Pearl Mackie has been named as the new Doctor Who Companion, Bill.

The BBC released the details in a specially shot trailer shown on BBC One this evening, and released on the official Facebook and Twitter pages.

The actress is currently starring in London's West End, at the Gielgud Theatre, in a production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

Mackie comes from Brixton in South London. She trained as an actor at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, graduating in 2010.

Since drama school she has worked across Theatre, Film, Television and Radio appearing at the RSC, The Park Theatre, The Finborough, for the BBC and on London’s West End.

On joining the cast in her first major television role, Pearl Mackie said: Peter Capaldi said: Steven Moffat, Lead Writer and Executive Producer adds: Charlotte Moore, Acting Director of Television said: Brian Minchin, Executive Producer adds: Filming for the next series of the show, the 36th in its long history, begins soon, with the next episode due to be screened at Christmas, followed by a full twelve-part series in 2017.

The Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff has now been updated to feature props and costumes from the latest series of Doctor Who, shown last year, including the Christmas Special, The Husbands of River Song. Costumes include those worn by the Doctor, Clara, River Song and Ashildr, alongside monsters such as the Mire, Sandmen, the Veil, and Colony Sarff. Displays also include sets such as the Davros Hospital Room and Trap Street.

Doctor Who Series 1 has been named as the most frequently bought drama in the entire 40 year history of BBC Worldwide's Showcase event.

BBC Worldwide is the commercial arm of the BBC, which sells the best British TV shows from the BBC and UK independent producers around the world. Since 1976 it - and its predecessor, BBC Enterprises - has hosted international TV buyers at its own annual sales event, BBC Showcase. The first Showcase took place in a meeting room at The Old Ship Hotel in Brighton on the South Coast, and was attended by 25 buyers. Since then showcase has grown to the world’s biggest single distributor trade fair, regularly attracting more than 700 international buyers.

To celebrate 40 years of Showcase, BBC Worldwide has released the new data based on the number of times a title has been bought rather than the number of territories it was bought by, which shows how series continue to interest broadcasters time and again.

The most purchased drama series has been named as Doctor Who Series 1. Starring Christopher Eccleston as the ninth Doctor and first broadcast in 2005, the series has attracted 629 buyers from countries including Bahrain, Hong Kong, France and Chile.

Doctor Who was one of the titles screened to buyers at the very first Showcase in 1976.

Paul Dempsey, President of Global Markets, said
The most bought comedy programme is the first series of the classic sitcom Keeping Up Appearances which has been bought 992 times over the forty year period. The most bought natural history title is The Life of Mammals with 958 sales and the most bought factual entertainment series is Top Gear Series 9, broadcast in 2006, which has clocked up 282 sales.

A kickstarter project has been launched to help recreate the 1990's Doctor Who Pinball Table in digital form.

FarSight Studios are looking to add the famous 1992 Doctor Who Pinball Table to their successful Pinball Arcade game for Consoles and Mobile devices.

The independent developer has over 25 years of experience, developing video games on consoles, phones and tablets. For the last ten years, the company has been developing modern videogame recreations of classic pinball tables. The Pinball Arcade is currently available on a wide variety of platforms: the iPhone, iPad, Android, Kindle Fire, Ouya, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, Play Station 4, PS Vita and Steam for PC and Mac, with the Nintendo Wii U version being released very soon.

The Doctor Who pinball table was originally released by Williams/Bally in 1992. It is considered one of the best designed licensed tables in pinball history. The gameplay is based around the various seven incarnations of the Doctor and each Doctor affects the rules of the playfield differently. The player must "collect" all Doctors throughout the game. After collecting a Doctor, rule changes are applied.

The Kickstarter project will allow the developers to secure the licences for the Doctor Who game, a cost of $72,000 or around £50,000. The development costs will then be met by FarSight Studios. Previous projects have raised money to recreate games based on The Addams Family, Twilight Zone, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Terminator 2: Judgement Day

For full details see the projects Kickstarter page.

Doctor Who has made the shortlist for Drama in the 2016 National Television Awards, which takes place live from the O2 in London on 20th January. The show is up against: Downton Abbey, which saw its final episode top the ratings on Christmas Day; Broadchurch, whose third series with former Doctor David Tennant will be shown this year; and Casualty, now entering its 30th year on television!

Doctor Who and Downton Abbey have dominated the category in the last decade, with Doctor Who holding the title between 2005 and 2010 (there was no award ceremony in 2009), and then Downton Abbey between 2012 and 2015 - with the exception of 2014 when Doctor Who regained the crown! The only other show to win the award during this period was school drama Waterloo Road in 2011.

David Tennant has been nominated in the Drama Performance category for his role as Alec Hardy in Broadchurch (fellow Time Lord actors Peter Capaldi, Christopher Eccleston and most recent sidekick actress Jenna Coleman did not make the shortlist). He faces Suranne Jones (Gemma Foster in Doctor Foster), Aidan Turner (Ross Poldark in Poldark) and Sheridan Smith (Jo Gillespie in Black Work). Tennant has previously won the award between 2007 and 2010 during his tenure as the Doctor, and received a Special Recognition award in 2015.


Votes may be cast via the NTA website until midday on Wednesday 20th January 2016, with the ceremony itself broadcast live on ITV from 7:30pm.

As 2015 draws to a close, actor and writer Toby Hadoke has put together a memorial tape marking the lives those members of the Doctor Who universe who sadly died during the year.

BBC Worldwide have announced that tickets will be made available from the 3rd December enabling visitors to the Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff to be able to also purchase a special TARDIS Studio Set Tour ticket in order to visit the existing TARDIS set, as seen in the current series of Doctor Who. Tours will run between the 9th December and New Year's Day.

Tickets may be booked from the Doctor Who Experience website.

The BBC have released clips looking behind the scenes of this weeks episode of Doctor Who, The Girl Who Died.




A full review of the episode can be found on Doctor Who Reviews

The BBC have released clips looking behind the scenes of this weeks episode of Doctor Who, Before the Flood.




A full review of the episode can be found on Doctor Who Reviews

DALEK WEEK

The Experience will also be holding a Dalek Day later in the month:

More details about the Dalek Day/Week will be available shortly.