The guest line-up for next month's celebratory screening of The Tomb of the Cybermen at the BFI Southbank was announced today.

The event, which takes place on Saturday 9th February at 2.30pm, will see seven people make up the Q&A panels. They are:

• Deborah Watling - companion Victoria in Tomb
• Anneke Wills - First and Second Doctor companion Polly
• Shirley Cooklin - Kaftan in Tomb
• Bernard Holley - Peter Haydon in Tomb
• Michael Kilgarriff - the Cyber Controller in Tomb and Attack of the Cybermen
• Michael Ferguson - director of stories during the First, Second, and Third Doctor eras
• Michael Troughton - Patrick Troughton's son and biographer

Part of the organisation's Doctor Who At 50 season to mark the show's milestone anniversary, it sold out to BFI members before tickets went on general release.

Throughout 2013, the BFI is showing a story per Doctor as well as digitally-restored prints of the two Dalek films. It will also be premièring An Adventure In Space And Time - a 90-minute BBC Two docudrama about the show's creation, written by Mark Gatiss, which is due to start shooting next month.

Marking the Third Doctor's era, the première of the colour-restored story The Mind of Evil plus a discussion takes place on Sunday 10th March at 2pm. Tickets will go on general sale on Tuesday 12th February at 11.30am. BFI members get priority booking plus discounts on ticket prices and are exempt from booking fees. An annual membership currently costs £30 - down from £40. This special offer expires at the end of February - click here for more details.

The British Film Institute have now made parts of the Q&A panel with guests at the screening of An Unearthly Child on 12th January available to watch via their YouTube channel.

The first, nine minute segment from before the story was shown features a chat with the story's vision mixer Clive Doig and special sounds creator Brian Hodgson, alongside writer/actor Mark Gatiss (writer of the 50th Anniversary drama An Adventure in Space and Time). The second, fifteen minute segment features a cast and crew discussion after the showing, with Waris Hussein (director), William Russell (Ian), Carole Ann Ford (Susan), Jeremy Young (Kal), Donald Tosh (writer/script editor), and William Hartnell's granddaughter Jessica Carney.



The next (sold out!) event takes place on 9th February with the Second Doctor celebrated by a showing of The Tomb of the Cybermen (guests to be announced).

The cover and contents of the forthcoming two-disc special edition DVD release of The Ark In Space in the UK have been finalised.

All four episodes have been newly remastered, using advances in technology and technique, and are supported by an expanded collection of bonus features.


UPDATE: 11th FEBRUARY: The release date - originally set for 18th February - has been pushed back a week to 25th February.

The BBC have announced that the first of the eight episodes that comprise the second part of Series Seven will premiere on BBC One from Saturday 30th March - back in its 'traditional' Easter weekend slot! Though Doctor Who Magazine had already reported that the series would be on during April, this is the first time the BBC themselves have confirmed the date of a regular series of episodes so far ahead of its intended schedule - normally it is only announced a few weeks beforehand.

The time of broadcast has yet to be confirmed.

Both BBC America and SPACE (Canada) have confirmed that they, too, will launch the second part from the 30th March; no announcements have been made for the series to premiere in the other main countries as yet, though based on recent years they are likely to be close to transmission of the series in the United Kingdom.

The BFI has changed the date of its celebratory screening of The Mind of Evil.

Originally scheduled for Saturday 2nd March at 2.30pm, it will now take place on Sunday 10th March at 2pm. The new date and time supersede the details given in the BFI brochure, which had gone to print by the time things had to be changed. It is unknown as yet why the date change had to be made. Tickets for the event have not gone on sale yet so will show the new date and time, as will the BFI's website.

The story, which has been newly colour-restored, will represent the Third Doctor's era as part of the organisation's Doctor Who At 50 season, and its big-screen showing at the BFI Southbank will be its public première in its colour-restored state ahead of being released on DVD.

Episode one of the six-part story has been "colourised", as the surviving print didn't have the necessary information to make colour recovery possible. However, episodes two to six have been fully colour restored. The screening will take place just weeks after the work has been completed by the Restoration Team.

To mark the programme's 50th anniversary this year, the BFI is showing a story per Doctor as well as digitally-restored prints of the two Dalek films starring Peter Cushing, with question-and-answer panels featuring special guests at each session. In November, it will première the docudrama, commissioned for BBC Two, about the show's genesis. Entitled An Adventure In Space And Time and written by Mark Gatiss, it starts filming at Wimbledon Studios next month.

The first two events at the BFI sold out before the first one had even taken place. The second - a screening of The Tomb of the Cybermen - will be held on Saturday 9th February. The guests for it are yet to be announced.

The titles of most of the remaining stories to be shown during the season are yet to be revealed, although the Eighth Doctor's will, of course, be Paul McGann's sole TV outing as the Doctor (so far).

BFI members receive priority booking as well as discounts on ticket prices plus exemption from booking fees. There is currently a special offer with annual membership at £30 (down from £40). The offer expires at the end of February - click here for more details.

United Kingdom:

Wimbledon Studios in Deer Park Road, London, is being used for the forthcoming docudrama An Adventure In Space And Time, it has been revealed. Written by Mark Gatiss for BBC Two, the 90-minute special will detail the genesis of Doctor Who as part of the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the series. The casting for the programme, which will be shown in November, is still to be announced. [Wimbledon Guardian, 10 Jan 2013]

Still in the capital, a wooden police box is to be built at Kensington Palace to bolster the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's security. The box, measuring 1.6 metres square, will be dark blue and will have a glazed door. It will stand on the lawn on the south side, between the Grade I-listed building's high perimeter brick wall and iron railings. [Evening Standard, 3 Jan 2013]

Australia:

Ex-patriate fan Michael Lauder, originally from north Kent and now living in Melbourne, Victoria, has been talking about the thrill of building two Daleks for his personal collection, using his carpentry knowledge and learning new skills along the way, having discovered the Project Dalek forum. He said: "You never get over the thrill of having a Dalek of your own in your house." His Daleks form part of the Invasion exhibition, which is at the Warrnambool Art Gallery until Monday 28th January. [ABC South West Victoria, 7 Jan 2013]

A cleric is looking to sell his prized collection of Doctor Who videos and magazines. Father Paul Kelly, of Maryborough, Queensland, said: "I've collected them since 1983 and they're in boxes in my carport and I have made a New Year's resolution to clear my clutter." [The Gympie Times, 5 Jan 2013]

USA:

A Doctor Who club is being set up at River East Public Library in Illinois. The first meeting will be held on Tuesday 29th January at 7pm. [NorthWest Herald, 6 Jan 2013]

California-based technology expert Greg Kumparak has built a miniature TARDIS that enables an augmented reality app on his smartphone to create the illusion that the model of the police box really is bigger on the inside than on the outside. Buoyed by the positive reaction to it on Twitter and YouTube, he said: "The feedback has been resoundingly positive so far, almost shockingly so, really. Doctor Who fans might be some of the nicest people on the internet." [BBC News, 24 Dec 2012]

The work of electronica pioneer Delia Derbyshire is being celebrated in Manchester tomorrow.

As part of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop team, Derbyshire realised the Doctor Who theme music, composed by Ron Grainer, and her work creating sounds strongly influenced the world of pop and electronic music.

After her death in 2001, her collection of 267 tapes was entrusted to Mark Ayres and then loaned permanently by Ayres and the Delia Derbyshire estate to the University of Manchester, where they were digitised.

Tomorrow, Band On The Wall, a non-profit venue in Swan Street, Manchester, will be hosting the first Delia Derbyshire Day with performances, screenings, and talks in honour of the composer and arranger.

Among the events, the daytime "mini-symposium" - from 3pm to 6pm - will include a screening of the documentary The Delian Mode as well as a listening session of rare Derbyshire tracks, while the evening session - from 8pm to 10.30pm - will include the première of new commissions by Ailís Ní Ríain, Caro C, and Naomi Kashiwagi, who together comprise the event organisers Delia Darlings, inspired by their time spent with the Delia Derbyshire archives.

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Delia Derbyshire was featured on BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Saturday 12th January. It can be listened to via the Today website.

Special screenings at the BFI this year to celebrate Doctor Who's 50th anniversary are proving to be a massive success, with the first two events selling out before the first one has even taken place.

To mark the show's golden milestone, BFI Southbank is showing a story per Doctor as well as digitally-restored prints of the two Dalek films starring Peter Cushing, with question-and-answer panels featuring special guests at each session.

This coming Saturday sees a big-screen showing of An Unearthly Child to start the season, with the second event on the programme - a screening of The Tomb of the Cybermen - taking place on Saturday 9th February. However, in both instances BFI members, who are entitled to priority booking, have snapped up all the tickets for both shows ahead of them going on sale to the general public. Tickets for Tomb were due to go on public release on Tuesday 15th January.

Despite the overwhelming popularity of the events, there are no plans to slot in extra screenings. BFI programmer Justin Johnson told Doctor Who News: The guests at this Saturday's screening will be the Unearthly Child herself, aka Carole Ann Ford, director Waris Hussein, actors William Russell and Jeremy Young, Donald Tosh (the only surviving script editor from the William Hartnell era), Brian Hodgson of the Radiophonic Workshop, vision mixer Clive Doig, Jessica Carney (William Hartnell's granddaughter and biographer), and Mark Gatiss, who is writing a BBC Two docudrama about the show's genesis, called An Adventure In Space And Time, which will debut at the BFI in November.

The guest line-up for the screening of The Tomb of the Cybermen has yet to be announced. March will see the première of the colour-restored story The Mind of Evil ahead of its release on DVD. The remaining stories are still to be announced.

In addition to priority booking, BFI members receive discounts on ticket prices as well as exemption from booking fees. The BFI currently has a special offer with annual membership at £30 (down from £40). The offer expires at the end of February - click here for more details.

Tonight sees the return of Stargazing Live to BBC Television on BBC2/BBCHD. The series sees presenters Professor Brian Cox and Dara O'Briain bring their enthusiasm for astronomy to life, inviting viewers to appreciate the sky and the visible objects that surround us each evening.

Each show is followed by a half-hour discussion about the evening's theme and discoveries, with the two presenters joined by guests and a studio audience. This year, Back to Earth also features a special guest in the form of K9! The Doctor's second-best friend will be on hand to offer his own unique knowledge of the stars from his travels.

This week's shows look at Mars, charting history through the stars, and then meteors, asteroids and comets.

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K9 isn't the first reference to Doctor Who in Stargazing Live; back in the first series guest Jonathan Ross was quite insistent he had spotted Gallifrey in the night sky! The clip is available to watch via the BBC's YouTube channel.

Doctor Who: The Snowmen had a final official audience of 9.87 million viewers, according to figures released by the BBC.

The consolidated figure includes those who recorded the programme and watched it within seven days, and is a substantial increase on the initial overnight figure. It makes Doctor Who the fourth most-watched programme of Christmas Day, edging ahead of the Christmas Strictly Come Dancing, which beat Doctor Who in the overnights but lost out in the final figures.

Top of the list was EastEnders, with 11.3 million watching, followed by Call the Midwife, which overtook Doctor Who in the final figures, and The Royle Family.

Coronation Street was the highest-rated programme on ITV1, just failing to reach the heights of The Snowmen and coming fifth in the Top Ten list. Figures do not include the +1 channels, which will bring Coronation Street back above Doctor Who in the weekly BARB figures. Doctor Who also achieved a greater number of viewers than Downton Abbey, ITV1's flagship drama.

The viewing figures are lower than in recent years, where Doctor Who was transmitted in a later timeslot, but higher than the 2005 and 2006 Christmas specials.



Overall in 2012 Doctor Who had an average rating of 8.28 million viewers, higher than last year's figure of 7.75 million.

The BBC also reports that, so far, over 1.46 million have accessed the episode on BBC iPlayer.