Experience set to move to Cardiff in Spring 2012

Thursday, 2 June 2011 - Reported by Marcus

BBC Worldwide have confirmed plans to move the Doctor Who Experience to Cardiff once it closes in London.

The intention to move the exhibition to the Welsh capital was first announced in September 2010 following the closure of the long running Doctor Who Exhibition in the city. Planning permission has now been sought by Cardiff Council for the construction of a 3000 sq metre building in Porth Teigr, that will become the long-term home of the Doctor Who Experience from 2012.

Porth Teigr is a redevelopment of the old port area of Cardiff and will be the home to the new BBC Drama Village, where the Doctor Who studios will be located once they move from the current location of Upper Boat.

Working closely in partnership with BBC Worldwide, the City Council is progressing the feasibility of a commercial agreement that could bring the international attraction to the city in Spring 2012. In addition to submitting a planning application the council is carrying out ground investigations to establish substructure costs as part of the feasibility.

Philip Murphy, Managing Director for Live Events at BBC Worldwide commented:

The Doctor Who Experience opened to tremendous critical and customer reviews. Having a long-term home in a purpose-built facility in Cardiff will enable us to develop the Experience even further as the premier fan destination for Doctor Who. We’ve worked very closely with Cardiff Council to bring the Experience to Cardiff, and we believe that it will draw fans to the Welsh capital from around the world.

Keith Jones, Director of BBC Cymru Wales, says:

Wales is the home of Doctor Who – our original made-in-Wales drama success story – so locating this fantastic experience in Cardiff Bay is a great development. The show will have moved into its brand new production home at Roath Lock Studios by this time next year. It’s therefore very exciting that around the same time audiences will be able to come and enjoy such a thrilling experience, within a stone’s throw of where the magic is made.

Councillor Rodney Berman, Leader of Cardiff Council, said:

Cardiff is proud of being the home of Doctor Who which has undoubtedly helped raise the profile of the city. The new Doctor Who Experience coming to Cardiff Bay is a very exciting proposition and one that fans of the show are greatly looking forward to. This promises to be a great new attraction for the city with the added bonus of people being able to visit the Doctor Who Experience right next door to where the series is filmed.

The Doctor Who Experience remains open at Olympia Two in London and tickets are currently available to book there through to 20th November 2011. Further information about the closing date of the London run and the launch of the Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff will be released after planning permission has been obtained.

FILTER: - Exhibitions - Press

BBC Seeks Fans

Thursday, 2 June 2011 - Reported by Marcus

The BBC are looking for Doctor Who fans willing to demonstrate their knowledge of the programme in front of the nation on prime time Saturday night television.

A new entertainment show is being planned for BBC One, called Epic Win which will see contestants pit their skills against fellow fans for the chance to win up to £3,000.

To compete you need to be aged 18 and above and prepared to go up against a fellow fan in a special Doctor Who challenge.

To find out more visit the show's BBC Website. Closing date 18th June.

FILTER: - Doctor Who - Competitions

Mark Gatiss in Series Six

Wednesday, 1 June 2011 - Reported by Chuck Foster

It has been reported that Mark Gatiss will be appearing in episode thirteen of Doctor Who, the finale of the second half of the current series due to be broadcast later in the year. The news comes as part of an interview with one of his co-stars, interviewed by Cultbox (note: the link contains a number of possible spoilers for A Good Man Goes To War as well as episode thirteen).

Gatiss was previously announced as one of the writers for this series, with his script - directed by Richard Clark (The Doctor's Wife) - originally slated as episode three before being moved into the second half as episode nine.

Earlier contributions to the series include the scripts for The Unquiet Dead, The Idiot's Lantern and Victory of the Daleks, plus an appearance as Professor Lazarus in The Lazarus Experiment; he also provided the uncredited voice of "Danny Boy" in his Dalek tale. He was the narrator for the second series of the behind-the-scenes programme Doctor Who Confidential.

He is one of the few people to contribute both behind and in front of the camera for Doctor Who.

(with thanks to Will Martin/Cultbox)

FILTER: - Series 6/32

People Roundup

Wednesday, 1 June 2011 - Reported by Chuck Foster

Alex Kingston (River Song) talks about her new role as the titular Luise Miller:

"I'd wanted to work on stage here again, and to work with Michael (Grandage, director), for a long time. We'd discussed projects - an Ibsen, I think - but the timing has never been convenient.

For me the hardest thing to negotiate is time away from my family. But this series of Doctor Who was shot during my daughter's spring break, so she could come over for that. And Luise Miller coincides pretty much with her summer holiday. So I was able to prepare myself psychologically for her going back to school, thinking: six weeks is really hard but it will be all right because she'll be with me for the summer again.

If Michael had offered me this during term time I don't know if I could have accepted it. That said, this is what I do. I wanted to be an actor to perform plays, to work with other people to create something. If you think of creativity as a muscle that has to be exercised, there isn't that much opportunity to do that in television.

[Evening Standard, 1 Jun 2011]

Billie Piper (Rose Tyler) reflects on her time, post-Doctor Who:

... it’s totally the end of Doctor Who for me, too. I can’t imagine anything would bring me back, and they’re done with Rose.

They’ve got this great new set up with Matt Smith and Karen Gillan and it works brilliantly. So there’s no way in the world it will happen again for me – well not for the foreseeable future.

Both Belle and Rose have been brilliant for my career, but I don’t know yet if they might become curses some day. They haven’t been so far, but who knows? The problem with something like Secret Diary is that you could end up getting endless sexy scripts and a long line of sexual predator parts, which you could tire of.

It’s not something I want to keep doing over and over again. And I got a lot of stick about it, too. Playing a prostitute doesn’t go down well with everyone, surprisingly. But the role took me into the American market, which is fantastic.

[The Mirror, 21 May 2011]

Katy Manning (Jo Grant/Jones) is to appear in the film The Haunting of Harry Payne which is currently being filmed in East Anglia. The film is described as a gangster/ghost story, where an ex-London gangster starts to experience forces after killing his former gangland boss. The film also features Graham Cole, who appeared in a number of stories in the early 1980s.

[Norwich Advertiser, 26 May 2011]

In the run-up to the BAFTAs, writer Mark Gatiss reflected on his workload over the last year, the importantance of BBC commissioning, and the hot-topic of ratings:

I had a bit of a mad year, to be honest, and was sick of the sight of myself by Christmas, so God knows how everyone else felt. In my defence, scheduling is a curious beast and it fell out that two things I'd made the previous year (The First Men in the Moon and Worried About the Boy) ended up being shown slap-bang in the middle of my History of Horror documentary series for BBC4. On that subject I must take this opportunity to record how fantastic it is that there's still a place where a passion project (as that series most certainly was) can be so championed and encouraged. Equally, that documentaries as startling and oddly moving as The Young Ones and as rich and strange as The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan still have such a valued place.

Speaking of scheduling, it's worth saying that when Sherlock was scheduled to air in the traditionally dead summer slot it seemed like very bad news. It's a measure of how differently we now watch shows that this didn't prove to be the case. Whether catching up on iPlayer, recording on our Sky boxes or downloading our favourites, overnight ratings are ceasing to have any meaning. But you mustn't get me started on ratings or I'll start singing "The King is in the Altogether" and we'll be here till Christmas.

[The Observer, 22 May 2011]

Writer David Fisher commented on how he was asked to get the physics right in his Doctor Who stories:

I remember being called in once. The producer said, "We’ve got a major problem. We’ve had letters from 12-year-old boys saying the physics couldn’t work. In the future, can you guarantee the physics will work"?

Mr Fisher decided to get in touch with scientists working at a Cambridge astronomy centre, near where he lived, and asked if he could talk some ideas through with them.

It turned out they were Doctor Who mad.

The experts helped him not only come up with a way for the Creature in the Pit to threaten an entire planet with a neutron star but also a way to stop it.

They said "that’s perfectly simple too. Just wrap it in tin foil".

[East Anglian Daily Press, 23 May 2011]

Film director Kenneth Branagh recently appeared on The Late Late Show in America, where he was ostensibly there to talk about his new film, Thor, but then spent much of the interview chatting about Doctor Who, Matt Smith, and the TARDIS (with host Craig Ferguson strongly suggesting he should meet Karen Gillan!).

[The Late Late Show, 10 May 2011]

FILTER: - People

Much Ado Opens in London

Wednesday, 1 June 2011 - Reported by Marcus

The London production of Shakespeare's comedy Much Ado About Nothing - starring the former Doctor/companion teaming of David Tennant as Benedict and Catherine Tate as Beatrice - opens later today, 1st June, at Wyndham's Theatre.

The play, which has been previewing for the past two weeks, sees Tennant return to the London stage for the first time since January 2009 when he played Hamlet.

Much Ado About Nothing was written around 1600 with the earliest recorded performances being two that were given at Court in the winter of 1612–13. In the play marriage seems inconceivable for reluctant lovers Beatrice and Benedick whose endless witty sparring threatens to keep them apart forever. Meanwhile two young lovers Claudio and Hero are to be married imminently but the devious scheming of a resentful Prince looks set to thwart the nuptials.

This version is set in the 1980s and sees Tennant appearing in a white naval uniform while Tate dons the dungarees of a a beer-swilling, cigarette smoking, feminist.

The play is directed by Josie Rourke, Artistic Director of the Bush Theatre,and runs at Wyndham's Theatre in Charing Cross Road until 3rd September.

FILTER: - Catherine Tate - David Tennant

Comic Con France to premiere Series Six

Tuesday, 31 May 2011 - Reported by Chuck Foster

The third annual French Comic Con takes place at the Paris-Nord Villepinte Exhibition Center between the 30th June and 3rd July, during which the two opening episodes of Series Six, The Impossible Astronaut and Day of the Moon, will make their French debut.

The two episodes form part of a series of events taking place around special Guest of Honour, Doctor Who's head writer Steven Moffat; timings have yet to be confirmed, but include:

a public Masterclass on his work as a scriptwriter
a public meeting on Doctor Who
a signing session
the screening of the French premiere of the first two episodes of Series Six
a screening of A Study In Pink, the first episode of Moffat's other creation, Sherlock

Moffat appears courtesy of a partnership with BBC Worldwide, France 4 and France Television Distribution.

(with thanks to Aurélie Demonchaux/Beans on Toast)

FILTER: - Special Events - France - Series 6/32 - International Broadcasting - Europe

A Good Man Goes To War - Introduction/Publicity

Tuesday, 31 May 2011 - Reported by Chuck Foster

The BBC have released two introductions to this weekend's mid-series finale, A Good Man Goes To War, the first featuring director Peter Hoar and the second with Karen Gillan, Steven Moffat, Alex Kingston and Arthur Darvill teasing over the identity of River Song. (warning, the videos contain some plot discussion):

Introduction by Peter Hoar, BBC, via BBC Website

Introduction by Steven Moffat, Alex Kingston and Arthur Darvill, BBC, via BBC Website

FILTER: - Series 6/32 - Online

The Rebel Flesh - Chart Position

Tuesday, 31 May 2011 - Reported by Marcus

BARB have now issued final ratings for the week ending 22nd May making Doctor Who: The Rebel Flesh the 13th most watched programme of the week.

The show was once again the highest non-soap drama of the week and held the 6th position in the BBC One chart.

The chart does not include iPlayer figures where over 1 million have already accessed this episode.

FILTER: - Doctor Who - Ratings - UK - Series 6/32

Radio Times: Moffat talks Daleks

Tuesday, 31 May 2011 - Reported by Chuck Foster

This week's Radio Times once again features Doctor Who on its front cover - though for once centre of attention falls to the Doctor's companion Amy Pond! (Please note the cover may be considered a spoiler for those who haven't seen the preceeding episode, The Almost People)

The magazine includes an interview with head writer Steven Moffat, who was asked about the future of the Doctor's most popular adversary, the Daleks:

Oh yes, the Daleks. Actually, they aren’t going to make an appearance for a while. What? Yes, we thought it was about time to give them a rest. There’s a problem with the Daleks. How come? I thought they were invincible. They are the most famous of the Doctor’s adversaries and the most frequent, which means they are the most reliably defeatable enemies in the universe. They have been defeated by the Doctor about 400 times. Surely they should just see the Tardis approaching, say, ‘Oh. It’s him again’, and trudge away.

Unsurprisingly the media picked up on these comments, with some suggesting that the Daleks were to be rested indefinitely; Moffat clarified his statements this morning on Twitter:

Daleks: I was talking about THIS series. Stand down.

News links: Radio Times, BBC News, The Sun(1), The Sun(2), Metro, Guardian, Telegraph, Independent, Express, Anglotopia, Aberdeen Press and Journal, On The Box, The Register, NME

Other recent related Radio Times covers featuring Doctor Who/Matt Smith:

FILTER: - Steven Moffat - Series 6/32 - Radio Times

Doctor Pooh - Qwertee T-Shirt Offer

Monday, 30 May 2011 - Reported by Chuck Foster

"Once upon a time (and some dimension in space), in the Hundred Acre Wood.."

Europe's largest daily T-Shirt website Qwertee have launched their latest Doctor Who inspired design; it is created by artist/designer robpwood.

This is a limited edition print which will only be available to purchase for two days (i.e. until 11:00pm Wednesday 1st June).

Readers of Doctor Who News will be able to take advantage of a special 40p/50¢ discount off the usual £8/€10/$13.50 price of this t-shirt - simply enter this promotional code when ordering:

 
            Q-DoctorWhoNewsPage

The t-shirt can be ordered from the Qwertee website.

Meanwhile, we are once again delighted to announce a competition in association with Qwertee - full details are on the Competitions page.

FILTER: - Merchandise - Special Offers

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