The Guardian has confirmed that BBC Four is planning a tribute night to Doctor Who's first producer, Verity Lambert, who died last year.

The evening, which is planned for April, will feature a new documentary looking back at Lambert's work, including her pivotal role in setting up Doctor Who.

Those who have already filmed interviews for the documentary include the former Channel 4 chief executive Jeremy Isaacs. Other figures who are thought to be in the frame to feature include the Doctor Who executive producer Russell T Davies and Jonathan Creek star Alan Davies.

Thanks to Luke McCullough

Posted By John Bowman

Events

Colin Baker will be returning to Gladstone Pottery Museum in Stoke-on-Trent - the filming location for The Ultimate Foe section of The Trial of a Time Lord - on Sunday, May 18. This was where he filmed his last two episodes as the Doctor. Davros actor Terry Molloy will also be there. More details can be found at Colin Baker Online.

Interviews

Comic Book Resources has an interview with Pia Guerra, who is an artist for IDW Publishing's Doctor Who comic.

Newsarama has had a chat with Burn Gorman, while iF Magazine currently has the first part of a two-part interview with Naoko Mori.

Freema Agyeman's 23-minute appearance on Simon Mayo's BBC Radio 5 Live show on February 20 is available to download as a podcast here until February 27.

John Barrowman and Freema Agyeman have been speaking to BBC Oxford.

Merchandise

ComicMix has a piece about Doctor Who Minimates finally being approved for production by Underground Toys, namely David Tennant's Doctor, Martha Jones and Cybermen.

DVDs

The Patrick Troughton ten-part epic The War Games is being prepared for DVD release. Both the Eastbourne Herald and The Argus in Brighton carried appeals from the Restoration Team this week for people to come forward with reminiscences, photos, etc, for accompanying features.

Covers for the 25th anniversary edition of The Five Doctors have been released. There appear to be two versions of the front. Click on the thumbnails below for larger versions. The DVD is out in the UK on March 3.

(With thanks to Rob Cope, Shane Williams, Steven Stearns, Adrian Behennah, Iain Campbell, Jonathan Barlow, Carl T Davies, Matt Evenden, Tim Bowers, Richard Harwood, and 'spiderfrommars'.)

Posted By John Bowman

The Den of Geek website has published interviews with Peter Davison, Louise Jameson and Sophie Aldred.

In the individual pieces, Davison talks about wobbly sets, Time Crash, typecasting, and his opinion on the worst Doctor Who monster ever, Jameson chats about working with Tom Baker, why she turned down returning to play Leela on TV, her view on her character now, and meeting David Tennant, while Aldred discusses working with John Nathan-Turner, along with her career spanning the pre- and post-Who days.

EADT (Suffolk and Essex Online) is currently running an interview with Doctor Who legendTerrance Dicks.

Few people have been as active in the world of Doctor Who as author and former script editor Dicks, and in this interview he talks about his long career with the series as well as his most recent project, the Quick Reads book series, featuring his newest title Revenge of the Judoon.

In the interview, Dicks talks about his first writing jobs (with an advertising agency), how his landlord Malcolm Hulke got him started in writing for television, the new projects that he currently has on his plate, and his feelings about the current state of Doctor Who starring David Tennant.

You can read the article here.

UPDATE: Terrance Dicks will be visiting Brentwood County High School on March 12 as part of the Essex Book Festival.

Assistant headteacher Richard Davies said: "With Doctor Who so popular once again, this is a real coup for the local area and a great opportunity to listen to and meet an author who has had a big impact on the science-fiction genre."

The ticket-only event starts at 7.30pm.

(Additional reporting by John Bowman.)

Posted By John Bowman

Catherine Tate will be heard interviewing David Tennant on BBC Radio 4 on February 21 when Chain Reaction returns for a new series.

In it, they talk about working on Doctor Who - as well as playing extras on The Bill.

The show's format sees the interviewee becoming the interviewer of a different guest the following week, with them talking to people whose work they admire and appreciate.

Next week (February 28), Tennant will be interviewing Richard Wilson, who played Dr Constantine in The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances, while Wilson's interviewee the week after that (March 6) will be Arabella Weir, who used to lodge with Tennant and made him godfather to her youngest child.

Weir also played the Doctor in the Big Finish drama Exile - which featured Tennant playing an unnamed Time Lord and a pub landlord. (Weir will round off the series of Chain Reaction by interviewing fellow Fast Show star Paul Whitehouse.)

The half-hour programmes start at 6.30pm. The series was recorded last year.

(With thanks to Jeremy Bentham.)

The Digital Spy website is currently featuring an interview with Louise Jameson, the actress who portrayed the companion Leela in the mid-70s alongside Tom Baker's Doctor. The interview mainly focuses on Louise's return to the role of Leela in the Big Finish audios. She talks about the differences in playing Leela now and in the '70s, working with Lalla Ward, and her desire to be invited to work on the new series.

You can read the interview here.

The Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital will be the subject of a new 8-part documentary series to air on BBC3 beginning Thursday, 14 February. The series is narrated by Freema Agyeman, who plays medical student Martha Jones on Doctor Who and Torchwood. Producers spent five months at the hospital in a bid to provide an access-all-areas insight to life at a typically busy British emergency department. The cameras focused on particularly unusual cases and followed the progress of casualties from admission to hospital, through treatment, right up until after they were discharged.

Posted By John Bowman

People

David Tennant reveals some of his forthcoming work schedule in the February 9-15 edition of Radio Times. In a feature about the listings magazine's annual party for its cover stars, he says he will have all of May off and start rehearsing Hamlet for the RSC in June. (NB: Tennant is also appearing inLove's Labour's Lost in October and November, although he doesn't make reference to that in the feature.)

He appears in Hamlet from July until January 9, 2009 and says he will be back in Cardiff on January 10 to commence next year's Doctor Who specials, adding: "After that, I really don't know. Nothing has been decided . . . honestly!"

Tennant, Freema Agyeman and John Simm are all pictured at the bash.

Sophie Aldred was interviewed by BBC Norfolk while making a guest appearance in the area.

In the lengthy feature, she tells how she tried - unsuccessfully - to persuade Christopher Eccleston to attend conventions. The interview is also in three parts in an audio format. In addition, it includes video interviews with Terry Molloy and Elisabeth Sladen, as they are referred to in the piece, although these may not be playable by overseas visitors to the BBC site.

Meanwhile, BBC South East Today ran an interview with Tommy Knight, who plays Luke in The Sarah Jane Adventures.

Broadcasting

Radio Times also reveals that the February 15 edition of EastEnders will feature the storyline in which the characters Stacey and Bradley visit a Doctor Who exhibition in London. The location filming for this was reported by this site in December. (Information elsewhere suggests that the February 14 edition may also include this storyline.)

The teaser for the following week's Radio Times (February 16-22) mentions the character Martha Jones joining theTorchwood team, suggesting there will be a feature about it in that edition. Her debut Torchwood episode will be shown on BBC3 on February 13 at 9.50pm. It will, presumably, be shown on BBC2 on February 20 as part of the series' run on that channel.

The February 13 edition of Late Junction on BBC Radio 3, to be broadcast from 11.15pm to 1am, will include music from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and is believed to be a feature about 50 years of the workshop, including its realisation of the Doctor Who theme. UPDATE (February 7): Although the February 13 edition will indeed include music from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop archive, it has been announced that it will be the February 12 editionthat will mark 50 years of the workshop with, among other items, a look at the Doctor Who theme. The show will be broadcast in its usual slot, from 11.15pm to 1am.

(With thanks to Tony Clark)

Posted By John Bowman


The highly acclaimed actor Kevin Stoney has died at the age of 86.

He made striking contributions to Doctor Who, playing the villains Mavic Chen in the epic story The Daleks' Master Plan (1965-66) and Tobias Vaughn inThe Invasion pictured (1968).

So impressive was Stoney's portrayal of Chen that the Daily Express named the character Villain of the Year.

His final contribution to the series came in 1975, when he played Tyrum inRevenge of the Cybermen.

Stoney also appeared in many other well-known series over the years, including I, Claudius, The Tomorrow People, Bergerac, All Creatures Great and Small and Blake's 7, which was created by Terry Nation.

There is a short obituary on Rogues and Vagabonds.

(With thanks to Tony Clark)

A few Torchwood items and a number of slightly offbeat entries this time.

Torchwood

The Star-Ledger (New Jersey) reviews Torchwood's "Sleeper".

UK SF Book News has a feature on the Torchwood comic in Titan Magazine's Torchwood Magazine.

And the Daily Record briefly reviews John Barrowman's autobiography "Anything Goes".

Odd Who News

Philip Glenister tells the Western Mail that he watches The Sarah Jane Adventures, though he doesn't quite remember the program's name correctly:

Today, his favourite TV includes unexpected fare such as The Sarah Jane Mysteries -- but that’s because of his two young daughters by his actress wife Beth Goddard; the family lives in East Sheen, Surrey, where fame hasn’t gone to his head, and where he enjoys a "normal suburban existence".

"Yes, The Sarah Jane Mysteries, it’s one of those series you think might not work -- it's an off-shoot of Doctor Who -- but my girls adore it," he says. "The girls are just getting into Doctor Who now. We never let them watch it before, because we thought they’d wake up with nightmares."

Recent issues of two American magazines aimed at "fan culture" highlight Doctor Who and Torchwood actresses. Geek Monthly puts the return of Billie Piper to Doctor Who at #7 in its "Son of the BIG List: Our yearly roundup of Stuff That Rules", and has an interview with Eve Myles. And Wizard listsFreema Agyeman at #16 in its list of the "Sexiest Women of TV".

Wales on Sunday quotes Coleen McLoughlin, the girlfriend of English football (soccer) player Wayne Rooney, as saying that she'd love to be the next Doctor Who companion.

And io9 pronounces that Kroll, the giant octopus from the 1978 Doctor Who story The Power of Kroll, is the tallest of all giant monsters, looking down on puny creatures like Godzilla and the monster from Cloverfield.

(Thanks to Larry Carter, and to "PolyG" and "Alia" of the Doctor Who Forum.)