BBC Worldwide have announced that tickets to the official 50th Anniversary convention for Doctor Who will go on sale from 11:00am on Monday 8th July. As with the Cardiff convention last year, each of the three days over the 22nd, 23rd and 24th November will be a self-contained event running between 9:30am and 6:30pm, comprising panels, associated activities and photo opportunities.

The three main panel sessions each day are:

• The Eleventh Hour Panel
  Ever wanted the inside scoop on the world of Doctor Who? Fancied putting a question to the current Time Lord? Well now’s your chance! The Doctor Who Celebration is hosting ‘The Eleventh Hour’ panels featuring the current cast and crew, including MATT SMITH. Take a seat in the theatre and prepare to be entertained...and you might even get to ask your question.
• The Regenerations Panel:
  Featuring TOM BAKER (Saturday only), COLIN BAKER and SYLVESTER McCOY. These will be audience Q&A sessions, so get thinking of those questions you’ve always wanted to ask about travelling in the TARDIS, working with K-9 or what Tetrap food is really made of...
  
• The Special Effects Show:
  Leave your Nitro-9 at home – we’ll make your weekend go with a bang big enough to reboot the Pandorica! Everyone attending the Doctor Who Celebration is invited to an exclusive show produced and presented by special effects supervisor Danny Hargreaves. From innocent snow (or perhaps the Great Intelligence’s killer snow) and soothing water (or maybe deadly Mars water) to Cyber bombs and destroyed Daleks – Danny's worked with them all. With his team from REAL FX, he'll put on a live show that will let you in on insider secrets, prepare you to tackle the deadliest of enemies and completely blow you away - metaphorically speaking of course! Don’t worry – the universe won’t really be restarted.

As before, there will be two ticket groups - Ice Warriors and Weeping Angels - which will enable access to the panels at different times of the day. A number of other talks and panels will take place throughout the day on two stages, schedules to be announced at a later date.

Other activities taking place include:

• Walk like a Monster:
  If you can’t beat them – join them! This is your opportunity to learn just how to make those companions run for their lives – with workshops to teach you how to walk like a monster. This is a chance to learn from an expert – the woman who has the inside scoop on all the monsters, because she teaches them how to scare you into hiding behind the sofa! Ailsa Berk, the Movement Choreographer for Doctor Who, will be welcoming potential monsters of all ages four times daily – there’s no need to book in advance, simply turn up and join in!
  
• Stunt School:
  Ever wondered how the UNIT soldiers roll with the punches? Or how the companions take a tumble? Our highly-skilled team of stunt co-ordinator, Crispin Layfield, and very own Doctor stunt double, Gordon Seed, will be on hand four times a day to put you through your paces and help you learn some easy stunts – no need to book, just turn up when you feel like a piece of the action.
• Cast Photographs: (£20)
  Limited opportunities are available throughout the event to have an exclusive photograph taken with MATT SMITH. These photographs are taken by our in-house photographer and are printed for you to take home as a souvenir. These photographs are available via pre-booking only and these tickets are expected to sell out fast. Photographs are strictly limited to one per BOOKING, however, group shots are allowed with a maximum of 4 people on ONE photo.
• Autographs: (£15 each)
  You’ve got that very special picture of your favourite Doctor or companion – or maybe the wonderful official celebration souvenir book – there’s nothing that could possibly make it any better, surely? Wrong! The official 50th celebration gives you the chance to get up close and personalised, with autographs from the stars of Doctor Who. Due to the popularity of this event, we need you to pre-book the autographs you’d like to buy when you arrive at the event. Why not start your own 500 Year Diary or Journal of Impossible Things, with a signature from your favourite cast member?
• Doctor Who Adventures:
  Doctor Who Adventures has been the ultimate monster magazine for Doctor Who fans since 2006, with fact files, interviews, quizzes, comic strips, free gifts and competitions. This is your chance to design your very own monster with one of the Doctor Who Adventures artists. The Doctor Who Adventures team will be around all weekend, so there’s no need to book to start your own adventure – just turn up on the day.

A series of evening activities are also expected to be arranged.

A variety of merchandise will also be available to purchase, plus a limited edition event t-shirt that can be pre-ordered via the website once booking has opened.


Tickets can be booked via the event website from Monday. Standard tickets are priced at £45 for adults and £20 for kids, while a family ticket (two adults and two children) will cost £104 - booking fee not included.

Their Royal Highnesses, The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall visited Roath Lock Studios as part of their annual summer tour of Wales yesterday, coming face-to-face with the Doctor and a number of his foes!

In the first Royal visit to the BBC Cymru Wales Roath Lock studios since they officially opened in March 2012, the visitors were taken on a tour around the studios and the Doctor Who production office. After being given a rundown on how to fly the TARDIS, The Prince and The Duchess were then introduced to the Daleks, with the Prince demonstrating his own take on their famous cry. The were also treated to displays from the show’s costume designer, locations manager, graphics artist, set decorator and production designer, plus production secrets revealed with a green screen display, demonstrated by SFX.

The visit concluded with Their Royal Highnesses meeting some of the Skillset apprentices who are currently training at Roath Lock.


Commenting on the visit, outgoing Doctor, Matt Smith, said:
Jenna Coleman - who met the Queen at Broadcasting House last month - added:
Executive producer and lead writer Steven Moffat said:

Rhodri Talfan Davies, Director BBC Cymru Wales:
Danny Cohen, Director BBC Television:


Videos from the visit can be found on the BBC News site, which include Matt and Jenna's thoughts on meeting the Prince (and his chances of being the next Doctor!), and of the TARDIS set visit (which includes a brief discussion between Jenna and Prince about the 50th Anniversary Special). Photo galleries are also available from both BBC News and the BBC's Doctor Who website.

Remembrance of the Daleks is to be shown on BBC America this month as part of the channel's celebratory strand Doctor Who: The Doctors Revisited.

Airing on Saturday 27th July in omnibus form, it will be preceded by a documentary at 7pm ET/PT entitled Doctor Who: The Doctors Revisited – The Seventh Doctor, in which Sylvester McCoy, his companion actors Sophie Aldred and Bonnie Langford, plus current lead writer and executive producer Steven Moffat will be among the people examining the darker side of this particular incarnation of the Doctor. They will also be viewing some of his surreal adventures and discussing The Rani.

Remembrance of the Daleks, written by Ben Aaronovitch and directed by Andrew Morgan, was originally shown over four episodes in October 1988 and saw the Doctor return to Coal Hill School as well as the Totter's Lane junkyard first seen in the show's premier episode. In addition, it continued the story arc of the Dalek civil war, and marked the last appearance of the Daleks and Davros in the original run of the show.
BBC America is celebrating the programme's 50th anniversary by showing a story per Doctor per month.

Award-winning Children's Laureate Malorie Blackman has written the seventh e-book short story in the range celebrating Doctor Who's 50th anniversary.

The Ripple Effect, to be released on Tuesday 23rd July by Puffin Books in partnership with BBC Worldwide, sees the Seventh Doctor and Ace encountering Daleks - but these are Daleks with a difference.
Blackman said: An extract is available via The Guardian's website, and a promotional video featuring Blackman will be available on the BBC's Doctor Who YouTube channel from Thursday 11th July.

Blackman, who will be the Children's Laureate until 2015, has written more than 50 books, including the critically-acclaimed Noughts & Crosses series of novels for young adults. She is acknowledged as one of today's most imaginative and convincing writers for young readers and has been awarded numerous prizes for her work, including the Red House Children's Book Award and the Fantastic Fiction Award. She has also been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. In 2005, Blackman was presented with the Eleanor Farjeon Award in recognition of her contribution to children's books, and in 2008 she received an OBE for her services to children's literature.

Details about the e-short for the Eighth Doctor will be revealed on Tuesday 6th August.

Doctor goes up against Doctor in the final shortlist for the 2013 TV Choice awards with both Matt Smith and David Tennant being nominated as Best Actor, the latter for his role in Broadchurch. The two actors face competition from Brendan Coyle for Downton Abbey and Jeremy Piven for Mr Selfridge.

Jenna Coleman is nominated for Best Actress for her performance as Clara and faces competition from Olivia Colman for Broadchurch, Miranda Hart for Call The Midwife and former Big Finish actress Sheridan Smith for Mrs Biggs.

Doctor Who is nominated for Best Drama Series, a title it has taken for the past three years. It faces opposition from Call The Midwife on BBC One, Downton Abbey on ITV and Waterloo Road on BBC One.

Voting is open online until Friday 12th July with the winners being named at a ceremony hosted by Ben Miller at The Dorchester in London on Monday 9th September.

.As previously reported, Splendid Chaps is a year-long performance/podcast project to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who hosted by comedian Ben McKenzie (Dungeon Crawl, Melbourne Museum Comedy Tour) and writer John Richards (ABC1 sitcom Outland, Boxcutters podcast)

Described by its creators as part intellectual panel discussion, part nerdy Tonight Show, Splendid Chaps is a combination of analysis, enthusiasm and irreverence. The first episode went to number 1 on the iTunes TV & Film Podcast chart in Australia, and to number 4 in the UK.  The podcasts to previous episodes are now available at www.splendidchaps.com or at  iTunes.

Tickets are now on sale for their 7th Doctor show! This show discusses the seventh and final Doctor of what we now call the classic era, played by variety performer and actor Sylvester McCoy. Famous for escapology, spoon playing and putting ferrets down his trousers, McCoy’s casting raised a few eyebrows, but his performance changed many doubters’ minds – especially when combined with Sophie Aldred as Ace, and under the new direction provided by the incoming production team under Andrew Cartmel. Of course, no-one knew that the program’s days were numbered…

Splendid Chaps are also looking at the theme of “religion” in Doctor Who. The Doctor has been all across space and time and encountered zealots, fanatics, kindly priests, and beings who believed themselves to be gods or demons or the devil himself. But what does the program say about religion, faith and belief? Is the Doctor Who universe truly a rational one in which the supernatural is really just advanced science, or is The Beast really the Devil? Is faith worthwhile, and if so, what does the Doctor believe?

Hosts Ben McKenzie, John Richards and Petra Elliott are joined by guests including writer and game designer Paul Callaghan, comedian and television writer Dave Bloustien, and for their discussion of religion, the Reverend Dr Avril Hannah-Jones, Uniting Church minister and founder of the Church of the Latter Day Geek (as seen on Adam Hills In Gordon Street Tonight)! Plus a very special musical performance from the one and only Lee Zachariah, and all the usual prizes and surprises!

Space: The Public Bar, 238 Victoria Street, North Melbourne (opposite Victoria Markets)
Time: Sunday 14 July; recording starts 5 PM
Accessibility: This venue is wheelchair accessible.
Tickets: $15 (plus booking fee where applicable)
Bookings: via trybooking.com or at the door (subject to availability)
Podcast: not yet available; released 23 July 2013.