The BBC is to screen a previously unbroadcast interview with the late Delia Derbyshire, the woman who realised the original Doctor Who title music.

On Monday 15 November, the West Midlands edition of BBC One's Inside Out will feature excerpts from an interview originally recorded in the late-Nineties by BBC Radio Scotland's John Cavanagh but never broadcast before. In the interview Derbyshire reveals that one of the primary influences on her music, including Doctor Who, were the abstract sounds she heard as a child during the Coventry blitz. The programme also features previously unseen footage of Derbyshire later in life at a Doctor Who fan convention.

BBC Radio 2 presenter Stuart Maconie looks at her career and explores why the woman herself remains a mystery despite her work influencing the world of electronic music, including Pink Floyd and today's modern dance acts. He begins his journey in war-torn Coventry, where Derbyshire grew up, and follows her journey to the Radiophonic Workshop at the BBC. He talks to a range of people, including the man who invented the sounds of the TARDIS, Brian Hodgson.

In 1963, hardly anyone outside of avant garde music circles and academia knew electronic music even existed. But, 47 years on, the Doctor Who theme is probably the most famous piece of electronic music in the world and Derbyshire's lost recordings, discovered in her attic after her death, are being lovingly restored by the University of Manchester.

Uncovered in this episode is the revelation that Derbyshire composed music for an astonishing number of landmark programmes of the day, with the original Doctor Who theme being just a small part of her massive output whose style was described in her own words.

This programme will be broadcast on BBC One in the West Midlands, at 7.30pm on Monday 15 November.

Viewers in the UK outside the region can watch the programme on Freesat channel 963, Sky channel 979, or on the BBC iPlayer.

A new book telling the full story of the Russell T Davies era of Doctor Who in now available for pre-order.

Ultimate Regeneration is the first book from Kasterborous.com and the first to be released in the UK by writer and Editor of the site Christian Cawley. The book tells the real-time critical story of Doctor Who between the years 2005 and 2010.

Featuring essays, articles, reviews and interviews, the full story is put into context with a running commentary on the main events in Doctor Who news and fandom. It includes 60 Doctor Who reviews from Rose to The End of Time, Part Two, and over 30 articles including character, actor and writer profiles.

Upon release, Ultimate Regeneration will have a sale price of £14.99. However a special pre-order price of £9.99 (plus p&p) is currently available, saving 33% on the cover price.

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The News Team

As previously reported, yesterday evening saw the annual ceremony to switch on the Cardiff Christmas Lights, this year undertaken by the current TARDIS crew of Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill. The three were on hand to launch the festive period, and were accompanied during the evening by festive music from the soul band Supernatural and Bob the Builder. The celebration was rounded off with a fireworks display.

Matt said:

Big Finish have released artwork for their collection of lost stories for the Second Doctor, due in December.

The set comprises the two stories, Prison in Space and The Daleks: The Destroyers:


In addition, the cover for the Seventh Doctor and Ace lost adventure Thin Ice has also been released, with the adventure due for release in April 2011:

The Utah Governor's Office of Economic Development has confirmed that principal photography for the previously announced US filming will take place in Utah from November 17 to November 19. The state's Motion Picture Incentive Fund has authorized a filming rebate of up to $30,000 for location filming in the state. The exact location of filming has not been revealed, and fans are not being encouraged to attend filming; a BBC representative told a member of the Utah Film Commission in a private email that he "feels that it would be doing the production a disservice to have fans of the show watching it being filmed as certain story arcs and plot lines could be exposed prematurely and be spread over the internet."

The director of BBC Wales, Menna Richards, has announced that she is stepping down from the position after more than ten years guiding Welsh broadcasting.

It is of course during her tenure that Doctor Who finally returned to television as a series after some 16 years, and for many will be seen as one of her biggest achievements. The man behind the show's return, Russell T Davies said:
Speaking on BBC Wales Today, Professor Ian Hargreaves of Cardiff University (where Richards is Vice-President) said:

The Welsh secretary, Cheryl Gillan, summed up Richards's career at the BBC:

The site of the new BBC Studios in Cardiff Bay has been named Porth Teigr, reflecting the traditional name of Tiger Bay the area held during its dockland heyday.

The project is being undertaken by developer Igloo; director Mark Hallett said:
The BBC is due to begin production on hospital drama Casualty (relocating from Bristol) at the new site in March next year, with filming from September; Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures are expected to move there during 2012.

A digital media centre for small businesses is also being proposed by the developers.

Showbiz site Deadline are reporting that the actress Arlene Tur has been cast as a surgeon named Vera Juarez in the new series of Torchwood, The New World. The actress is best known on screen for her role as Bebe Arcel in another series by the network Starz, Crash.

A number of names have been associated with the main roles of the series, including Enver Gjokaj (Victor/Anthony Ceccoli in Dollhouse) and Chad Michael Murray (Lucas Scott in One Tree Hill) for CIA Agent Rex Matheson, and Amber Stevens (Ashleigh Howard in Greek) as Watch Analyst Esther Katusi - however, apart from the established characters played by John Barrowman (Jack), Eve Myles (Gwen) and Kai Owen (Rhys), no other cast announcements have been made so far.

Doctor Who is one of those subjects that can be a bane to competition question setters; apparently innocuous questions like "how many people have played the Doctor?" or "who created the Daleks?" are the subject of heated debate in fan circles - even the perennial question of Saturday morning children shows of "what does TARDIS stand for?" will provoke debate over whether the answer should be Dimension or Dimensions!

Channel 4 fell foul of this problem last Friday with a question set on their prize quiz show The Million Pound Drop, hosted by Davina McCall. During the show, the contestants Johnny and Dee were asked:
The couple, uncertain of the answer, eventually plumbed for a 50/50 chance with McCoy and McGann, but were subsequently told that both their guesses were wrong and the correct answer was actually David Tennant, costing them the game and prize money at that stage of £375,000.

Channel 4 were then inundated by calls from viewers, pointing out that the wrong answer had been given and that it should really have been McCoy, based on him playing the Doctor between 1987 and 1996 (Time and the Rani to the TV Movie).

They have since issued an apology over the question, with a spokesperson saying:

With a long-running series like Doctor Who it is important to set unambiguous questions, such as those used for contestants in the specialist rounds of Mastermind. The question above can be interpreted many ways and, as Who fans of course know, 'time is relative':

• if worded the way Channel 4 probably intended, David Tennant would have been the correct answer for most years/episodes on screen in the role, or longest actual time; Tom Baker, of course, holds the full record for both of these (seven years/172 ~25m episodes)
• Sylvester McCoy holds the record for longest serving current Doctor seen on screen, at eight years eight months
• Paul McGann holds the record for longest time as current Doctor across media (novels, audio), at some eight years ten months
• William Hartnell holds the record for the longest period being the Doctor on screen, from An Unearthly Child through to Vincent and the Doctor!

These statistics are of course open to individual interpretation, too!