Posted By John Bowman

Tickets to the press launch of multi-platform Doctor Who book project The Darksmith Legacy are up for grabs in a contest.

The event takes place at the Earls Court Doctor Who exhibition on November 6 from 6pm to 8pm, and the winners will be among the first to preview the books, test the interactive Darksmith online destination, and interview a panel of writers from the 10-part series, which launches to the public in January.

They will also get free admission to the exhibition plus a Doctor Who goodie bag.

Published by BBC Children's Books in association with Penguin Books, The Darksmith Legacy will offer the adventure of a book serialisation, with cliffhangers, plus interactivity and content only obtainable online.

The contest is only open to 13-to-18-year-olds and closes on November 3. Click here for more details.

Click on the thumbnails below for larger images of the covers for the first two titles: The Dust of Ages and The Graves of Mordane.

The Doctor Who Exhibition at Earl's Court will be extending a special value to visitors on Halloween weekend, 31 October - 2 November.

Any child under the age of 16 who dresses up as a Doctor Who character or in any Halloween costume will be given free admission into the exhibition.

"The exhibition has proven to be a really big hit over the summer holidays and it's great to offer families and young Doctor Who fans something a little bit different for Halloween," said EC&O venues managing director Nigel Nathan.

The exhibition features props, costumes and monsters from Doctor Who. Taking center stage in the exhibition on Halloween night is Davros, creator of the Daleks. There's also a sound and light Dalek Zone for visitors to enjoy.

The exhibition, which started in March, ends on 9 November and is organised by Experience Design and Management.

Billie Piper and husband Laurence Fox are proud parents to their first son, who was born about 1am on Tuesday 21 October at the private Portland Hospital in London.

6lb 11oz Winston James Fox was delivered following a reportedly traumatic 26-hour labour and an emergency Caesarean procedure. Mother and child are "well and happy".

Read the full article in the Daily Mail.

The BBC Press Office information for Children in Need night, Friday the 14th of November on BBC One, contains the claim that the evening's entertainment will feature "Children In Need-themed scenes from Doctor Who and Ashes To Ashes," among the various other attractions on offer.

There is no information given as to what form this scene might take. In 2005 and 2007, Children in Need featured specially-commissioned Doctor Who scenes (such as Time Crash, pictured, in which the Tenth Doctor met the Fifth), although neither of these were "Children in Need-themed" in and of themselves, suggesting that this particular production may be of a different format.

Doctor Who has long enjoyed a close relationship with the Children in Need charity, being featured in various capacities on several of the annual telethon evenings. Since its return, Doctor Who has also been the focus of several special events to raise money for the charity, such as the 2006 concert in Cardiff and this year's set visit competition.

This year, in addition to the Doctor Who scene, the press office information also reveals that Captain Jack actor John Barrowman will be performing live, as he did in last year's telethon when he sang Elton John's "Your Song".

Edition 401 of Doctor Who Magazine is out now across the United Kingdom
Press Release

Davros, creator of the Daleks is reborn

DWM talks exclusively to the people responsible for Davros' recent return, including Head Writer Russell T Davies and prosthetics expert Neill Gorton.

Was Russell tempted to use Davros’ revival as a means to finally reinvent and clear up some of his complex backstory, once and for all?
"I never really worried about tying his history together," Russell admits, "except I was convinced he had to have a metal hand, because it was so clearly blown off in Revelation of the Daleks. So no, I didn’t do any research as such. I didn’t rewatch Genesis, because I wanted to act off my memories. Somehow, that seems a more creative state to be in. I did worry that we never had a proper explanation of his injuries, but then realised that Genesis never did that either, so it was good company to be in! Although I did write a sort of creation story"
"There was one scene where you were going to see an explosion, and Davros was injured," recalls Neill. "We weren’t actually going to show his face burnt and disfigured in its full gory glory, because it would have been just a little extreme, so I think you were only going to see glimpses of his head, with smoke rising, and his hair burnt off"


ALSO THIS ISSUE:

• The Fourth Doctor!
  Tom Baker's Doctor was the first to meet Davros. And Davros and the Doctor would meet again, many, many times. Philip MacDonald traces the life and times of everybody's favourite megalomaniac and asks just what is it that drives Davros' insane ambitions?
• The Fifth Doctor!
  The Fact of Fiction is whisked down a time corridor to 1984 and takes a close look at Davros' encounter with Peter Davison's Doctor in Resurrection of the Daleks.
• The First Doctor!
  His era introduced the Daleks, the best-known monsters of them all. Neil Harris pays tribute to the man who really created the Doctor’s iconic enemies, writer Terry Nation, in You Are Not Alone.
• The Sixth Doctor!
  The children of Davros have returned – and this time it's personal! DWM exclusively talks to the people behind a brand new audio adventure for Colin Baker’s Doctor, Brotherhood of the Daleks.
• The Tenth Doctor!
  Can he save Magenta Pryce from the horrors of the Space Gulag? And just who are the monsters lurking in the depths of the jail? Find out in Part Two of the latest, full colour, comic strip adventure – ThinkTwice.
• The Eighth Doctor!
  He’s back – and he's about to encounter Zygons, Autons, Morbius and more! DWM goes behind the scenes of the latest series of Doctor Who radio adventures, and speaks exclusively to the cast, including Paul McGann, Sheridan Smith, Graeme Garden, Art Malik, Clare Buckfield and James Fleet.
• The Seventh Doctor!
  It's Time Team and The Rani, as the gang go back to 1987 and get to grips with giant brains and glittery drains in Sylvester McCoy’s frankly unbelievable début adventure.
• The Third Doctor!
  We first met Sarah Jane Smith during Jon Pertwee's years as the Doctor... and her story continues to this day, in the The Sarah Jane Adventures! Join DWM as we watch the filming of the intrepid journalists' latest series, and talk to the cast and crew.
• Er... the Ninth Doctor!
  Okay, we’re getting a bit tenuous now. He's the one that Russell T Davies introduced us to in 2005. Russell takes us backstage at the TV Quick & TV Choice Awards in Production Notes and reveals what happened when the teams who make Doctor Who, Life on Mars and, um, Loose Women met up!
• The Second Doctor!
  He gets a mention on page 6!
• The Next Doctor!
  DWM reports the latest news on the forthcoming Christmas Special – and has news on the Specials of 2009!

Plus! Competitions, reviews, and an exclusive chat with the kids from The Sarah Jane Adventures

Doctor Who chief writer and executive producer Steven Moffat (pictured right) has been nominated in the "Best Writing for Film or TV" category at the BAFTA Scotland Awards, according to a report in the Daily Record newspaper. Moffat, who earlier this year won the equivalent categories at the BAFTA Craft (UK as a whole) and BAFTA Cymru (Welsh) Awards, will be up against Bryan Elsey, creator of the series "Skins", and Greg McHugh, who wrote "Gary's War".

The BAFTA Scotland Awards reward film and television productions made in Scotland or by Scottish people. They have been given annually since 1997.

The official BAFTA Scotland website's nominations page - which manages to misspell both his first and surname! - cites Moffat as being nominated specifically for his work on Doctor Who. The BAFTA Scotland year runs from August to August, meaning he has been nominated for his 2008 series episodes "Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead".

Posted By John Bowman

Silva Screen Records has announced the full listing of the forthcoming soundtrack CD for Series Four of Doctor Who. The information was sent out by e-mail today to people who subscribed to its newsletter.

The 27-track disc will be released on November 17 but can be downloaded earlier from the company's website. The tracks are as follows:

Unofficial overnight figures show that Part One of Day of the Clownachieved an audience of 0.5 million. The programme got a 5.3 per cent share of the audience.

The Appreciation Index for the episode was 82,one of the highest scores for the day.

Meanwhile final figures available for the premier of part Two of The Last Sontaran, show it was the highest rated programme of the week on the CBBC channel, with 0.48 million viewers.

BBC News reports that postgraduate students from Cardiff University and the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama have organised a three-day academic conference examining Doctor Who. The event will be held at Cardiff University from November 14th to 16th this year, and members of the public will be able to attend.

Called "Whoniversal Appeal", the conference will involve presentations and discussions on various areas relating to the series. Its modern spin-offsTorchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures will also be discussed.

The conference is being chaired by an American student, 29-year-old Melissa Beattie from Buffalo, New York. She admits to only having become a fan of the series two years ago but said: "It shows the progression of society over 45 years and it's amazing to see what an impact it's had. Also I think it's a good way of getting rid of what I call ivory towers thinking. Using something like Doctor Who is a good way of finding a common ground. There's a lot of narrative density in a lot of them - you have epic scenes, mythical-religious scenes, plus again the reflection of modern society like quite a strong anti-war message."

The keynote speaker will be Dr Matt Hills, from Cardiff University's School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies. More information can be found at the official website of the event, here.

The actor Peter Copley, who played the role of Dr Warlock in the highly-regarded 1975 Doctor Who serial "Pyramids of Mars", has died at the age of 93. A full obituary has been published by The Daily Telegraph.

The website SonicState.com has published an exclusive video tour of BANG Studios in Cardiff, the audio post-production centre where all of the sound design and mixing is carried out for Doctor Who and its spin-off series. The video features showrunner Russell T Davies on a visit to the studio, and a second part will be published on the website next week.

The latest issue of science-fiction and fantasy magazine SFX features ten alternative covers, one for each televised incarnation of the Doctor. This is in promotion of a heavily Doctor Who-focused issue. The issue, number 176, will be available on British newsstands from Wednesday 22nd October.

A collection of the possessions of the late Verity Lambert, the first producer of Doctor Who from 1963 to 1965, is being sold at auction by the firmWoolley and Wallis at its showroom in Salisbury on Wednesday 22nd October. Her two BAFTA awards will be on display, and photographs can be taken.

A biography of Russell T Davies, entitled "T is for Television", is to be published by Reynolds and Hearn on November 27th this year. The company has previously published several other books related to Doctor Who, including Richard Bignell's location guide and Graeme Harper's "Calling the Shots" book about directing the series. "T is for Television" has been co-written by Mark Aldridge and Andy Murray, the latter of whom wrote "Into the Unknown", the biography of the famous television science-fiction writer Nigel Kneale. The book's press release claims that it is "the first book to trace Davies' entire life in television from his earliest days to his vast current success". It is already available for pre-order from various online retailers.

Dick Mills, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop sound design expert who provided sound effects throughout almost the entire run of the classic Doctor Who series in the '60s, '70s, and '80s, will be giving a free seminar at the National Media Museum in Bradford on October 22nd, from 6pm. More details can be found on the museum's website, here.

Actress Julie Brennan, who played the character of Fire Escape in the 1987 Doctor Who serial Paradise Towers, starring Sylvester McCoy, will be appearing as a special guest at a gathering of the Doctor Who Club of Australia on November 23rd. The event is part of the celebrations of the 45th anniversary of Doctor Who, and there are full details on the club's website.

The website Wired.com has published a new interview with Sarah Jane Smith actress Elisabeth Sladen.

Thanks to Simon Power, Ian Berriman, Clare Playle, Mark Aldridge, Tim Neal and Vitas Varnas.