After enormous public demand, the organisers of the interactive theatre project The Crash of the Elysium at the Manchester International Festival have announced that a number of tickets will be made available enabling adults to enjoy the experience as well as children. The After Dark performances will run at various times between 8:00-9:00pm from 8th-15th July, and are only open to adults and children over thirteen years old.

The Crash of the Elysium will take place at the BBC's new MediaCity UK building at Salford Quays, and is performed by Punchdrunk in association with BBC Worldwide. The experience is written by Punchdrunk's Felix Barrett and Doctor Who writer Tom MacRae, based on an original idea by Steven Moffat.

Tickets (£25) will go on sale exclusively via Ticketmaster from tomorrow (Wednesday) at 10:00am.
(with thanks to Kate Carter/The Corner Shop PR)

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Writer Tom MacRae recently spoke to the Telegraph about the premise behind the show:

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The final episode of Doctor Who before the summer break, A Good Man Goes to War, just missed out on a top twenty place becoming the 21st most watched programme of the week.

The week was dominated by Britain's Got Talent, which was stripped across the week taking 12 of the top twenty places in the chart and helping to give ITV1 the top nineteen programmes.

Doctor Who was the second most watched programme on BBC Television just being edged out of top place by The Apprentice which had 40,000 more viewers.

The figures do not include those watching on iPlayer, where over 1.2 million people accessed the episode within 7 days of the broadcast, against The Apprentice's 1.0 million.

The annual Portal Awards have been announced by Airlock Alpha, with Doctor Who once more well represented within the various categories.

Best Actor sees Matt Smith nominated for his role as The Doctor; he will face competition from Andrew Lincoln (The Walking Dead), Sean Bean (Game of Thrones), Joshua Jackson (Fringe), and Eddie McClintock (Warehouse 13). This award was won overwhelmingly by David Tennant last year with some 68% of the vote (with second place going to John Barrowman with 10%!).

Similarly, Best Actress sees co-star Karen Gillan pitted against Lena Headey (Game of Thrones), Anna Torv (Fringe), Paula Malcomson (Caprica), and Summer Glau (The Cape). Gillan lost out last year to Eve Myles for her portrayal as Gwen Cooper in Torchwood: Children of Earth.

Doctor Who itself is nominated for Best Television Series, which it won last year (Torchwood came second). This year sees it up against Fringe, Game of Thrones, Stargate: Universe and The Walking Dead. Also, The Doctor's Wife has been nominated in the Best Television Episode category, facing episodes from Fringe, Stargate: Universe, Game of Thrones and Caprica.

Alex Kingston has been nominated for Best Television Special Guest, an award she won last year for The Time of Angels; this time her role in Day of the Moon is being recognised, and she faces competition from another Doctor Who guest, Michael Gambon for A Christmas Carol. Christopher Lloyd and Leonard Nimoy are also nominated for Fringe, plus Michael Rosenbaum for Smallville.

The late Elisabeth Sladen has been nominated for the Gene Roddenberry Award which honours lifetime achievement; the other nominees are H.G. Wells, J.J. Abrams, Rick Berman and Gene L. Coon.


The full list of categories are available from Airlock Alpha, and fans will be able to vote from the 25th June until 24th July.

Doctor Who: A Good Man Goes To War had a final rating of 7.51 million viewers, 2 million more than the initially reported overnight figures.

The audience share was 31.0%

The final figure is much more accurate than the overnight one, and includes all those who record the programmme and watch it within a week. It does not include iPlayer viewings.

Official ratings should be released tomorrow which will give the chart position of the episode, likely to be around 20th for the week.

Sam Hodges, Head of Communications for BBC1, Fiction, Daytime and HD at the BBC has confirmed on Twitter this afternoon that Doctor Who has indeed been commissioned for a further fourteen episodes, with Matt Smith continuing in the role. Head writer Stephen Moffat re-iterated:
No details on how the next series will be broadcast have been revealed at present, though Doctor Who Magazine confirmed that one will be the now traditional Christmas Special for 2011. Meanwhile the Guardian has reported a BBC spokesperson as saying:

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The news comes after UK satirical publication Private Eye commented on Twitter that details on the state of Doctor Who production appear in their latest issue; coupled by an interview with Matt Smith in Saturday's Mirror about his Hollywood aspirations, this had promoted widespread speculation in fandom over the series' future.

Immersive theatre producers Punchdrunk are to create a new interactive experience for the Manchester International Festival based upon Doctor Who.

Aimed for children between the ages of six and twelve, The Crash of the Elysium is based around the wreck of the steamship and an exploration inside the remains. There are two tie-in websites that provide more 'background' to the adventure, the Northwest Historical Society's coverage of the crash, and a blog by salvage diver Daryl Christofi and his plans to visit the wreck.

The experience is written by Felix Barrett, creative director for Punchdrunk, and Tom MacRae - who wrote Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel for the 2006 series of Doctor Who - and the story is based on an original idea by series head writer Steven Moffat.

As with a number of associated projects in recent years, there's an introductory video on the site from the Doctor himself (see below for more on this)



The performances will take place at the BBC's new MediaCity UK building at Salford Quays as part of this year's festival, running from 30th June to 17th July.

The production is around an hour in length, and the audience walk throughout the performance. The show is restricted to children in the age range 6-12, with a version just for them and another which is aimed for younger children of 6-8 accompanied by a parent. Full details including booking information can be found on the festival event page.

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Punchdrunk are known for their projects to convert old buildings into theatrical experiences, and as their site explains:

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The video above has also appeared on the BBC website itself as part of a 'hidden messages' game played over the first few episodes of the last series.

Doctor Who took the top three places of the most requested programmes on the BBC iPlayer in May.

Top of the chart was the Neil Gaiman written episode, The Doctor's Wife, which was requested over 1.242 million times during the month. Close behind was The Curse of the Black Spot with 1.239 million requests and Day of the Moon with 1.120 million requests.

The highest non Who programme was The Apprentice Episode 2 which came in fourth with 1.18 million requests. The Rebel Flesh was fifth with 1.145 million requesting and The Almost People crept into the top ten with 0.848 million requesting, dispite only being available for the last four days of the month.

The most requested programme this year is still Episode 2 of the Matt Lucas, David Walliams comedy, Come Fly With Me which has been requested 1.86 million times. Hot on its heals is The Impossible Astronaut with 1.79 million requests so far, needing just another 70,000 before it goes off line at the end of this week to take the top place. Day of the Moon is currently 6th for the year.

Nothing has yet come near toppling the Matt Smith début episode, The Eleventh Hour, which still holds the record for the most requested programme ever with over 2.5 million requests.

The complete request analysis for iPlayer in May are available from the BBC Internet Blog

The Almost People achieved a final official rating of of 6.72 million viewers.

The figure, which includes those who watched the programme within seven days of broadcast, makes Doctor Who the 6th most watched programme on BBC One for the week.

Overall it was either 20th or 21st for the week, depending on the numbers watching Friday's edition of Emmerdale on ITV1 HD. Figures outside the ITV1 HD Top Ten are not yet available. An ITV1 HD audience of over 290,000 would see Fridays Emmerdale push Doctor Who out of the top twenty for the first time since Silence in the Library in 2008.

Full figures, which will reveal the final chart position of the episode, should be available in the next few of days.

Doctor Who: A Good Man Goes To War had an Appreciation Index, or AI score of 88, the joint highest of the series so far.

The AI is a measure of how much the audience enjoyed the episode. The score was the highest of the day on the two main channels with only Dad's Army on BBC Two and Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King scoring higher, albeit with lower audiences.

The Sunday BBC Three repeat had 0.66 million watching, with an additional 0.05 million watching on BBC HD.

Sunday saw two programmes score higher ratings than Saturday's Doctor Who, pushing the programme into 30th place for the week.

Official ratings should be released next Monday which will include those time-shifting the episode, and should see the programme in a much higher position in the charts.

Saturday's Doctor Who Confidential had an audience of 0.56 million with 0.02 million watching on BBC HD.

5.5 million viewers watched episode seven of Doctor Who: A Good Man Goes To War, according to unofficial overnight figures.

The final story before the mid season break attracted 25.4% of the overnight audience.

Doctor Who was the sixth most watched programme of the day with ITV1 taking the top five places and Britain's Got Talent results show winning the day with 12.5 million watching. The new talent show Popstar to Operastar and Euro 2012 Qualifier Live also beat the Doctor, although Doctor Who had higher figures than the football during the period they were both on together. This was after the game itself had finished, while post-match analysis was being broadcast.

The weekly chart was dominated by ITV1 which won every one on the top twenty places, thanks to the daily showing of Britain's Got Talent. Although Doctor Who is currently 28th for the week on overnight figures it is the 3rd most watched show on the BBC for the week.

Official figures for the story, which will include those time shifting the programme and should see the programme enter the top twenty, should be available next Sunday.