This Sunday (19 April) will see The Big Care Sign-Up host an event to raise money for The Carers Centre, a charity based in LeicesterShire. As part of events there will be an auction of celebrity and entertainment memorabilia, including autographs from all 13 actors to have played the Doctor. Guests from Doctor Who will be John Levene (Sergeant Benton) and Matthew Dale (Big John, Robot Of Sherwood).

The full list of items up for auction and how to submit a bid can be found on The Big Care Sign-Up website.

A Bedford charity is raising money for the homeless, by organising a Doctor Who Convention, with a special discount for readers of Doctor Who News.

Bedford Who Charity Con is being held on Saturday 11th April, to raise funds for Bedford Foodbank, who provide emergency food for local people in crisis. The organisers do not make money from the event; once costs are covered, all the money raised goes to the Foodbank.

Confirmed guests – subject to work commitments – are Nicola Bryant, Sophie Aldred, Anneke Wills, John Leeson, Terry Molloy, Mike Tucker, Paul Cornell, and Doctor Who’s choreographer Ailsa Berk, who will be leading an Alien Movement Workshop. As choreographer, Berk is responsible for teaching movement to the actors playing the aliens. If you want to learn how to stomp like Cybermen, lollop like scarecrows, lurch like Other Dave when he’s possessed by the Vashta Nerada, or frighten the neighbours by adopting the pose of a Weeping Angel, then this is for you. There’ll also be on stage interviews with the guests, who’ll also be signing autographs and BAFTA award-winning Mike Tucker will be doing a presentation on the special effects in Doctor Who. Plus there’ll be the chance to mingle with the Daleks and other aliens.

Prices are £40 for adults, £20 for those aged 14-18 and £12 for under 14s. Family tickets are available. If you tell the organisers you read about the convention on Doctor Who News you'll receive a 10% discount on these prices.

You can order tickets from the convention website

A crowdfunding campain on indiegogo launched yesterday to fund the first ever Doctor Who convention held in Germany. At the same time the website to the event went online. The organisers previously only communicated via Facebook to the fans.

The event will take place in Kassel, on 24th to 25th October 2015. Guests announced so far are:

• Catrin Stewart ("Jenny Flint")
• Nicola Bryant ("Peri Brown")
• Terry Molloy ("Davros")
• Toby Hadoke (Actor, Comedian, Podcaster for Big Finish)
• Jason Haigh-Ellery (Co-executive producer of Big Finish)
• Terrance Dicks (Writer, Script-editor)
• Andrew Cartmel (Writer, Script-editor)

Other guests include german dubbing-actors and -producers. According to the organisers of TimeLash, there are still more guests to be added to the line-up in the coming weeks.

Tickets are available on indiegogo. Since the launch of the campaign yesterday, the convention already achieved 40% of its goal and sold 112 weekend-tickets out of 500 available. The campaign on indiegogo runs for 60 days.

It has been announced that the first ever unofficial german Doctor Who event will take place in Kassel on 24th - 25th October 2015.

According to the newly started Facebook page and Twitter account, the event is called TimeLash and will feature guests from the classic and new series.
The organisers plan to finance parts of the event via crowdfunding, which will start in the coming months. Details will follow shortly.

So far no further news are known, although the Whocast, Germany's only Doctor Who podcast, will discuss the event with one of the organisers, in an episode, which can be downloaded in the next few days.

A meeting is being held this Saturday in Vancouver, Canada to gauge the interest in having a convention in the area in late 2015. Who Party West III in 1990 was the last time a Doctor Who convention was held in Vancouver and organisers from that event have come together again to try and kick-start a new convention for fans. More details about the informational meeting can be found at vancouverdoctorwhoconvention.wordpress.com.

The Shadow Proclamation, a convention planned for this weekend in Middlesbrough has been cancelled.

A statement was made on the event's facebook page by the organiser Graeme ParryThe convention had attracted a number of high profile guests including Colin Baker, Louise Jameson and Nicola Bryant. However earlier in the day a number of guests pulled out citing major contractual problems.

Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant will be attending WhoCon14 at the Ritz Cinema in Lincoln, which is offering half price tickets to Who Con for any Shadow Proclamation ticket holders.

The Doctor Who Appreciation Society have announced a preview of a new version of the Doctor Who theme by composer Dominic Glynn at their forthcoming Myth Makers convention in June:


For more details please visit the event website.

The Doctor Who Appreciation Society is to present a special convention in June to celebrate the making of Doctor Who:
The event takes place on the 1st June, full details and ticket booking can be found via their website.

Competition:

We have a pair of tickets to the event up for grabs, courtesy of DWAS. In order to be in with a chance to win simply answer the following question:
Send your answer along with your name, address and where you heard about the competition to comp-mythmakers@doctorwhonews.net with the subject line "Mythmakers in Time and Space". Only one entry per postal address will be accepted. The competition is open to readers worldwide, and the closing date is 31st March 2014. If you are a winner and have already purchased tickets for the event, DWAS will refund them (up to two tickets only!).

The Hub productions Whoniverse event has been cancelled following the withdrawal of Matt Smith from the event for family reasons.

The convention was due to hit the four main Australia cities over the next two weeks, bringing together the original Eleventh Doctor team of Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill. Although Gillan pulled out of part of the tour last week, the absence of Matt Smith has proved a fatal blow with the organisers having no choice but to cancel the event.

Matt Smith is unable to leave the UK at present due to a family matter. He gave the convention organisers the following statement. The organisers have said they are working to try to bring the team to future events, but in the meantime, Ticketek will be in touch regarding refunds.

Today sees a certain actor reaching a certain milestone and we couldn't let it go unrecognised, so here's wishing A VERY HAPPY 50th BIRTHDAY to Christopher Eccleston - the man who was so fundamental in ensuring that Doctor Who was a success when it returned in 2005! To mark the special occasion, here are his first and last scenes as the Doctor.


Matt Smith is to appear at the Wizard World Louisville Comic Con on Saturday 29th March, which is being held at the Kentucky International Convention Center, 221 S 4th Street,
Louisville. He will be greeting fans, signing autographs, posing for photos and conducting an interactive question-and-answer session. [Wizard World]

The first photo of David Tennant in Gracepoint - the US remake of ITV drama Broadchurch in which he also starred - has been released and published by Entertainment Weekly. It shows Tennant, who plays Detective Emmett Carver, with Anna Gunn as his sidekick Detective Ellie Miller. The 10-episode series - written by Chris Chibnall who created the original show, and directed by James Strong who helmed five Broadchurch episodes - is being made by Fox and will air next season. [Entertainment Weekly, 14 Feb 2014]

Ben Wheatley - who is directing Peter Capaldi's first two episodes - has been talking about working with the actor. "With someone like Capaldi, he's a massive Who fan. He knows Who inside out. And everything he does is very, carefully planned and thought about. I remember when they first started talking to me about doing it, and I was very nervous for just those reasons. How do you shape this performance? But then when I heard who was going to do it - when they told me it was Capaldi, [I thought] that's not really a problem. He's so good. I was relieved, pretty much. It would have been a very different situation if it had been another kind of Matt Smith character. A guy who you don't know. Moulded from the start. But with Capaldi, you look at his career and you look at his performances they are all so brilliant, and all so different as well. It was a lucky break for me, I think that." He added: "It seems to me the episodes that we're doing now seem more like classic Who. We're going back to that style. But you'll have to wait and see." [io9, 3 Feb 2014]

Carey Mulligan will be playing the former lover of a character portrayed by Bill Nighy when she makes her West End debut in Skylight by Sir David Hare. The revival will be on at Wyndham's Theatre from Friday 6th June to Saturday 23rd August and will see Mulligan in the role of schoolteacher Kyra Hollis, while Nighy plays Tom Sergeant, as "the two attempt to rekindle their once-passionate relationship only to find themselves locked in a dangerous battle of opposing ideologies and mutual desires." [BBC News, 14 Feb 2014]

Bonnie Langford is returning to play the Lady of the Lake in the hit West End musical Spamalot, which is at the Playhouse Theatre. She will be appearing in it from Monday 24th February. [The Stage, 10 Feb 2014]

The fifth series of ITV period drama Downton Abbey will see Richard E Grant joining the cast as Simon Bricker - a guest of the Granthams. The eight-part series will also see the return of Hugh Bonneville, Penelope Wilton, Samantha Bond and Raquel Cassidy. [ITV Press Centre, 14 Feb 2014]

Michael Gambon will be among those taking part in the HighTide Festival in Halesworth, Suffolk. Among the theatre festival's events are world premieres of plays, readings and music, and Gambon will be taking part in the Face To Face series, when he will be interviewed by the theatre critic Michael Billington on Saturday 19th April. The festival - which takes place from Thursday 10th to Saturday 19th April - will also see the world premiere of Peddling, a play written and performed by Patrick Troughton's grandson Harry Melling, which will then transfer to New York.

Alex Kingston, Noel Clarke and Reece Shearsmith are to star in the ITV drama Chasing Shadows. The four-part production, which focuses on the work of a missing persons field unit charged with tracking down serial killers who prey on impressionable and vulnerable people, is due to start filming in the south-east of England soon for eight weeks. Shearsmith will play Det Sgt Sean Stone, with Kingston portraying his partner, Ruth Hattersley, while Clarke will take the role of Det Insp Prior. [ITV Press Centre, 11 Feb 2014]

Actress and model Lily Cole has been cast as Helen of Troy in The Last Days of Troy - an adaptation by Simon Armitage of The Iliad - which will receive its world premiere at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester from Thursday 8th May to Saturday 7th June, before transferring to The Globe in London from Tuesday 10th to Saturday 28th June. [The Stage, 12 Feb 2014]

A forthcoming show featuring Louise Jameson that is for children who have learning difficulties needs actors and costumes after some cast members had to leave the production. The Unexpected Heroes is being put on at Sandhurst School in Berkshire on Tuesday 25th, Wednesday 26th and Friday 28th February, and producer Jonathan Turner said: "We are facing great difficulties as some cast members had to drop out due to unforeseen circumstances, so we are appealing for help with costumes and sets." Jameson is voicing a magic mirror in the show. Turner can be contacted on jonathanturner560@gmail.com [Local Berkshire, 14 Feb 2014]

Oft-rumoured to have been considered to play the Doctor, Paterson Joseph has told in an interview of his audition to take over from David Tennant. "I was in South Africa at the time, and I think if I'd been in England I probably would have suffered some sort of trauma. But I'll be very honest with you. I was overjoyed. Not that I thought I had been considered, because I hadn't been - they hadn't approached my agent at that point - but I was overjoyed." He added that after the audition "I came back and I think I pretty much knew that I hadn't got it and weirdly wasn't disappointed." [The Independent, 8 Feb 2014]

With his new TV entertainment show Superstar Dogs due to start on Channel 4 tomorrow at 5.30pm, John Barrowman has been talking about the programme and how his own dogs - Captain Jack, a Jack Russell terrier named after his Doctor Who/Torchwood character, and cocker spaniel Harris - would get on in the challenges. "Captain Jack knows how to dive underwater and swim down to retrieve a bone but I don't think he'd be good at fetching any balls because he'd burst them. And I'd probably have to train him a bit for the Dogstacle course. Harris would refuse to do anything!" [What's On TV]

An inquest into the death of former director Christopher Barry is to be held on Thursday 5th June. The 88-year-old died on Friday 7th February after falling down an escalator at a shopping centre in Banbury, near his home, earlier that day. He was taken to hospital but while there he suddenly stopped breathing and doctors couldn't revive him. [The Telegraph, 15 Feb 2014]

Lalla Ward and her husband Richard Dawkins will be sharing their memories of writer and former Doctor Who script editor Douglas Adams, as well as celebrating his life, at Highgate Cemetery, where Adams is buried. The sold-out event - entitled A Conversation At The End Of The Universe - takes place on Tuesday 11th March, which would have been Adams's 62nd birthday. Ward and Dawkins were introduced to each other by Adams at his 40th birthday party in 1992 and they married later that year. [Highgate Cemetery website]

Among those paying their respects to Roger Lloyd Pack at his funeral at St Paul's Church, Covent Garden, on Thursday were fellow Only Fools And Horses stars John Challis and Tessa Peake-Jones, plus the actor Nigel Havers. Daughter Emily Lloyd gave a reading of Kahlil Gibran's poem On Death and said afterwards that Lloyd Pack's last words to his family were "I'm fine." [The Mirror, 14 Feb 2014]

In Memoriam:

The actress Lisa Daniely - who played Madeleine Issigri in The Space Pirates - has died at the age of 84. She made her film debut in 1951 as the eponymous Lilli Marlene, starring in the sequel, The Wedding of Lilli Marlene, two years later as well. Among her other roles, she also appeared in ITV's 1958-59 version of The Invisible Man as Diane Brady Wilson - the title character's widowed sister - with Deborah Watling playing her daughter. Other TV appearances included The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Van der Valk, The Protectors, Strange Report, Danger Man and The Saint. [The Stage, 12 Feb 2014]