BBC America has confirmed the 2014 Christmas special, Last Christmas, will be broadcast on Christmas Day.

The BBC have announced that the title for this year's Christmas Special will be Last Christmas, written by Steven Moffat and directed by Paul Wilmshurst.

In addition a new image for the episode has been released, featuring Peter Capaldi as the Doctor, Jenna Coleman as Clara and Nick Frost as Santa Claus, plus Dan Starkey as Ian and Nathan McMullen as Wolf, two of Santa's helpers as seen in the recent preview shown on this year's Children in Need.


The BBC Media Centre have released details on the BBC Christmas line up, which includes a brief synopsis for the episode:

Peter Capalidi has revealed that he once turned down the chance to audition for the role of the Doctor.

The actor was speaking at a special event in London to launch the Series 8 DVD/Blu-Ray. He revealed that he was asked to audition for the role of the Eighth Doctor in the 1996 TV Movie, a role that eventually went to Paul McGann. Capaldi said he turned down the chance to play his dream role as he knew he wouldn't get the part. "I turned down the opportunity," he said. "I loved it so much that I didn’t want to have the disappointment of going for something that I would never get."

Capaldi is not the only Doctor to have turned down the chance to audition for the role in the 1990s. After he was cast as the Doctor in 2004, Christopher Eccleston also revealed that he had declined an invitation to audition for the role of the Eighth Doctor in the TV Movie.



The special event, hosted by Frank Skinner, was attended by fans who won a special competition held by BBC Worldwide. As well as Capaldi it featured Jenna Coleman and showrunner Steven Moffat who were joined onstage by Michelle Gomez, who played Missy in the latest series, and Samuel Anderson, who played Danny Pink.

This Friday's Children in Need will feature the first preview for the forthcoming Doctor Who Christmas Special, featuring Peter Capaldi as the Doctor with Nick Frost as Santa Claus.



Children in Need is on this coming Friday from 7:30pm on BBC One.

A special video message has been sent from Peter Capaldi to a grieving grandson; father Ross Goodall shared the actor's kind words via YouTube, saying:

A Paddington Bear statue designed by Peter Capaldi has been unveiled today at a press launch for the The Paddington Trail. The statue, called Paddington Who?, will be located at Greenwich Meridian from 4th November – 30th December 2014.
Other Paddington Bear statues designed by actors who have appeared in Doctor Who include Bear Necessities by John Hurt (The War Doctor), The Journey of Marmalade by Hugh Bonneville (Captain Avery), Shakesbear by Michael Sheen (Voice of House) and Paddington Jack by Davina McCall (Voice of Davinadroid). A full list of bears can be found here.

All the statues from the trail will be auctioned at Christie’s from 10th December 2014 – 7th January 2015 where the money raised will go to help the NSPCC and ChildLine. Bids for the statues will be starting from £500. Anyone who is interested in bidding for a Bear can register their interest in the online auction at christies.com/paddington.

Next week's edition of the Radio Times features Peter Capaldi as the Doctor on its front cover as the magazine looks at the two-part series finale which starts this Saturday with Dark Water at 8:15pm on BBC One.

Famous fans, TV critics, children, and personalities share their thoughts on the latest incarnation, as played by Capaldi, including Professor Brian Cox, writer Armando Iannucci, singer/songwriter Marc Almond, Keeley Hawes, and even a former Doctor in the form of Tom Baker, who said:
There is also a "Master Quiz" enabling readers to test their Doctor Who knowledge.

In addition, the digital version of the magazine includes a 30 page Monster supplement, featuring pictures of the Doctor’s greatest foes from the Radio Times archive.


The Radio Times, covering television and radio programming for 1st-7th November, is available online and in shops now.

The creative team behind the free, award-winning podcast series The Minister of Chance is looking to expand their saga into an episodically released motion picture. In order to achieve it, the producers have turned to crowdfunding platform Kickstarter.

The Minister of Chance is a spin-off from the very first Doctor Who podcast Death Comes to Time from 2001, in which The Minister was portrayed by Stephen Fry. The story continues the tale of the Minister, now regenerated and portrayed by Julian Wadham (John Steed in The Avengers from Big Finish), who steps into the middle of a power struggle between two nations, the technologically advanced Sezuan and the primitive Tanto – lead respectively by the Ambassador Durian(Paul McGann) and the Witch Prime (Sylvester McCoy). The audio series is available for free on both iTunes and the Minister of Chance website.

The original podcast drama featured a star-powered cast, ranging from the afore-mentioned McGann, McCoy and Wadham, to Sophie Aldred (Ace of Doctor Who), Paul Darrow (Blake's 7) and Philip Glenister (Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes, Mad Dogs). The producers have stated that a majority of the original cast is interested in taking part in the movie, naturally barring the unforeseen issues like scheduling conflicts. In fact, the only actor that is said NOT to appear for certain is Paul Darrow. The movie will be written and directed by Dan Freeman and produced by Kerryn Arcari.

In order to enter production, The Minister of Change is seeking for £ 100 000 in funding by October 31st. As always with Kickstarter, the money won't be charged from the pledgers until the campaign closes and successfully reaches its goal. The Kickstarter rewards feature a wide range of collectibles from the movie props and statuettes to musical spoons signed by Sylvester McCoy.

The Kickstarter project is live here.

Though the modern series of Doctor Who has yet to be established as essential viewing on television in Japan, fans in the country will now be able to enjoy the series in their native language thanks to an initiative announced by production company Kadokawa for this Autumn.

Doctor Who: New Generation will see the Matt Smith era released in the country starting with his debut series on 3rd October 2014, with the sixth and seventh series following over the next few months. The episodes will be fully dubbed into Japanese, with the voice of the eleventh Doctor portrayed by Tokuyoshi Kawashima, Amy by Kana Uetake, Rory by Yoshiki Nakajima, and River Song by Kozue Harashima.

The Series 5 Boxed set will be presented with Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo soundtracks in Japanese and the original English, plus Japanese subtitles; as well as the thirteen episodes of the series, the seven disc set will also include the 2010 Christmas special, A Christmas Carol:

• Disc 1: 11番目の時間 (The Eleventh Hour); 眼下の獣 (The Beast Below)
  
• Disc 2: ダーレクの勝利 (Victory of the Daleks); 天使の時間 (The Time of Angels)
  
• Disc 3: 肉体と石 (Flesh and Stone); ヴェネチアの吸血鬼 (The Vampires of Venice)
  
• Disc 4: エイミーの選択 (Amy's Choice); ハングリー･アース (The Hungry Earth)
  
• Disc 5: 冷血 (Cold Blood); ゴッホとドクター (Vincent and the Doctor)
  
• Disc 6: 下宿人 (The Lodger); パンドリカが開く (The Pandorica Opens)
  
• Disc 7: ビッグバン (The Big Bang); クリスマス・キャロル (A Christmas Carol)
  

The DVD is available to pre-order via Amazon.

Peter Capaldi has been named TV Personality of the year at the 2014 GQ Men Of The Year Awards.

The actor was presented with the award by his TARDIS sidekick, Jenna Coleman, at a special event at the Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden.

The awards, presented in association with Hugo Boss, are now now in their seventeenth year.

On receiving the award Capaldi said Previous GQ awards have been won by Capaldi's predecessor Matt Smith who was named Best Actor in 2010 and Most Stylish Man in 2011.