hamlet for the RSC in June. (NB: Tennant is also appearing inLove's Labour's Lost in October and November, although he doesn't make reference to that in the feature.)

He appears in Hamlet from July until January 9, 2009 and says he will be back in Cardiff on January 10 to commence next year's Doctor Who specials, adding: "After that, I really don't know. Nothing has been decided . . . honestly!"

Tennant, Freema Agyeman and John Simm are all pictured at the bash.

Sophie Aldred was interviewed by BBC Norfolk while making a guest appearance in the area.

In the lengthy feature, she tells how she tried - unsuccessfully - to persuade Christopher Eccleston to attend conventions. The interview is also in three parts in an audio format. In addition, it includes video interviews with Terry Molloy and Elisabeth Sladen, as they are referred to in the piece, although these may not be playable by overseas visitors to the BBC site.

Meanwhile, BBC South East Today ran an interview with Tommy Knight, who plays Luke in The Sarah Jane Adventures.

Broadcasting

Radio Times also reveals that the February 15 edition of EastEnders will feature the storyline in which the characters Stacey and Bradley visit a Doctor Who exhibition in London. The location filming for this was reported by this site in December. (Information elsewhere suggests that the February 14 edition may also include this storyline.)

The teaser for the following week's Radio Times (February 16-22) mentions the character Martha Jones joining theTorchwood team, suggesting there will be a feature about it in that edition. Her debut Torchwood episode will be shown on BBC3 on February 13 at 9.50pm. It will, presumably, be shown on BBC2 on February 20 as part of the series' run on that channel.

The February 13 edition of Late Junction on BBC Radio 3, to be broadcast from 11.15pm to 1am, will include music from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and is believed to be a feature about 50 years of the workshop, including its realisation of the Doctor Who theme. UPDATE (February 7): Although the February 13 edition will indeed include music from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop archive, it has been announced that it will be the February 12 editionthat will mark 50 years of the workshop with, among other items, a look at the Doctor Who theme. The show will be broadcast in its usual slot, from 11.15pm to 1am.

(With thanks to Tony Clark)

People

Hello! magazine's readers have voted David Tennant the third most attractive man, after Sean Bean and Hugh Laurie.

Catherine Tate spoke to the Toronto Star about her comedy series and her return to Doctor Who as Donna Noble. "What's great about doing Doctor Who is that it has a narrative, so it means that I can approach it more as a straight acting role," says Tate. "It's just nicer to have a story arc that lasts longer than, like, four minutes."

Contactmusic.com quotes Russell T. Davies as saying that being gay helped give him "an edge" over other aspiring writers.

Eighth Doctor Paul McGann was one of the celebrities on hand for the official opening of Liverpool's year as the European Capital of Culture, reports theLiverpool Echo.

And Johnny Depp has denied rumors that he was seeking a role on Doctor Who, reports Teletext. (The story is no longer available on Teletext's website.)

Torchwood

Several news sources have published reviews of Torchwood's second series debut, "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang". These includeThe Times ("good, salacious knockabout fun"), The Times again ("funny, fast and daring"), The Daily Telegraph("leaden gags" and "a fantastically ungripping plot") and The Guardian ("parts of it were very, very funny").

American media are also covering the series ("Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" will debut on BBC America on Saturday, January 26); the Los Angeles Times calls the series "grown-up, dark, energetic and sometimes hard to keep track of." TheOrlando Sentinel (Florida), The Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky), the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel(Wisconsin), the Akron Beacon-Journal (Ohio), the Erie News-Times (Pennsylvania) and the Fresno Bee(California) all report on the second series debut and/or Tuesday's DVD release of the first series.

The Huddersfield Examiner has an interview with John Barrowman.

The South Wales Echo has excerpts from an interview Eve Myles gave to Iconz magazine, in which she speaks of her love for Cardiff.

James Marsters' girlfriend enjoyed watching him kiss John Barrowman, according to The Sun andcontactmusic.com.

Miscellany

An article in The Sunday Times about the state of children's television in Britain quotes Russell T. Davies and notes that while television labelled as being for children is suffering, "family" programming like Doctor Who is thriving. Another column points to the success of Doctor Who as a model for adapting classic adventure novels to the screen.

Indeed, Doctor Who is such a success that BBC bosses are looking to apply its lessons beyond the realm of drama. In an interview with The Guardian BBC director general Mark Thompson used Doctor Who as an example of the sort of "creative energy" which the BBC should use in political coverage. Covering Thompson's remark, the Belfast Telegraphsuggested that BBC reporters covering Northern Ireland might already feel like time travelers.

Young Doctor Who fans in the Midlands can participate in a craft competition at the Stourport Library in Stourport-on-Severn, Worcestershire. There are three age groups for the competition: ages 5 to 7, 8 to 10 and 11 to 13. Entrants can color a Doctor Who picture (available at the library) or make a Doctor Who-themed model. The Kidderminster Shuttlehas details of the competition.

The West Sussex Gazette has a feature article about classic Doctor Who filming in West Sussex.

The Doctor Who Up Close exhibition in Cardiff will be adding costumes from "Voyage of the Damned" to its collection, reports the Western Mail.

A columnist in The Scotsman notes that "apart from reality shows and similar swill, Doctor Who is the only programme that brings the nation together simultaneously: ironic, given that the Doctor is a Time Lord."

Technology website The Register describes a small flying robot being developed by the US military as a "proto-Dalek".

Doctor Who news shows up everywhere these days. Materials Handling World has a short article about the forklift featured in "Voyage of the Damned". No matter what your field is, there's nothing like a Doctor Who story to spice up your trade news, eh?

And the South Wales Echo has a story about a dad who built his kids a five-foot TARDIS replica to keep their toys in. Bless.

David Tennant will this weekend appear on BBC Two's highest rated programme, the motoring show Top Gear, as the guest on the regular "Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car" feature. The feature involves Tennant being tutored in driving a Chevrolet Lacetti around the programme's test track by their resident expert driver, the mysterious, always-helmeted "Stig". Tennant will then complete a timed lap of the circuit, which he will then analyse and discuss in studio with presenter Jeremy Clarkson, and his time will be ranked against those of other celebrities to have taken part in the feature.

Both Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper have previously taken part in the same item on the programme, although Tennant's time will not be directly compared with Eccleston's as his lap took place when a different model of car was being used for the feature.

Top Gear is on BBC Two this Sunday at 8pm. It is repeated at 12 midnight on Wednesday 26 December, and then again on BBC Three on Saturday 29 December at 7.20pm. It will also be available, to UK viewers, on the BBC's broadband iPlayer "watch again" service.

Tennant's participation is reported in several sources, including an article in the Daily Mail.

At the premiere of "Voyage of the Damned" Tuesday evening, David Tennant dismissed speculation about how long he plans to stay on Doctor Who. Speaking about the Christmas 2008 special and three specials in 2009, he said, "I'm doing four more specials and beyond that no one's asked me to make any decisions and I'm quite happy to be enigmatic for as long as possible." Talk of Tennant's departure plans began Saturday whenCatherine Tate, speaking on Jonathan Ross's radio show, said that she thought that 2008 might be Tennant's last full series in the role of the Doctor.

"Catherine Tate stitched me up good and proper," said Tennant. "She goes on Jonathan Ross and makes up a load of old nonsense. Unbeknownst to me, she thinks I've made a decision - she'd clearly had too much coffee that morning. She said I was leaving, which was a decision I haven't made yet, maybe she's made it for me, but I'm going to keep people guessing for as long as possible."

Tennant continued, "I started getting all these phone calls on Saturday lunchtime saying apparently you're leaving Doctor Who. Catherine Tate's just announced it on Radio 2 - thanks Catherine! I said to her on Monday morning did you know you've caused a minor diplomatic incident? She was completely oblivious that the phone had been ringing off the hook."

Tennant's comments, as well as some spoilerish details about "Voyage of the Damned", can be found at BBC News andThe Blackpool Gazette. More details from the "Voyage of the Damned" press launch can be found at The Daily Telegraph, The Sun, The Sunderland Echo and The Daily Star.

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail, Now Magazine and The West Australian are running with the Sun's story about Jennifer Saunders appearing as the Doctor in one episode.

UPDATED Wednesday 19 Dec: The late night Richard Bacon talk show on BBC Radio 5 Live has a report from the "Voyage of the Damned" preview. It includes an interview with Tennant in which he light-heartedly discusses Tate's comments about his future on Doctor Who: "It's a decision I've not been forced to make, so I'm just going to play my cards close to my chest as long as I can. Despite what Catherine might have you believe, I haven't made any decision about the next series yet."

To listen to the interview, go to this page and click on "Tuesday". The Doctor Who discussion begins approximately 1 hour 38 minutes into the program, and contains some spoilers for "Voyage of the Damned".

There is also a video piece on the premiere from BBC News available here, which includes clips from "Voyage of the Damned" and interview segments with Tennant. Speaking of his future on the programme, he says "It's a decision I haven't made yet... it's not a decision I've been asked to make yet, so I'm going to keep 'em guessing for as long as possible."

Thanks to "scheherezade" and "PolyG" of the Doctor Who Forum.