Earlier this month, BBC Worldwide revealed details on its plans to install the Doctor Who Experience at Cardiff Bay during the spring next year. Today, Welsh media outlets have been reporting on how this project will be partly financed by Cardiff County Council through its council tax revenue.

A council spokesperson explained how the initial financing will prove ultimately beneficial to the city's future economy:
Councillor David Walker observed:
However, what was initially thought to be a permanent home for the Doctor Who Experience has now been revealed as a temporary measure being built on land that is earmarked for residential purposes; permission is currently being sought to construct what is being described as "a massive tent" to house the adventure and exhibition aspects of the attraction over the next five years. Whether this is an interim solution before a final, permanent home has been built remains unknown.

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:
Keith Jones, Director of BBC Cymru Wales, says:
Councillor Rodney Berman, Leader of Cardiff Council, said:
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.

Out Of This World is a new exhibition that has opened at the British Library in London, and explores science fiction in its many forms.
It features a selection of the Library's extensive collection in this genre, from some of the earliest science fiction manuscripts like Thomas More's Utopia from 1516 through to modern best-sellers like The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger; these are supplemented with exhibits covering film, television and radio.


The guest curator of the exhibition, Andy Sawyer (Director of Science Fiction Studies, University of Liverpool), said:
Katya Rogatchevskaia, British Library co-curator, added:

Of course a project like this wouldn't be complete without reference to Doctor Who, and amongst the displays visitors can encounter exhibits such as the TARDIS, steampunk K-1889, and composer Francis Chagrin's original score for The Dalek Invasion of Earth.

The show is also represented amongst the series of events running alongside the exhibit:

The Discovery Channel are broadcasting a number of associated programmes to accompany the exhibition, and there is also a tie-in book by Mike Ashley. BBC News reported on the exhibition's opening on the 19th May (video).

Out Of This World runs until 25th September, admission free.

The Doctor Who Experience are currently promoting an exclusive 5" action figure from Character, featuring young Amelia Pond from The Eleventh Hour, dressed in her coat and hat, and suitcase in readiness to go on adventures with the Doctor!


A figure of young Amelia in her nightdress also features as part of the 2011 "wave one" of action figures from Character.

(with thanks to Mark Murphy, Brandnew Corporation)

Friday 13th saw a new addition join the menagerie of monsters on show at the Doctor Who Experience currently running at London's Olympia Two.

The Silence are now on show in the walk-through part of the exhibition following their appearance in the opening two episodes of the current series. Fans will be able to encounter these monsters for the first time, although whether anyone will remember their encounter is a moot point, as their powers of telepathy and eerie ability to erase themselves from your memory make them one of the Doctor’s most frightening foes.

To mark their entry into the exhibition The Silence have been making surprise appearances across London.

In the exhibition you can step through the crack in time and become the Doctor’s companion in the walk through experience that recreates the TV series.

Since its opening in December 2005, the Up Close Exhibition based in Cardiff Bay's Red Dragon Centre has provided a focal point for Doctor Who fans visiting the spiritual home of the 21st Century series, and also a popular venue for the public visiting Cardiff Bay, with some half-million visitors over its five years.

However, today sees the exhibition close for the final time, as preparations begin for a new permanent home for the Doctor Who Experience, due to move to Cardiff in 2012 once the current operation at Olympia in London finishes.

The exhibition's manager, Graham Jones, had been campaigning to keep it open, and believes that the closure today is ill-timed; speaking to the South Wales Echo, he said:

BBC Worldwide, however, have great expectations for the Doctor Who Experience's arrival next year:

The closure follows that of the Land's End Exhibition at the beginning of the year. The Doctor Who Experience officially opened in London last month.

After several test days and special preview visits, the Doctor Who Experience finally opened to the general public on Sunday morning.

Current Doctor Matt Smith was on hand at the Experience, during which he was to meet 'himself' in the form of a life-sized model: "I think he's sort of a bit musclier than I am! It's a surreal experience to have an image of yourself in 3D. So weird but one of the wonderful privileges of this particular job - you get rather mad experiences." The encounter didn't faze him, however, as he then straightened up his alter-ego's tie!

Executive Producer and lead writer Steven Moffat said about the project: "We're not setting out to frighten anyone, but kids will come here expecting it to be a bit scary, and I don't think we will be letting them down. But with the Doctor on screen following you around, hopefully you will know that you are in safe hands. After all, the Doctor always wins."

A video is available via the Experience home page, plus coverage of the launch via Sky News and Digital Spy. BBC Radio 1's Jo Whiley also visited the launch, which can be heard on her latest show from her website, which includes photos from the Experience.

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Over the course of the week leading up to the grand opening, a number of articles/reviews featured in the press regarding the Experience, some of which are highlighted below: SFX Magazine reported: The big crowdpleaser, and reason to part with your money, will clearly be the walkthrough, a kind of mini-Doctor Who adventure with filmed snippets of Matt Smith ingeniously inserted along the way. From beginning to end it takes about 20 minutes, including a visit to a space museum, a daring step through the Crack (which opens up in front of you) a Dalek war, a flight in the TARDIS (with a moving floor bouncing you up and down – though not quite as violently as in the show), the previously mentioned 3D flight through the vortex and a few Stone Angels lurking in the shadows. It’s unashamedly aimed at the kids (the Eleventh Doctor urges grown ups to let the kids take the controls of the TARDIS) but if you can go with the flow it’s a good laugh. And because it uses props from the actual series, even the most “grown-up” fans can treat it like an animated museum if pretending to fight Daleks is all a little too silly. The Sun's TV Biz editor Colin Robertson enjoyed his visit: By the end, it was clear why it's dubbed "Experience", because it's far from being a boring exhibition of Doctor Who throughout the ages. Money and creative energy has been lavished on a labyrinth of themed rooms where all manner of Who-ness is within touching distance. Your guide here, and throughout this whistle-stop tour around the galaxy, is current Timelord Matt Smith, whose video image flashes up on screens in each room. But arguably the biggest treat is the exhibition at the end, where the entire prop department seems to have decamped. The Face of Boe, the Timelord's arch-enemy Davros, several Cybermen, Zygons, Melkurs, Doctor Who's many outfits through the years - even his doggy sidekick K9. All Who life is here. I got to grips with the old Tardis control console from the 1980s used by the sixth doctor Colin Baker and his immediate successor Sylvester McCoy. The Daily Mail's Michael Hellicar summed up: The whole Experience is, well, an experience. Children at the preview with me loved it — although one or two had to be persuaded by their parents to watch the scariest bits, and one six-year-old, dressed as Matt Smith’s Doctor, refused point-blank to go in once the familiar theme tune had struck up. Nigel Whitfield of Reg Hardware, concluded: Certainly the kids there seemed to be enjoying themselves, but there's perhaps less in it for the more mature fan. And if you've visited one of the other recent exhibitions, you may well feel, as did my companion, that – aside from the walkthrough experience – you’ve not seen anything really new. Daisy Bowie-Sell of the Telegraph said: I’m not the biggest Doctor Who fan. I love the series, I’ve watched a lot of the recent episodes and I’ll certainly watch it if I’m in that night, but I don’t study the Time Lord’s every movement. My knowledge of the pre 2005 Whos is patchy - I just about know who they are and what they look like. But even for me, the experience of standing next to a large, shouting Dalek threatening to exterminate all humans was thrilling. In this first section of the exhibition the current doctor Matt Smith appears via a screen: he needs you (me!) to help him out. You control of the TARDIS, irritate the Daleks, run past weeping angels (actually terrifying), and into a room where you watch a 3D film of all the nasty monsters Doctor Who has recently fought. Their arms/plungers reach out of the screen at you, as if they might drag you into a black hole. The Independent took a more personal look, with father and son Andy and Joshua McSmith visiting during one of the previews. Andy, being more of a casual watcher in comparison to his teenaged son, was to feel a little bemused by the proceedings, though overall enjoyed the experience: It was a bit like one of those school trips when I was taken around a museum to have my head filled with knowledge about Egyptian civilisation or the combustion engine, under the threat of being tested later. Except in those days, the experts were old. The sad thing is that, judging by the company at Olympia yesterday, they mostly still are. Groups who booked their tickets early were being admitted for a preview, and though there were a few children taking pleasure in the nonsense on display, most of the visitors were adult, solemn and knowledgeable. Myself, I could soak up the occasion with that bemused pleasure that comes from near total ignorance, but I don't envy the organisers their task, for I fear that if they have one fact wrong, they would face an irate horde of anorak-clothed Doctor Who wonks. For that very reason, I am sure they researched and assembled their exhibits with the same reverential care as a team of paleontologists assembling dinosaur bones.

Further to our article yesterday, some more details on the Doctor Who Shop at the Doctor Who Experience have emerged.

A special wi-fi service is to operate inside the shop which will enable customers to use their smartphones to access special promotions and additional facts and figures about the exhibition. The wireless network will also be able to provide subtitling facilities to assist the hard of hearing, which includes vocal command from the Doctor himself!

The functionality was part of the remit of the Brandnew Corporation, who are running the Experience on behalf of BBC Worldwide. Alex Johns, MD for Brandnew, said:

Over 400 different items of Doctor Who memorabilia are expected to be on sale, ranging from books, toys, games and other licensed merchandise items. The shop, which will be open to the public separately from the Experience, is circular in design and takes up some 130 square metres of floor-space; the checkout area is arranged within the centre of the shop so as to mimic the TARDIS console!

The shop will open to the public alongside the Doctor Who Experience from 20th February.

Read the BBC Worldwide Press Release for more details.
Newslinks: Licensing Biz; The Drum; Promotional Marketing; New Media Age; Event Magazine.

The countdown is ticking for the grand opening of the Doctor Who Experience at Kensington Olympia Two in London, with pilot tests taking place this week, previews from next week, and Launch Day itself on Monday 20th February!

Work has been in progress over the last few months with props throughout the show's 47 years being assembled. In many cases, old props and costumes have needed extensive refurbishment or restoration, and visual effects designer Mike Tucker explains to SFX Magazine how he came to be involved in the project:
Monsters have included an original Zygon and Ice Warrior, the latter of which Tucker explained to Cultbox:

The bulk of the Exhibition has been in the hands of Design and AV specialist Sarner, who were reported back in November as taking on the design and handling complex sets such as the Tenth Doctor's TARDIS interior. The day-to-day management of the Exhibition is to be operated by the Brandnew Corporation, responsible for recruitment of staff for the exhibition and the Merchandise Shop.

BBC Worldwide head of UK retail Ian Wickham said:

A new exhibition relating to Doctor Who will be opening on Tuesday 8th February at the Wednesbury Museum and Art Gallery (Wednesbury, West Midlands). Running through to mid-June, the museum will feature memorabilia on loan from private collector, Nigel Parkes.

Museum development officer, Stuart Lane, said:

The museum will be holding a Meet the Daleks day on Wednesday 22nd February, which will include craft workshops and quizzes.

(story/photos via the Express and Star)
 

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» The Up Close exhibition at Cardiff Bay will be closing on Sunday 27th March.
» The Doctor Who Experience will open to the public in London on Monday 20th February.