Poland and South Africa will get the second part of Series 7 the day after each of the eight episodes is shown in the UK, it was announced today by BBC Worldwide.

The episodes will air on BBC Entertainment, starting on Sunday 31st March at 6pm in Poland and 7pm in South Africa.


Jon Farrar, the vice-president of programming for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa at BBC Worldwide Channels, said: BBC America and SPACE in Canada will be launching the second part of Series 7 on Saturday 30th March in line with the UK.

The BFI is to screen The Robots of Death to mark the Fourth Doctor's era as it celebrates Doctor Who's 50th anniversary, it was announced today.

The four-part story, which first aired in 1977, will be shown at BFI Southbank on Saturday 20th April at 2pm. The guests will be announced in due course.

Tickets go on sale to the general public on Tuesday 12th March but will be available on Tuesday 5th March to people with a standard BFI membership and on Monday 4th March to Champion members.

Screenings that the BFI organised for last month, this month, and next month - honouring the First, Second, and Third Doctors - all sold out to members before tickets were due to go on general release.

The organisation has a Doctor Who At 50 season this year, showing a story per Doctor per month as well as digitally-restored prints of the two Dalek films, with question-and-answer panels featuring special guests at each session. In addition, the BBC Two docudrama An Adventure In Space And Time about the show's genesis, written by Mark Gatiss and currently being filmed, will debut at the BFI in November.

BBC America continues its celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Doctor Who by revisiting the Second Doctor and showing the classic 1967 story The Tomb of the Cybermen.

The widely-regarded story will air on Sunday 24th February at 8pm ET and will be preceded by a documentary looking back at the era of the Second Doctor, featuring contributions from Steven Moffat, Caroline Skinner, David Tennant, John Barrowman, Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury.

The Tomb of the Cybermen was the first story of the fifth season of Doctor Who, showing in four parts in September 1967. For many years it was lost from the BBC archives, presumed destroyed, before being rediscovered in Hong Kong in 1991.

Alongside Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor, the story stars Frazer Hines as the young highlander Jamie McCrimmon and Deborah Watling as the Victorian refugee Victoria Waterfield. It sees the TARDIS crew land on Telos, where members of an archaeological expedition are searching for the legendary tomb of the Cybermen.

The revisited series began last month with a repeat of the First Doctor story The Aztecs, which gets a repeat showing at 5pm just before the transmission of The Tomb of the Cybermen.

The new edition of the Radio Times has revealed that Lesley Manville is to portray William Hartnell's wife Heather in the 50th Anniversary drama An Adventure in Space and Time. The actress has had an extensive career, with recent work including Grief alongside long-term collaborator Mike Leigh, on television in Cranford and Law and Order: UK, and on film in Womb (which also starred Matt Smith).

Production-wise, it has been confirmed that Director of Photography for the production is John Pardue (Spooks series 10, The Bletchley Circle and Endeavour), Production Designer is Dave Arrowsmith (Dirk Gently, Postcode), and Art Director is Lucienne Suren (who worked on Asylum of the Daleks as well as shows like The Inbetweeners and Lewis) with assistant Oliver Benson.


The currently known cast and crew can be found via our guide entry.

BBC Worldwide Australasia is currently in talks with Event Cinemas to show the Series 6 two-part opener The Impossible Astronaut and Day of the Moon at venues across Australia.

However, despite Event Cinemas' website listing venues showing the episodes and giving dates for the screenings - details that were reproduced here - we have since been informed by the BBC that it has merely been holding talks with Event about the possibility of a screening, with no dates settled as yet.

Having published the details in all good faith, based on publicly available information, we regret any confusion caused and will update readers as and when.

13th Feb, 12.05pm: DWN understands that Event Cinemas is now in the process of taking down the screening details from its website.

The new edition of the Radio Times (16-22 Feb 2013) will come with a selection of postcards featuring notable Doctor Who front covers to launch the magazine's 50th Anniversary celebrations for the series. Each issue comes with one of two sets of four of the distinctive designs:



The magazine also looks ahead to plans for the 50th anniversary, and towards the new series at Easter. And for the magazine itself:

The new edition will also carry an exclusive shot of David Bradley as William Hartnell, taken on the second day of filming.

Doctor Who is to be shown in 3D, it was announced this evening.

A press statement said that the programme would be broadcast in 3D, using some of the BBC's high-definition capacity, as part of the blockbuster celebrations to mark the show turning 50. Showrunner Steven Moffat said:
The use of the advance in broadcasting technology for the programme was revealed during an event for writers, actors, industry, and press at which BBC drama controller Ben Stephenson set out his vision for BBC Drama, announcing new commissions, recommissions, and looking forward to new horizons:

This isn't the first time the show has entered the 3D waters. Back in 1993 Doctor Who's 30th anniversary was marked with Dimensions In Time, broadcast in 3D for that year's Children in Need. And in 2010 the Eleventh Doctor's era was heralded by a 3D trailer shown in cinemas, as can be seen below (NB: 3D anaglyph red/cyan glasses are needed for the full benefit):


Also in 2010 a poll was undertaken by entertainment manufacturer Panasonic that revealed Doctor Who was the show that viewers would most like to see in 3D, with other favourites being Wallace and Gromit and Top Gear.

The Ice Warriors will be returning to Doctor Who this year, it was announced today.

In an online report, the magazine SFX said that the iconic monsters would be back on our TV screens in the third story of the second part of Series 7. Written by Mark Gatiss, the episode is set on a submarine.

Executive producer Caroline Skinner was quoted by SFX as saying: The Martians have appeared in the show four times so far. They debuted in the Patrick Troughton story The Ice Warriors in 1967 and were last seen in 1974 in the Jon Pertwee story The Monster of Peladon.

Talking about their design, Skinner said: As reported last week, The Ice Warriors is to be released on DVD on Monday 26th August, but it is unknown as yet if the missing episodes two and three will be animated for it. It will, however, include the condensed reconstruction of both those episodes, which was on the 1998 VHS release.

Matt Smith is to star in a new film, How To Catch A Monster, written and directed by Ryan Gosling. The film has been described as "set against the surreal dreamscape of a vanishing city and centred on a single mother of two being swept into a macabre and dark fantasy underworld, while her teenage son discovers a secret road leading to an underwater town." Smith is to play the, as yet unnamed lead, alongside Eva Mendes, Christina Hendricks and Saoirse Ronan. Filming begins in May. [Variety, 6 Feb 2013]

David Tennant is currently filming a new three-part thriller for BBC One, The Escape Artist, in which he plays Will Burton, a barrister who specialises in spiriting people out of tight legal corners. The show is written by Spooks creator David Wolstencroft, who said of the casting: "David Tennant is one of the most accomplished and iconic actors of his generation. I cannot wait to see him in Will's shoes.". The show also features Sophie Okonedo, Toby Kebbell and Ashley Jensen (with whom the actor appeared in his very first professional role, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui). [BBC Media Centre, 31 Jan 2013]

The actor has also been reunited with Emilia Fox for the drama Every Seventh Wave, a sequel to last year's Love, Virtually. It can be heard this Thursday on BBC Radio 4.

Christopher Eccleston took on the role of Winston Smith in the first BBC Radio 4 adaptation of George Orwell's 1984 broadcast at the weekend; on the enduring appeal of the book and his character, the actor said: "it's the human story that means that we keep coming back to it and keeps it relevant.". The adaptation forms part of a season of programmes entitled The Real George Orwell celebrating the writer, who used to work at Broadcasting House. (Eccleston isn't the only Doctor to have played the role - Patrick Troughton starred as Smith in a 1965 broadcast by the BBC Home Service.)

We reported back in September that Eccleston was amongst a number of celebrities who were making claims against News International over phone-hacking allegations - a settlement was reached last Friday, with the lawyer representing claimants reported that the actor has been "shocked and distressed" over the sixteen occasions his messages had been compromised, and that "owing to the deliberate destruction of documents by the News of the World, he will never find out the true extent to which his privacy and that of those close to him, was invaded". [BBC News/Express, 8 Feb 2013]

Peter Davison was recently subject to an internet death hoax, as a joke blog post escalated out of control across social media - the actor is of course very much alive! A number of celebrities have suffered similar reports in recent months as unfounded rumours spread through social media. However, this is not a new phenomenon as obituaries have been published in the past in print for people still very much alive! [Travelers Today, 2 Feb 2013]

Joy Whitby, former children's TV producer at the BBC, has revealed how producer Verity Lambert contacted her about a job on the recently launched Play School after she finished on Doctor Who. Surprised, she turned her down, considering her to be an over-qualified and high-powered producer! [BBC News, 31 Jan 2013]

Talking about how she became an actress, Freema Agyeman said: "No one in my family or my friend circle anywhere was in the acting business or anything to do with the industry whatsoever. I went to a very strict academic convent girls' school, and I was very into science and things like that when I was younger. And then I suddenly just went off on this tangent when I was 17 and I suddenly decided that I liked acting. But I also liked fine arts and English literature, so I would have gone and done any of them at a higher education level. I remember asking a career advisor, "What should I do?" and her advice was to apply to universities and see what happens. So I applied to either of the three at university, and I decided that fate would guide me. And it so happens that the theatre studies or the acting degree application was responded to first, so I thought it was a sign. And I learned everything as I went. I got into it quite late. I'm enjoying it, but I'm very much learning as I go - and enjoying that, actually!" [Hollywood, 5 Feb 2013]

The actress has also joined Twitter, and can be followed via @FreemaOfficial.

Toby Jones was named Best Actor at the London Evening Standard 2012 British Film Awards for his role as Gilderoy in the psychological thriller Berberian Sound Studio. [BBC News, 4 Feb 2013]

Daniel Blythe gave a reading of his Doctor Who book Autonomy to pupils at the Hepworth J&I School in Huddersfield. He visited the school to give a presentation on how he became an author and his Doctor Who connections. [Huddersfield Examiner, 1 Feb 2013]

In Memoriam:

The actor Peter Gilmore, who guest-starred as Brazen in the 1984 story Frontios, died aged 81 on 3rd February - 29 years to the day since the adventure's fourth and concluding episode was transmitted. He was best-known to TV viewers as shipping magnate James Onedin in the BBC period drama The Onedin Line and also made 11 appearances in Carry On films. [The Guardian, 6 Feb 2013]

Robin Sachs, who played a professor in Torchwood: Miracle Day, has died at the age of 61. He was the son of Leonard Sachs and was also known to sci-fi/fantasy fans for his roles in Buffy, The Vampire Slayer, Star Trek: Voyager, Babylon 5, and Galaxy Quest. [BBC News, 5 Feb 2013]

Two people from the Hartnell era have been reported as passing away in January: Reg Pritchard, who played Ben Daheer in The Crusade, and Keith Marsh, who played Conway in the Peter Cushing movie Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150AD. [The Stage, 7 Feb 2013]

The special guests for the screening of The Mind of Evil at the BFI Southbank next month have been announced. The announcement was made at the screening of The Tomb of the Cybermen on Saturday.

The event, which takes place on Sunday 10th March at 2pm, will see cast and crew from the episode on stage during the Q&A panels. The guests are:

• Katy Manning - companion Jo Grant
• Richard Franklin - Mike Yates
• John Levene - Sergeant Benton
• Tim Combe - Director
• Terrance Dicks - Script Editor
• Plus members of the Restoration Team

Tickets for the screening sold out within 5 minutes of going on sale to BFI members on 5 February at 11.30am.