Posted By John Bowman

Elisabeth Sladen will be joined by fellowSarah Jane Adventures actors Daniel Anthony and Thomas Knight for a signing session in London - and 50 people could attend an exclusive story-telling session by Sladen herself.

The event at the Oxford Street branch of Borders has been organised to mark the return of the Doctor Who spin-off plus the launch of four SJA novels, the complete Series One DVD, and two new audio-exclusive stories. It will be taking place on November 15 between 1.30pm and 4pm. Borders states that people must have bought a copy of the SJA DVD set, an SJA book or an SJA CD to be in the queue.

The four books - Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?, Day of the Clown, The Lost Boy, and The Last Sontaran - are being published on November 6, the Series One DVD set is released on November 10, while audio-exclusive stories The Time Capsule and Ghost House will be out on November 13 and available on CD or as a download.

The competition to attend the story-telling session is for UK residents only and open to youngsters up to and including the age of 16. Winners must be accompanied by a responsible adult. The closing date is November 11. Click here for details on how to enter and full terms and conditions. The story-telling session takes place on the same day as the signing, and the winners will also get to be first in the queue for autographs.

Doctor Who has just won the Most Popular Drama award, and David Tennant has received the Outstanding Drama Performance award, at theNational Television Awards this evening the UK.

According to the official Doctor Who website, Catherine Tate (who collected the Drama series award alongside Executive Producer Russell T Davies) said "I know it's won the award for the last three years, but I was sweating that we wouldn't the year I joined!" Meanwhile, Tennant accepted his award in a live video feed from Stratford, where he his currently performing with the RSC.

Tennant also chose the moment, while accepting his award, to announce that he would be leaving Doctor Who at the conclusion of the four specials for 2009/2010 now in production (see separate story).

The website of the Doctor Who Restoration Team has published information on the forthcoming DVD release of the 1989 Doctor Who serial "Battlefield". The four-part adventure, which opened the final season of classic Doctor Who, stars Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor and Sophie Aldred as his companion Ace. It is due to be released on Region 2 DVD in the UK on December the 29th.

This is the first ever commercial release of the transmitted version of the story, the VHS release having included various extended and deleted scenes edited back into the action. For this DVD release, the transmission version is presented on one disc, with a movie-format extended edition with new CGI special effects included on a second disc.

Other extras include a commentary track with Aldred, Nicholas Courtney, Angela Bruce, writer Ben Aaronovitchand script editor Andrew Cartmel; documentaries on the making of the story, BBC trailers from the time and various other features.

The latest issues of Enlightenment, the fanzine of the Doctor Who Information Network, features reviews of every story in Series Four. Also included are an assessment of Steven Moffat's arrival as executive producer and the backlash yet-to-come, a tribute to Russell T Davies' tenure, an assessment of Donna Noble, a fan's report from the underbelly of the CBC and more. Available now from DWIN.

The Sarah Jane Adventures has been nominated for Best Drama in the 2008 BAFTA Children's Awards representing the best in children's production in film, television and online.

The series is up against The Revenge Files of Alistair Fury, Smallhill and Young Dracula. CBBChas also been nominated for Channel of the year. Children aged 7-14 are eligable to vote and can vote online at the BAFTA website.

The winner will be announced at the EA British Academy Children's Awards on Sunday 30 November 2008 at the London Hilton on Park Lane.

Freelance author Nick Griffiths has released a follow-up to his first Doctor Who-themed book Dalek I Loved You.

Who Goes There is a travel book of sorts that take the reader to the strange and off-the-beaten-path locations used in the television series.

Mr Griffiths got the idea for the book after watching old Doctor Who stories starring Tom Baker and Jon Pertwee and noticing the strange qualities of some of the locations.

"There was an old railway station in an episode I was watching and I suddenly thought 'I'd really like to go there, that looks really strange and unusual'," he said.

"I had a quite a lot of fun trying to find the place anyway and when I got there it was fantastic being able to stand in the spot where the Doctor had stood."

As the idea grew, Griffiths settled on a list of Doctor Who stories that he wanted to investigate. Beginning in London, he then spent four weeks on the road, not only visiting locations around England and Wales, but researching the particular history of each place, unearthing stories as strange and original as the episodes in which they appeared.

"As well as the places themselves being the most fabulous, evocative areas, getting to them took us through some of the most beautiful countryside."

In Wales Mr Griffiths visited Southerndown beach in the Vale of Glamorgan, Howells department store and Queens Arcade in Cardiff, Fields House and St Woolas Cemetery in Newport for the book.

Southerndown appeared in the 2006 episode Doomsday and the 2008 show Journey's End where it doubled for Bad Wolf Bay in Norway. The beach and the geology of the cliffs captivated Mr Griffiths.

"I did love Southerndown. The strata are incredible," he said.

"There was no one else there when we visited and as we wandered around you got totally taken in by it all.

"Doctor Who had been filmed there only about six months previously so there was a real "sense of Who" there."

While this book has a Doctor Who theme to it, it isn't intended to be read only by Doctor Who fans. "What I would love is for people to get in their cars and go out and visit these places," Griffiths said.

There is also a companion website that offers photographs from the trip, a Google map of the locations and details of the nearest pub. In this innovative way, readers are invited to follow in his footsteps.

Who Goes There is published by Legend Press and is available on Amazon and other online services.

The BBC Press Office has announced that the first two minutes of the forthcoming Doctor Who Christmas special, "The Next Doctor", will be broadcast as an exclusive preview for the episode as part of this year's Children in Need charity telethon.

Children in Need, the telethon in aid of which is shown on BBC One every November, is this year to be broadcast on Friday 14 November from 7pm. Doctor Who has featured in the programme in various capacities before, including special mini-episodes made specifically for the telethon in 2005 and 2007. Earlier this month it had been rumoured in the media that a special production featuring all seven surviving actors to have played the Doctor might have been in preparation for the evening, but this has proved groundless.

The full episode of "The Next Doctor" is expected to be broadcast by BBC One in the UK on Christmas Day

Russell T Davies and Benjamin Cook have given a wide-ranging interview to Simon Mayo of BBC Radio 5 Live, as part of the promotion for their book, "The Writer's Tale".

The interview is available as a podcast for the next few days.

Posted By John Bowman

Russell T Davies is to reopen the new-look Doctor Who Up Close Cardiff exhibition on Thursday 30 October.

The event starts at 6pm and marks a revamp that has also seen the arrival of the Supreme Dalek to join the creatures, costumes and props there.

Doctor Who Up Close has been at The Red Dragon Centre in Cardiff Bay since December 2005. It is open every day from 10.30am to 7.30pm except on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day.

Unofficial overnight figures show that Part Two of Day of the Clownachieved an audience of 0.7 million. The programme got a 6.1 per cent share of the audience.

Meanwhile final figures available for the premier of part One of the story, show it was the highest rated programme of the week on the CBBC channel, with 0.51 million viewers