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.

Doctor Who and its stars have been shortlisted in three categories in this year's National Television Awards.

In the Drama section, the show itself is up against Sherlock (co-created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss), Merlin (starring Colin Morgan), and Downton Abbey (starring Hugh Bonneville).

Matt Smith is nominated for Drama Performance: Male, for which he is competing against Benedict Cumberbatch (the title role in Sherlock), Colin Morgan (the title role in Merlin), and Daniel Mays (Ronnie Biggs in Mrs Biggs).

Meanwhile, Karen Gillan faces Sheridan Smith (Charmian Biggs in Mrs Biggs), Suranne Jones (Det Con Rachel Bailey in Scott & Bailey), and Miranda Hart (Chummy Browne in Call The Midwife) for the Drama Performance: Female gong.

In other categories, Would I Lie To You?, featuring David Mitchell, is among the nominees for Comedy Panel Show, The Apprentice (with Lord Alan Sugar) and Paul O'Grady: For The Love Of Dogs are included in Factual Entertainment, Absolutely Fabulous (with June Whitfield) and Benidorm (co-written by and co-starring Steve Pemberton) are up for Situation Comedy, Coronation Street (produced by Phil Collinson) is nominated for Serial Drama, and The Chase, hosted by Bradley Walsh, is nominated in the Daytime category.

Both Smith and Gillan won in their respective categories in last year's NTAs, but the show lost out to Downton Abbey as Most Popular Drama.

Votes can be cast via this link and must be confirmed by midday on Wednesday 23rd January, when voting closes. The ceremony - the 18th NTAs - takes place at the O2 Arena in London and will be broadcast live on ITV1 from 7.30pm the same day.

To celebrate 50 years of Doctor Who,  John Richards (creator/writer of the ABC1 sitcom Outland, Boxcutters podcast) and Ben McKenzie (Channel 31′s Planet Nerd, Dungeon Crawl, ‘patron saint of geek comedy’ – T-Squat magazine) have joined forces to host a year-long performance/podcast project, entitled "Splendid Chaps", in Melbourne, Australia.

Each month from January to November 2013 John and Ben will record a live Doctor Who panel discussion – one for each of the eleven Doctors – with a different theme, special guests, musical and comedy performances and loveliness. These will also be edited into podcast episodes, released on the 23rd of each month.

The first event on 13 January will discuss the first doctor and features special guest Alexandra Tynan (nee Sandra Reid), the woman who designed the Cybermen back in 1966. She’ll be joined by writer and filmmaker Lee Zachariah (ABC2′s The Bazura Project, Hell Is For Hyphenates podcast); broadcaster and host of 3RRR FM’s LiveWire, Nerida Haycock; announcer Petra Elliot and Ben and John as hosts. The musical guest (singing a Who-related number) will be comedian and cabaret artiste Geraldine Quinn.

The forum will be held on Sunday 13 January 2012 at 5pm at the Annexe, Bella Union, Trades Hall, corner of Victoria and Lygon Streets, Melbourne.  Tickets will be available at the door (subject to availability) or on the web.

As mentioned earlier this month, the BFI plan to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who with special screenings each month next year in the lead-up to the Anniversary itself; the organisation has now announced details about the first quarter of 2013.

As previously mentioned, the season kicks off at the very beginning with William Hartnell's An Unearthly Child on 12th January; this will be followed on 9th February with Patrick Troughton tackling the Tomb of the Cybermen; then in March Jon Pertwee is up against The Master as The Mind of Evil is unveiled in newly restored colour! All stories are accompanied by a Q&A panel, though guests have yet to be announced.


Justin Johnson, BFI Programmer, said:

Doctor Who's executive producer Caroline Skinner said:

In November, the climax of the BFI's celebration will include a special preview of An Adventure in Space and Time , the drama written by Mark Gatiss exploring the personalities that brought the longest running sci-fi series to life.


The stories representing the other eight Doctors will be confirmed next year.

The Institut Francais in London is to hold a Doctor Who Night next month.

Featuring big-screen showings of Blink, Midnight, and The God Complex plus a masterclass from writer Toby Whithouse, the event on Saturday 19th January is part of the cross-cultural organisation's second Totally Serialized season.

The aim of the TV festival, which runs from 16th to 20th January, is to showcase the best of new productions from both sides of the Channel as well as European TV shows. It will have screenwriters, directors, and actors attending, including Hugh Bonneville (albeit for his role as the Earl of Grantham in Downton Abbey).

The Doctor Who Night - which will also have a quiz, music, mystery guests, and a costume contest - starts at 7pm.

The National Institute of Dramatic Art in Australia is to run another range of courses during December and January using Doctor Who as a basis to teach participants skills in the industry.

NIDA have run Doctor Who related classes in the past for children/young people, teaching acting and script writing techniques, but this year also sees one aimed at those aged 18 and above (highlighted below).

Neil Gaiman will be in Tasmania next month as part of the music-and-arts-centred Mona Foma Festival. An Evening With Neil Gaiman is to be held at the Theatre Royal in Hobart on Sunday 20th January. (NB: Although the event is described as being suitable for all ages, explicit language is used in the theatre's web page about the show.)

In addition, Gaiman's urban fantasy TV series Neverwhere, which aired on BBC Two in 1996 and had an accompanying novelisation, is currently being made for BBC Radio 4 and Radio 4 Extra. Adapted by Dirk Maggs, who is also co-directing it, and with a cast that includes Christopher Lee, Bernard Cribbins, Anthony Head, Yasmin Paige, David Harewood, Sophie Okonedo, Don Gilet, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Andrew Sachs, the six-parter is scheduled to be broadcast during the early part of 2013. [neilgaiman.com, 28 Nov 2012]

Sheila Hancock and Lee Evans are to star in a new comedy at Wyndham's Theatre in London next year. Barking In Essex tells the tale of a gangster fresh out of jail and returning to his dysfunctional family to retrieve more than £3.5m. It has been written by Clive Exton and will be directed by Harry Burton, with Evans playing the "dim-witted idiot of the criminal underbelly" Darnley and Hancock playing Emmie, described as Darnley's "Rottweiler mother". The production previews from Friday 6th September, opening on Monday 16th September. [BBC News, 30 Nov 2012]

A new play by David Haig that was due to open at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh next May before transferring to Chichester Festival Theatre has run into casting problems. Pressure, which is about the meteorologist Captain James Stagg, who had the task of predicting the weather ahead of the D-Day landings in the Second World War, has been postponed until spring 2014 while the search to find "the right person" to play Stagg continues. [The Stage, 30 Nov 2012]

Jessica Hynes and Olivia Colman have both been nominated as Best TV Comedy Actress in this year's British Comedy Awards. Colman has, in fact, been nominated twice - firstly for Rev and secondly for Twenty Twelve, with Hynes's nomination also being for Twenty Twelve. The spoof "mockumentary" about this year's London Olympics, which had a voiceover commentary by David Tennant, is itself up for Best Sitcom against, among others, The Thick Of It, which starred Peter Capaldi, and both Capaldi and Hugh Bonneville are vying for the title of Best TV Comedy Actor for their roles in those two respective shows. Meanwhile, David Mitchell is in the running for Best Male Television Comic and he is also among the nominees for the publicly-voted King and Queen of Comedy. The ceremony will be shown live on Channel 4 on Wednesday 12th December. [BBC News, 2 Dec 2012]

Tamsin Greig and Anne Reid will be among the guest stars appearing in a new darkly comic anthology that has just started filming for BBC Two. Written by Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, the six-part series, which has the working title of Inside No 9, will take a look at what goes on behind closed doors at six very different residences sharing the number 9. [BBC Media Centre, 3 Dec 2012]

Sheridan Smith - companion Lucie Miller to the Eighth Doctor in the Big Finish audio dramas - is to return as mystery-solver Jonathan Creek's sidekick Joey Ross in a new episode of the BBC One crime-comedy-drama. Filming on The Clue of the Savant's Thumb, written by David Renwick, starts later this month, with the 90-minute Jonathan Creek special due to air next Easter. [BBC Media Centre, 5 Dec 2012]

The BFI Southbank in London is to mark Doctor Who's 50th anniversary by showing stories from each Doctor throughout 2013.

According to the latest BFI booklet, there will be something from Doctor Who every month up to and including November.

The first screening in the celebratory season will be of the programme's first adventure, An Unearthly Child, directed by Waris Hussein and starring William Hartnell, Carole Ann Ford, Jacqueline Hill, and William Russell. It takes place on Saturday 12th January at 3.30pm and there will also be guests, although they are yet to be confirmed.

Tickets go on sale to the general public on Tuesday 11th December at 11.30am, and bookings can be made via the relevant BFI programme page.

Details and dates of future screenings in the season are yet to be announced.

Where would the United Kingdom be without the traditional Christmas pantomime, and this year is no exception with a variety of Doctor Who names back on the stage to entertain during the festive season.


Other names associated with Doctor Who include: Nigel Havers (Peter Dalton, The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith) in Jack and the Beanstalk at the Southampton Mayflower; Christopher Pizzey (Eddie Smith, The Sarah Jane Adventures) in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at the Tunbridge Wells Assembly Hall Theatre; Paul Lavers (Farrah, The Androids of Tara) in Mother Goose at the Gorleston Pavilion; Royce Mills (Dalek operator) in Aladdin at the Guildford Yvonne Arnaud Theatre; Marshall Lancaster (Buzzer, The Rebel Flesh) in Jack and the Beanstalk at the Leeds Carriageworks; Lynda Bellingham (The Inquisitor, The Trial of a Time Lord) in Cinderella at the Bradford Alhambra Theatre; Warwick Davis (The Last Cyberman) in Snow White at the New Wimbledon Theatre; Floella Benjamin (Professor Rivers, The Sarah Jane Adventures) and Andrew Hayden-Smith (Jake Simmonds, Rise of the Cybermen) in Cinderella at the Broadway Theatre, Catford; Bruno Langley (Adam in Dalek) in Jack and the Beanstalk at the Brindley Arts Centre, Runcorn; Eric Potts (Oliver Charles, Aliens of London) in Dick Whittington at the New Victoria Theatre, Woking; Nichola McAuliffe (Vivien Rook, The Sound of Drums) in Snow White at the Theatre Royal, Bath; Barney Harwood (Totally Doctor Who) in Peter Pan at Llandudno's Venue Cymru; Lily Savage aka Paul O'Grady (himself, The Stolen Earth) in Aladdin at the O2; Ann Widdecombe (herself, The Sound of Drums) in Snow White at the Wycombe Swan; and Christopher Biggins (The One Doctor, Big Finish) in Dick Whittington at the Plymouth Theatre Royal.