Colin Baker and Frazer Hines have been added to the list of star names appearing at the BritSciFi Weekend taking place at the National Space Centre in Leicester tomorrow and Sunday.

The event is a celebration of TV programmes such as Doctor Who, Blake's 7, Red Dwarf, and Thunderbirds.

As previously reported, other guests with a Doctor Who connection appearing at the event are visual effects designer Mat Irvine and actors Shane Rimmer and David Graham (although the centre is emphasising Rimmer and Graham's Thunderbirds link).

Daleks will also be in attendance, as will the Hyde Fundraisers voluntary group, who will be creating a Doctor Who walk-through experience in the venue's Challenger Centre, with creepy encounters featuring some monstrous creatures from Doctor Who. It will feature light, smoke, and sound effects not suitable for very young children. Tickets for the encounter are available on a first-come, first-served basis for performances each day.

In addition, David J Howe, the co-founder and editorial director of Telos Publishing, who has written a number of books about Doctor Who and owns one of the largest collections of Doctor Who merchandise in the world, will be there.

All the money from the BritSciFi weekend will go to charity, including Children In Need.

(NB: Attendees should ensure that the guests they want to see will be there on the day that they wish to go, as not all the guests will be there on both days.)

(With thanks to Kevin Taylor)

The BBC National Orchestra of Wales is performing the music of Murray Gold, at two concerts taking place in Cardiff next Monday evening, 12th March.

The Orchestra, conducted by Ben Foster, will performing a live soundtrack to a special screening of last year's Christmas Special, The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe.

The concerts, which take place at 6pm and 7.45pm, are free to attend and will take place at the 350 seater BBC Hoddinott Hall, part of the Wales Millennium Centre based in Cardiff Bay.

Tickets can be booked through the BBC National Orchestra of Wales Audience Line on 03700 10 10 51.

Visual effects designer Mat Irvine is to be one of the star names at this year's BritSciFi Weekend at the National Space Centre in Leicester.

The event, taking place on 10th and 11th March, is a celebration of TV programmes such as Doctor Who, Blake's 7, Red Dwarf, and Thunderbirds.

Irvine, who has long and strong connections to Doctor Who, will be bringing along the original K-9 prop, which he built for the season 15 story The Invisible Enemy, as well as other props from British TV and films.

Other confirmed guests at the moment who have a Doctor Who connection are Shane Rimmer and David Graham (although please note that the centre is highlighting the duo's Thunderbirds link).

Daleks will also be in attendance, as will the Hyde Fundraisers voluntary group, who will be creating a Doctor Who walk-through experience in the venue's Challenger Centre. All the money from the event will go to charity, including Children In Need.

More guests are yet to be announced and further details are available on the centre's website. (NB: Before buying tickets to the event, attendees should ensure that the guests they want to see will be there on the day that they wish to go, as not all the guests will be there on both days.)

(With thanks to Duncan Willis)

This Saturday will see the performance of the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular, taking place at the Plenary Hall, MCEC in Melbourne and performed by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

The two hour concert will be presented by actor Mark Sheppard, and conducted by Doctor Who stalwart Ben Foster, with composer Murray Gold on piano. Choral aspects of the performance will be by the Concordis Chamber Choir, led by Chorus Master Andrew Hunter, with solos undertaken by Antoinette Halloran (soprano) and Tobias Cole (counter-tenor).

There will be two performances taking place, one at 2:00pm and the other at 7:00pm. At the time of writing both performances are sold out.

Publicity

Ben Foster featured as a guest on ABC Melbourne 774 to discuss the concert and his music career; the interview can be downloaded from their website. Meanwhile, Mark Sheppard talked to ABC Hobart 936 about his prolific career, which is also available for download.

A photocall for the concert took place at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, featuring a Dalek, Cyberman and Silent.


Gold was also interviewed by the Australian, chatting about his career in television and films.

Tickets are now on sale for the forthcoming run of Punchdrunk's The Crash of the Elysium at the Ipswich Arts Festival this summer.

The immersive theatre experience is part of the London 2012 Festival, celebrating the Olympic Games taking place in the summer, and from 15th June to 8th July 2012.


New Wolsey Theatre Chief Executive Sarah Holmes said:

Tickets can be purchased via the New Wolsey Theatre, with three types, School Performances (aged 4-7), Family Performances (aged 7-12 with adult), and After Dark Performances (aged 13 and above).

Just when you thought it was safe to finally stow your scarf away in the back of the wardrobe, actor/comedian/Doctor Who DVD moderator Toby Hadoke has announced some new dates for his acclaimed one-man show Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf!

You can find out more details of Toby's shows via his website.

The Doctor Who immersive theatre experience, The Crash of the Elysium is to be recreated at the Ipswich Arts Festival from 15th June to 8th July 2012, as part of the London 2012 Festival celebrating the Olympic Games taking place in the summer.

The event was originally created by Punchdrunk for the Manchester International Festival that took place last June/July, and is described as:
The performances will take place at the Crown Car Park, and is sponsored locally by the New Wolsey Theatre; there will be three variations of the show, catering for schools, families with children aged 7-12, and for those aged 13 and older.


Ruth Mackenzie, Director, Cultural Olympiad and London 2012 Festival, said
Ipswich Borough Council Leader David Ellesmere said:
Sarah Holmes, New Wolsey Theatre Chief Executive said:
Councillor Kathy Gosling, Suffolk County Council's portfolio holder for sport, culture, diversity, health and wellbeing, said:
Andrea Stark, Executive Director, Arts Council England, said:


There is a website for the event, though at the time of writing it is not currently active.

Doctor Who Showrunner Steven Moffat has announced that the next series of Doctor Who will see the departure of Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill when the story of Amy and Rory comes to an end.

Speaking at the press screening of the Christmas Episode, The Doctor The Widow and The Wardrobe, Moffat confirmed that the duo will rejoin the Doctor in the TARDIS for the next series of the show, but that sometime during the series the couple's story will come to a heartbreaking end.

Moffat teased that he wouldn't say when, and certainly not how, the couple would leave, but that it would happen during the series and then their story would be over.

Matt Smith was asked if he would be sad to see Gillan leave. A new companion, who has yet to be cast, will be joining the Doctor.

The press launch was held in Studio One at Television Centre in London, where many episodes of the classic series of Doctor Who were recorded. It was attended by a specially invited audience, including several MPs including Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls and, reportedly, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne.

For a full report, including an audio clip of the announcement, see Life of Wylie.

The BBC revealed today that two complete episodes of Doctor Who have been returned to the BBC Archives.

Firstly, the complete third episode of the William Hartnell story Galaxy 4, Air Lock has been recovered - prior to this only a short segment from the first episode remained in the archive with no telesnaps taken to show how the third episode and its characters would have looked.

Secondly, the complete second episode of Patrick Troughton's third story The Underwater Menace has also been recovered - making this the earliest complete episode for the Second Doctor to now exist in the Archives (alongside the existing episode three).


Both episodes were found via former TVS engineer Terry Burnett, who bought them at a school fête in Marchwood, Southampton back in the 1980s! Restoration Team member Ralph Montagu told the Radio Times how they came to his attention:
Both episodes were shown this afternoon at the British Film Institute's Missing Believed Wiped event - the first time they've been seen in the United Kingdom since their original transmission! (Air Lock was originally seen on 25th September 1965, with The Underwater Menace episode two on 21st January 1967) Screen shots from the episodes may be seen in the BBC's Doctor Who Adventure Calendar Day 11.


The episodes will require restoration work before they can be commercially released, with film damage to be repaired and missing censored clips to be re-instated. An announcement will be made by 2|Entertain next year as to when they are likely to appear on DVD. Meanwhile, the previous existing material for both stories can be found on the Lost in Time DVD boxed set.


These are the first full episodes to have been recovered since the 1965 Daleks' Master Plan episode Day of Armageddon turned up back in 2004, and brings the total missing episodes tally to 106.

Time to search those attics for more episodes!

The great British Christmas tradition of pantomime is upon us once more, and as usual a number of shows around the country feature notable names from the world of Doctor Who:


Other names associated with Doctor Who include: Brian Blessed (Yrcanos, Mindwarp) (voice) in Jack and the Beanstalk at the Gala Durham; John Challis (Scorby, The Seeds of Doom) in Aladdin at The Playhouse, Weston Supermere; Leslie Grantham (Kiston, Resurrection of the Daleks) and Terrence Hardiman (Hawthorne, The Beast Below) in Mother Goose at the Stag Theatre, Sevenoaks; Nigel Havers (Peter Dalton, The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith) in Peter Pan at The Hawth, Crawley; Marshall Lancaster (Buzzer, The Almost People) in Aladdin at the Palace Theatre, Newark; Guy Siner (Ravon, Genesis of the Daleks) in Cinderella at The Lighthouse, Poole; and Christopher Biggins (The One Doctor, Big Finish) in Robinson Crusoe and the Caribbean Pirates at the New Theatre, Cardiff.