The Manchester Evening News has an interview with Martin Wilkie, son of the late classic era visual effects designer Bernard Wilkie, in his capacity as a special effects adviser and director of the Up Close exhibition, which opens in the city at the end of March.

Martin, whose surname is spelled "Wylkie" in the article, tells how he and his brother (Simon) acted as guinea pigs when their father brought home prototypes and new characters from Doctor Who to see how scary they found them.

He says of the exhibition: "These are all genuine props from the series, so it is as near to behind the scenes as you can get. The kids won't be too scared - we find it is the parents who are generally more scared than the kids."

The online article has a gallery of seven images.

Bernard Wilkie, who co-founded the BBC's special effects department with Jack Kine, died in May 2002. Kine died in January 2005.

(Thanks to Tim Shaw.)

As things really begin to gear up for the start of Series Three, the official Doctor Who website has released a new publicity picture of Martha Jones, as played by Freema Agyeman.

It joins the other desktop wallpaper pictures featuring the Doctor and Martha that are available by clicking here.

Earlier this month, the site released a Series Three promo pic showing the couple running away from a fireball.

Also among the images are illustrations from the animated adventure The Infinite Quest, which will form part of the second series of Totally Doctor Who.

Saturday's edition of The Sun boasts an exclusive two-page interview with Freema Agyeman.

In it, she tells of failing to land a role as one of Prime Minister Harriet Jones's aides in The Christmas Invasion, and how David Tennant helped soothe her audition nerves when she went for the part of the new companion.

She adds that Billie Piper encouraged her to do things her own way, and says of the difference between her character and Rose: "Billie did a good job, so fair play to her. That character was extremely popular in people's hearts and quite rightly so.

"But the writer, Russell T Davies, has kind of made it easy as the characters are so different. And you can't really compare apples and pears."

The feature finishes by saying that Series Three will start on March 31 at 7pm.

digitalspy.co.uk is reporting that actor and writer Stephen Fry had to back out of plans to write an episode forDoctor Who.

Fry said: "They asked me to do a series and I tried, but I just ran out of time, and so I wrote a pathetic letter of 'I'm sorry I can't do this' to Russell Davies."

Fry is busy working on a film script for director Peter Jackson, working with Kevin Spacey and filming a documentary for BBC Two on HIV and AIDS.

File this under the 'aww how sweet' section: David Tennant paid ex-assistant and co-star Billie Piper a visit to catch 'the darling of the West End'. The two then later headed off for drink at St. Martin's Lane hotel. Click here for the article.

Torchwood and Doctor Who character Captain Jack Harkness has had a racehorse named after him.

And both of them will meet up later this month when actor John Barrowman goes to the colt's stables at Hucking, near Maidstone, Kent.

The two-year-old thoroughbred, pictured below, is one of the Hucking Horses syndicate and has been named Hucking Harkness.

On kentnews.co.uk trainer John Best says: "We were discussing the Hucking Horses and this colt - a son of the stallion Dr Fong - stood out as a tricky one to name.

"Somebody mentioned Dr Who and from there we reached Captain Jack - and Hucking Harkness was born.

"We got in touch with John Barrowman’s connections to see what they thought of us using the name and they loved the idea."

Barrowman will visit the stables on March 30. He said: "I can't wait to meet the colt and I’m hoping to see him race.

"It’s straight out of a Torchwood script - two Harknesses in the same place at the same time!"

Click on the image below for a larger version.

Note: Barrowman is the guest on A Taste Of My Life tonight on BBC2 at 6.30pm. The show is repeated tomorrow at 2.15pm on the same channel.

Billie Piper told today how her West End debut in Treats could have brought her close to breaking point.

In a lengthy interview for the Evening Standard, she said: "If I start to think about everything that everybody writes about me, I would probably break - I'm just trying something new and there's nothing wrong with that and, yes, it's hard.

"It's my first time on the West End stage and I've never done it before - it's hardly surprising that it's going to be really terrifying."

Piper had to miss two preview performances because of a bout of gastric flu, then the opening night was delayed, leading to various speculation.

"I was nervous and everybody was nervous . . . and then you have this hysteria. It's just frustrating more than anything," she said.

"But when the press are sat outside your stage door en masse, it's quite hard to brush off. You know, I'm pretty unflappable, but it was . . . an interesting week."

Interviewer Alison Roberts notes that, significantly, Piper paused before selecting the word "interesting".

Using the interview to scotch rumours and gossip, she said pictures that seemed to show her crying on the shoulder of estranged husband Chris Evans were, in fact, of her squinting because of the bright sun.

Piper, 24, also denied that she planned to marry Laurence Fox - her boyfriend and Treats co-star - saying: "No. I'm not even divorced yet, so that would be impossible."

BBC News reports that Billie Piper is back on stage after illness forced her to miss two performances of her West End stage show Treats.

Signing autographs after the show, Piper reported she had been quite ill with gastric flu but was well and ready to work.

David Tennant is reuniting with The Runaway Bride co-star Catherine Tate for Comic Relief but probably not as the Doctor.

The BBC press office says Tate has teamed up with Tennant and Lenny Henry plus other surprise guests for some new sketches.

Red Nose Day 2007 - on Friday, March 16 - will also see Simon Pegg (The Long Game),Davina McCall (Bad Wolf), Trinny Woodall (Bad Wolf), Maureen Lipman (The Idiot's Lantern) and Peter Kay (Love and Monsters) involved in the fund-raising drive to help vulnerable people in the UK and Africa.

It is being screened on BBC1 from 7pm to approximately 3.05am on Saturday, with a 35-minute break for the news at 10pm.