Doctor Who Brand Manager Edward Russell has completed his 168 mile walk from the BBC's Upper Boat Studios in Wales to BBC Television Centre in London, and in the process raised over £15,000 in memory of Elisabeth Sladen.

Russell undertook the Walk for Lis to raise money for Meadow House Hospice, The NHS-funded facility which cared for the actress best known for playing Sarah Jane Smith in Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures, and who died earlier this year.

Russell set off from the current home of Doctor Who, Upper Boat studios at Pontypridd in South Wales around 11am Saturday 3rd September. Walking an average of 21 miles a day, he arrived at the former home of the programme, BBC Television Centre in London at around 5pm last Saturday. Russell was joined for the last 7 miles of the walk by Doctor Who Magazine Editor Tom Spilsbury.

As of Sunday evening the walk had raised £15,622.13, exceeding Russell's target of £15,000.

Russell declared himself fine after the walk saying He passed on his thanks to everyone who supported, encouraged, retweeted and donated.

The Just Giving site is still open for donations for those who wish to contribute.

Night Terrors had a final consolidated rating of 7.07 million viewers.

Consolidated figures include those who record and watch the programme within seven days. The final rating is much more accurate than the initial overnight figure and is based on the actual broadcast time of the programme rather than its scheduled time.

Up against Doctor Who, Red or Black achieved an average audience of 7.11 million viewers, although during the time the programmes were head to head Doctor Who outrated the game show.

A chart position will be released later this week when final figures from the whole week are available.

Night Terrors has debuted in Australia to solid ratings. TV Tonight reports that, up against the football finals on the commercial stations, the episode averaged 660,000 viewers in the five major capital cities. It was the top rating drama and the eight highest rating programme for the day overall (after the major news bulletins and the football finals). The corresponding Confidential Cutdown also rated a respectable 433,000 viewers in the five major capitals. These overnight figures, however, do not include regional, rural and time-shifted viewers and hence significantly understate the actual national ratings.

6.0 million watched Doctor Who: The Girl Who Waited on Saturday according to unofficial overnight figures.

The the programme was up slightly on last week and with an audience share of 26.8% was the third highest rated show of the day.

Against Doctor Who, the Ant and Dec Game show, Red and Black, achieved just 4.6 million viewers, far below the aspirations ITV1 had for the show and 2 million down on the previous week.. Winner on the night was The X Factor which had 10.6 million watching. The launch of Strictly Come Dancing had an audience of 7.6 million viewers.

With one day to come Doctor Who is the eighteenth most watched programme of the week.

Doctor Who Confidential had an audience on BBC Three of 0.47 million viewers.

Official figures will be released next week by BARB with a place in the top ten perfectly possible.

David Tennant can be heard in a new thirteen-part play to be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 18th-25th September; Life And Fate sees him star alongside Kenneth Branagh in an adaptation of Vasily Grossman's book centred around the battle of Stalingrad, and charting the fate of both a nation and a family in the turmoil of war. The pair can also be seen introducing their characters and what makes a radio play special on YouTube. [BBC Radio 4 details]

Karen Gillan will be guest DJ on Monster FM during Sunday 11th September (time tbc). [Monster FM]

Sylvester McCoy will be appearing in the Bath Theatre Royal production of The Mikado between 19th-24th September, starring as the titular role alongside Nichola McAuliffe as Katisha, Rebecca Knight as Yum-Yum, Alistair Donkin as Ko-Ko and Mark Llewellyn Evans as Pish-Tush. [Theatre Royal]

Freema Agyeman (Martha) can be seen playing the role of Kareema in the film Abduction, released on 23rd September; the film stars Taylor Lautner and also features Jason Isaacs and Sigourney Weaver.

John Barrowman has made it clear he'd like to be involved in Doctor Who's anniversary: "It's the 50th anniversary coming up of 'Doctor Who' and Jack is an integral part to this story and, if I'm going to be a little self-absorbed, I would hope he would be involved, it would be a shame if he wasn't. I don't think it's a question of whether I would like to come back as Captain Jack, I'd be very happy to do that any time. I know the fans would really like that. But it's a decision left up to the BBC and the drama department. So like I've said to all the fans you need to write to them if you want it to happen because I've never been asked. I know Russell thinks it might be a nice idea as did Steven Moffat but who knows?" [Bang Showbiz, 8 Sep 2011]

Mark Strickson (Turlough) comments on what his mother thought of the new series upon its return: "Mum said, 'yeah, it's much better than when you were in it.' What my mum meant by that was that they had spent a lot more money on it ... the graphics are amazing ... it's written more as a drama ... in like a movie form ... and there's lots more opportunities for character development in that way when you're not slicing it in-between Look West and Softly Softly. You look back and we got fantastic ratings. [Stuff, 9 Sep 2011]

Roger Griffiths (Commander Kess, A Good Man Goes To War) talks about how his appearance went down well with his son: I got a lot of points for Doctor Who. My youngest came home with this coolness and threw across the dining table these cards which I was on with my powers. Forget everything at that point, this is what it’s about: ‘the boy is trading your cards at school’. I got a lot of credits in the playground for that and Batman Begins." [Bakewell Today, 9 Sep 2011]

Local and national papers have reported on the tragic death of actor Gary Suller, with mention of his appearance in Doctor Who (he was a supporting artist in The End of Time). [inc South Wales Argus, Mirror, Sun, 9 Sep 2011]

The BFI has removed the restrictions on booking for the special preview of the new series of The Sarah Jane Adventures.

The screening, at the BFI IMAX, on 16th September at 6:30pm was originally restricted to adults accompanied by children. Tickets are now available to all.

Subject to work commitments, cast members Daniel Anthony (Clyde Langer), Tommy Knight (Luke Smith), Anjli Mohindra (Rani Chandra), Sinead Michael and Phil Ford (co-producer and lead writer) will be present for a Q&A following the screening.

Tickets can be booked online.

With thanks to John Bowman

This Monday sees Day of the Daleks released on DVD in the United Kingdom, and 2|Entertain have made a few clips available to illustrate some of the special features included on the the two-disc set:



A full list of the extras for Day of the Daleks DVD can be found in our previous news item, and a more technical discussion of the production of the DVD will appear on the Restoration Team website in the future.

Regular updates on the classic Doctor Who range can be found on Twitter via ClassicDW, and on the BBC's official Facebook page.

The Guardian is to release a new e-book entitled Who's Who? The Resurrection of The Doctor:


The book forms part of a range of titles from the publisher, Guardian Shorts, the first of which, Phone Hacking: How the Guardian broke the story, was published last month; other subjects include How to Write: Children's Books, The Rise and Rise of Facebook, and Rioting in our cities: A century of civil unrest.

Who's Who? The Resurrection of The Doctor will be released in the next few months for the Kindle and in the iBookstore.

Doctor Who and Sarah Jane Adventures Brand Manager Edward Russell has been walking this week from the BBC's Upper Boat Studios in Wales to Television Centre in London, raising money for the Meadow House Hospice who looked after the actress Elisabeth Sladen.

Having battled the inclement weather over the last few days, he has now reached his last resting place before the final push to London tomorrow. You can follow his adventure along the way via the official Facebook group for the walk.


So far Ed has raised just under £14,000 for the Hospice, but hopes to achieve £15,000 upon his arrival. To donate, simply click on the link below.

The BBC are offering readers the chance answer questions alongside Matt Smith via their official Facebook page.

The new application in partnership with VYou will see the actor answer five questions over the next ten weeks, and is designed to enable fans to interact directly with the page in three different ways.

The principal function is the ability to record a personal video response to the question, which can then be shared with other fans who watch the video stream, appearing after Matt's original answer.

The initial question on the site is:

In future, fans themselves will be able to submit questions, and further interaction is providing in the form of a voting system in order to determine the favourite question - the ones with the most votes will then be answered by Matt himself.