The latest in our ongoing feature centring on significant Doctor Who occasions sees the show accorded a very special publishing honour - but just like the programme itself, it wasn't without wrangles before and after . . .

In the run-up to Doctor Who starting, hopes had been high that the first episode would be given a prestigious publicity boost by the BBC's much-respected listings magazine Radio Times in the form of a cover feature. This was, after all, a show like no other: it was innovative and ground-breaking, with skills, experimentation and imagination pushed further than ever.

However, it was not to be. After initial interest, the magazine had a change of heart at the last minute, falsely believing that the corporation itself didn't have much faith in the programme, and despite protestations by head of serials Donald Wilson editor Douglas Williams ditched the idea, although the show was granted a mention on the relevant cover and an article was included that gave a taster of what adventures might lie ahead - with one of them being the possibility of a journey "to far Cathay in the caravan of Marco Polo."

And it would be that very journey that would see Radio Times finally give in and award the much-coveted prime spot on its cover to Doctor Who - in all probability helped by the fact that with the arrival of the Daleks a few weeks previously, the show had rapidly seared itself into the national consciousness.

With The Roof of the World going out on 22nd February 1964, the cover of the corresponding week's Radio Times - number 2102, volume 162 - depicted lead actor William Hartnell with guest stars Mark Eden as Marco Polo and Derren Nesbitt as Tegana. It was accompanied by an unbylined feature on page 7 that set the historical scene after a brief recap of the previous two adventures. (It should be noted that back then Radio Times also printed its publication date at the top of the pages, hence the references to "February 20, 1964".)

Although the feature's picture included all the companions, the fact that the three actors hadn't appeared on the cover with Hartnell caused some upset. The day after the broadcast of The Roof of the World, William Russell, who played Ian Chesterton, contacted his agent, T Plunkett Green, with a number of concerns relating to the programme as a whole, one of them being the fact that the co-stars had been bumped in favour of the guest stars on the cover of the listings magazine. This grievance would be relayed to Wilson, who subsequently apologised to the agent, saying it had been "confidently expected" by the production team that one of the photos including all the regulars taken at the photocall would be used as a cover image. Wilson assured Plunkett Green that he would complain about it to the magazine.

From a somewhat hesitant start, Doctor Who and Radio Times would, over the years, continue to have something of a love-hate relationship, ranging from the highs of the stunning artwork by Frank Bellamy gracing its pages during the early-to-mid-1970s, as well as special editions, to the lows of the Tom Baker era when it would merit few articles and no covers at all, back to the embarrassment of riches we have in terms of coverage in the 21st century. Today, though, on the 50th anniversary of the broadcast of the opening episode of the seven-part epic - ironically, the earliest Doctor Who story to be missing from the archives - we mark an auspicious event in that relationship between programme and publisher with Doctor Who's first Radio Times cover . . .

Karen Gillan has posted online one of the first pictures of herself and Matt Smith in costume as Amy Pond and the Doctor - taken at their initial camera test.

The actress shared the image via Twitter on Tuesday, saying: "1st pic of Matt and I [sic] in character was released 4 yrs ago today [sic], but, I have the real one..from the 1st camera test".

Having already appeared in the show as a soothsayer in The Fires of Pompeii in April 2008, Gillan made her debut as Amy two years later in The Eleventh Hour on 3rd April 2010.

On 17th February 2010, the BBC released a montage shot featuring the duo to promote the start of Series 5, as reported by Doctor Who News, with the world having been given its first look at Gillan and Smith in costume seven months earlier, when an official image was released as filming began on the series - also reported by Doctor Who News.

It is currently unknown when exactly the test photo - shown below - was taken.

A new art portrait of Tom Baker has been released to celebrate the actor's 80th Birthday.

The print, by photographer Oliver McNeil, is for sale as a high quality art print. It joins the range of exclusive portraits of the man who played the fourth Doctor.

Each one is approximately 18 inches by 12 inches and can be purchased framed or unframed in the UK and unframed in the rest of the world. They will be autographed personally by Tom Baker who will personalise each piece of work on request.

Full details from Legend Photography

Tom Baker will be at the Stamp Centre in London in order to meet fans and sign autographs on Thursday 20th March 2014. On Saturday 29th March 2014, he will be at the London Film Memorabilia Convention at Central Hall, Westminster, where he will also meet fans and sign autographs.

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Colin Baker is to appear in a new drama, Finding Richard, based on the discovery of the bones of King Richard III in a car park in Leicester in 2012

Baker will play the grandad of a boy who starts his own quest when he hears the story of the recovery. The short film, to be shot on location in Leicestershire, has been co-written by director Rhys Davies and producer Doug Cubin. It is due to be submitted to Cannes Film Festival in early March.

Baker told the Leicester Mercury

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David Tennant has been filming Gracepoint, the US version of the ITV drama Broadchurch.

The FOX adaptation is being filmed in and around Victoria, Canada, with Tennant playing Emmett Carver, based on the character of Scottish DI Alec Hardy in the UK version of the drama. Filming is taking place in Sidney, Island View Beach and Brentwood Bay.

The 10 episodes will be filmed around the area for approximately four months. A number of pictures are available on Flikr.

Matt Smith has sent a personal video message to a four-year-old fan recently diagnosed with a serious illness.

The News, Portsmouth reports that Jack Robinson, who was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour last month, received a video message from the actor, who is currently in Austin, Texas.

Since he was diagnosed, Jack's family have been trying to make the boy's dreams come true. When singer-songwriter Gary Barlow heard about their challenge he arranged for the actor to record the video message.

Terry Robinson, Jack's dad, said:

The British Board of Film Classification has cleared a number of extras for a future DVD release entitled Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Collector's Edition

The special edition version of the anniversary special The Day of the Doctor will include the two introductions shown to cinema viewers, one lasting 3'14" and one lasting 3'57". Also listed is a deleted scene of 33 seconds duration.

Also cleared recently are the 50th Anniversary specials Doctor Who The Ultimate Guide, the two-hour documentary on the series which was first shown on BBC Three, and The Science of Doctor Who, where Professor Brian Cox takes an audience on a journey into the universe of the Doctor.

A free Doctor Who exhibition is to open in Wellington this week as New Zealand prepares to welcome the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular.

The Spectacular, hosted by Peter Davison, will see the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra perform music from the series during three shows at the TSB Bank Arena in Wellington over Friday 21st and Saturday 22nd February, with a big screen showing clips from the series while monsters roam the aisles and stage.

And to complement the musical event, an exhibition will be held at Capital E Central in the city. Opening on Friday, Doctor Who: Celebrating 50 Years of Adventures in Space and Time will have a display of original and replica props from the show's history, including the Fourth Doctor's scarf, the First Doctor's cane and a TARDIS. Visitors will also be able to go face to face with a Dalek and knit a section of an extra-long Fourth Doctor-esque scarf that will be created by fans throughout the duration of the display, which is staying in Wellington until Saturday 12th April.

The exhibition is a joint presentation by the New Zealand Festival and BBC Worldwide Australia and New Zealand, and Capital E director Stuart Grant said: Following performances in Melbourne and Brisbane in January and February - as well as in Sydney in 2012 - it is the first time the Symphonic Spectacular has been staged in New Zealand, and Helen Pendlebury, the head of live entertainment at BBC Worldwide Australia and New Zealand, said: A video promoting the Symphonic Spectacular is available to view:

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]

A selection of preview clips from the forthcoming soundtrack release of An Adventure In Space And Time has been made available by BBC Worldwide.

The score, written by Edmund Butt, was performed by the Chamber Orchestra of London, and Mark Gatiss, who wrote the BBC Two 50th-anniversary drama about the genesis of the programme, has said: The 25-track disc, which will be released on the Silva Screen label on Monday 3rd March, can be pre-ordered, and excerpts from five of the tracks are available to listen to below.

I've Got An Idea - Drama boss Sydney Newman explains about the programme to producer Verity Lambert.



What Dimension? - Verity Lambert sees designer Peter Brachacki's rapidly-cobbled-together vision of the TARDIS control room in model form.



The Daleks - The soon-to-be-iconic monsters make their dramatic first appearance.



This Is My Show - The start of William Hartnell's decline in health, with the actor beginning to suffer from memory loss. This piece - a version of earlier track The Right Man (not previewed) - accompanies the scene where Hartnell leaves the set while giving a speech.



The New Doctor - Patrick Troughton is on set to take over the lead role, and as the regeneration scene is set up William Hartnell notices a young man with a warm smile looking back at him across the TARDIS console room . . .

A 1977 programme featuring Jon Pertwee and his son Sean is to be shown as part of an event paying tribute to the ITV channel Thames.

A Salute To Thames will feature a number of programmes made by the company, including an edition of quiz series Whose Baby? The format of the show saw one or more children of celebrities presented to a guest panel, who then asked them various questions about what their parent did, to try to find out who they were, with the parent then being brought on if guessed correctly or not. The edition being shown during A Salute To Thames was originally broadcast on Wednesday 19th January 1977. Hosted by Roy Castle, it featured Jon Pertwee - as well as the actress Sylvia Syms - among the mystery stars. Sean would have been 12 at the time of the broadcast. His elder sister, Dariel, did not take part in the programme.

Sean Pertwee was one of the multitude of actors who appeared in the 50th-anniversary skit The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot.

A Salute To Thames has been organised by the TV archive organisation Kaleidoscope and is to be held at The Talbot Hotel in Stourbridge on Saturday 1st March, starting at midday and with "closedown" at 7pm.

Thames Television was formed with the merger of Rediffusion and ABC, broadcasting on weekdays to London and the surrounding areas from 30th July 1968 until 31st December 1992. It also produced programmes for the ITV network, including the celebrity panel mystery show Whodunnit?, which was hosted for a number of series by Jon Pertwee and whose differing guest cast acting out the scenarios included Katy Manning, Mary Tamm, William Russell and Philip Madoc.

Another of Thames's popular shows was The Tomorrow People, which saw the TV debut of Peter Davison and whose theme music was composed by Dudley Simpson - it is now enjoying an American-made, adult revival, currently airing on The CW in the USA and E4 in the UK.

The Fifth Estate:

The film The Fifth Estate is due out on Blu-ray and DVD next Monday (17th February); the story follows the events surrounding WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, as played by Sherlock's Benedict Cumberbatch, and also features new Doctor Peter Capaldi as Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger. Grapevine have kindly sent us some photos of Capaldi in his role:



We have two copies of the film on DVD to give away, courtesy of Grapevine; to be in with a chance to win please answer the following question:
Send your answers to comp-fifthestate@doctorwhonews.net with the subject line "Was Wikileaks an Omnishambles?", along with your name, address and where you read about the competition. Only one entry per postal address will be accepted. The competition is open to readers in the United Kingdom only, and the closing date is 28th February 2014.

Not Another Happy Ending:

Former TARDIS traveller Karen Gillan's first film, Not Another Happy Ending, is out this week, and Organic have kindly provided us with a few video clips of the actress in action:


Recently in an interview with MSN, she revealed the romantic comedies that she watched to prep for her role:


We have two film posters signed by Karen Gillan to give away, courtesy of Organic; to be in with a chance to win please answer the following question:
Send your answers to comp-nahe@doctorwhonews.net with the subject line "Blink and you'll miss her", along with your name, address and where you read about the competition. Only one entry per postal address will be accepted. The competition is open to readers in the United Kingdom only, and the closing date is 28th February 2014.