Fantom Films have announced a number of guests that will appear at their forthcoming Pandorica convention, taking place in Bristol over the weekend of 27th-28th September.

Current headliners include series regulars Katy Manning (Jo Grant), Louise Jameson (Leela), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Anneke Wills (Polly) and John Levene (Benton). Other names include Pik Sen Lim (Captain Chin Lee from The Mind of Evil), Bernard Holley (best known as the face of the Axons in The Claws of Axos), and Alun Raglan (Mo in The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood). Plus, story reunions will take place, such as for Revelation of The Daleks with Trevor Cooper (Takis), Bridget Lynch-Blosse (Natasha) and John Ogwen (Bostock). Also appearing is Alexandra Tynan aka Sandra Reid, the designer of the original Cyberman costumes.

As well as interview panels, the event includes autographs sessions, photo opportunities, workshops, commentaries and a full evening of entertainment and a disco!

Further details on the convention, venue, and how to book can be found via the Fantom Films website.

---

Fantom Films are also presenting an autograph event in Chiswick, London on the 16th August; guests at the Summer Signing Spectacular hail from throughout the 51 years of Doctor Who, and include: Catrin Stewart (Jenny), Dan Starkey (Strax), Richard Franklin (Mike Yates), Keith Barron (Striker, Enlightenment), Cynthia Grenville (Maren, The Brain of Morbius), Simon Rouse (Hindle, Kinda), Chipo Chung (Chantho, Utopia), Michael Melia (Terileptil, The Visitation), Kelly Hunter (Shadow Architect, The Stolen Earth), Robert Whitelock (Mahler, The Bells of Saint John), David Quilter (Greeves, The Unicoern and the Wasp), Chris Webb (inc Monoid in The Ark), Malcolm Rogers (Dracula, The Chase), and Elizabeth Croft (Vampire Girl, The Vampires of Venice).

Details on registration, venue and price of autographs can be found via their website.

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]

Arthur Darvill who played Rory Williams in Doctor Who, is to join The Doctor is in event taking place in Australia this March.

Darvill joins previously announced guests Matt Smith and Karen Gillan who are both heading down under for the special tour around the country.

The Hub Productions event features guests live on stage, talking about the phenomenon of Doctor Who and their lives as the Doctor and his companion. There will also be merchandise as well as rare collectibles available to purchase from dealers. Limited autographs and professional photographs will be available with the guests. The tour dates are as follows:

• Sydney March 1st 2014
• Perth March 2nd 2014
• Adelaide March 8th 2014
• Melbourne March 9th 2014

The full HD film version of Power of the Daleks - the semi-professional reimagining of Patrick Troughton's first adventure as the Doctor - has been made available to watch for free online.

First released episodically in three parts, it was then shown at conventions worldwide, premièring at a special charity convention in Fareham on 1st September 2012.

Lasting 52 minutes, it features Nick Scovell as the Doctor, with cast members also including Nicholas Briggs, Lisa Bowerman, and Barnaby Edwards in the reworking of the six-part adventure. Adapted and directed by Scovell, it was made by the Doctor Who enthusiasts behind the highly successful Portsmouth stage productions of The Web of Fear, Fury From The Deep, The Evil of the Daleks, and The Dalek Masterplan (the latter renamed from the original 12-parter), with support from TNT Films and music by Martin Johnson.

A video of highlights from the Fareham convention - where the guests included original story director Christopher Barry, actress Anneke Wills, who played companion Polly in the TV version, Briggs, and Edwards - has also been released.

The 50th Anniversary Doctor Who convention, the Celebration is now under way, with the show taking over London's Excel Centre for some three days of panels, signings, and a host of other activities. The BBC have released a taster of the event this morning.



The Graham Norton show on BBC Radio 2 will be broadcast live from the Celebration tomorrow from 10:00am.

A host of guests for the BBC's Doctor Who Celebration was announced today - but fans going to the event on the anniversary itself face missing the special episode.

Fifth Doctor Peter Davison will be at the convention at ExCeL in London for all its three days - 22nd to 24th November inclusive - and joining him there on the actual anniversary day, Saturday 23rd November, will be William Russell and Carole Ann Ford who, as Ian Chesterton and Susan Foreman, were companions to the First Doctor and were in the first episode of Doctor Who when it was originally broadcast exactly 50 years earlier. In addition, Waris Hussein, who directed the first story, will also be there on the Saturday.

Arrangements have been made for a free 2D showing of the simulcast of The Day of the Doctor that day, but not everybody going to the event on 23rd November will be able to get into it.

BBC Worldwide said: Saturday attendees who miss out on tickets to the screening and who want to see the episode as it is broadcast will therefore have to make alternative plans to watch it as it goes out - if they can.

Also appearing on all three days will be special sounds wizard Dick Mills and visual effects supremos Mike Tucker and Mat Irvine. The rest of the additional guest line-up and their appearance days is as follows:
As previously reported, current Doctor Matt Smith, Sixth Doctor Colin Baker, and Seventh Doctor Sylvester McCoy will also be there on all three days, while Fourth Doctor Tom Baker will be there on just the Saturday.

Extra tickets to the BBC's 50th Celebration at the ExCeL Centre in London have been made available, with a ballot opening today for applications to buy them.

The convention - which takes place from 22nd to 24th November inclusive - will have a range of activities, including panels with key cast members from 50 years of the programme, special-effects shows, stunt workshops, quizzes, and games.

In a statement, BBC Worldwide said: Applications can be made online or by phone on 0844 693 0780 (charges will vary depending on the provider). Applicants with disability access requirements can discuss these with a team member by calling the dedicated CrowdSurge helpline on 0843 459 4939 (again, charges will vary depending on the provider).

The ballot will be open until 10am BST on Monday 30th September.

One entry is being allowed per person and names will be drawn at random from all of the applications that have been submitted by the closing date and time. Successful and unsuccessful applicants in the first ballot will be notified via e-mail on Tuesday 1st October. If successful applicants do not have a valid e-mail address they will be contacted by telephone. Unsuccessful applicants without an e-mail address will not be contacted.

Those who are successful will receive a unique code to be used by 10am BST on Thursday 3rd October to buy tickets to the convention. The code can only be used once, and up to four tickets can be bought but they must be in the same transaction. The code is only valid for the date and entry group originally chosen in the application.

Should any tickets remain from the first ballot, a second ballot will be opened and all applicants who were unsuccessful in the first ballot will be automatically entered into the second ballot. Ballot rounds will continue to be held until all the tickets have been sold.

The tickets being balloted and sold are the standard ones, with the price remaining at £45 for adults, £20 for children, and £104 for a family ticket (two adults and two children). Please note that these prices exclude any booking fees.

No additional merchandise, photos, autographs, or T-shirts will be available to buy at this stage. The limited-edition TARDIS tickets are sold out and will not be included in the ballot. Full terms and conditions can be found here.