Award winning author Marcus Sedgwick has been revealed as the author of the third instalment in Puffin’s series celebrating the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who.

Sedgwick has re imagined the Third Doctor, played by Jon Pertwee, and created a brand new Doctor Who adventure called The Spear of Destiny, to be released globally on 23rd March. The Spear of Destiny follows on from Michael Scott’s Second Doctor story, The Nameless City, and A Big Hand for the Doctor – a First Doctor adventure from Eoin Colfer.

In total there will be eleven short stories in this ebook series, each based on one of the Eleven Doctors, released on the 23rd of each month from January to November 2013. Each story is written by a different author, bringing together some of the best known names in children’s fiction.

Marcus Sedgwick was born and raised in Kent in the South-east of England. Alongside a 16 year career in publishing he is established as a widely-admired writer of young adult fiction and winner of many prizes, most notably the Branford-Boase Award for a debut novel (Floodland), and the Booktrust Teenage Prize (My Swordhand is Singing). His books have been shortlisted for over 30 other awards, including the Carnegie Medal (four times), Edgar Allan Poe Award (twice) and Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize (four times). Talking about the new book Sedgwick said
The authors of the subsequent eshorts will continue to be unveiled on the BBC Worldwide Doctor Who Facebook page on the first Tuesday of every month throughout the year.

As previously reported, Splendid Chaps is a year-long performance/podcast project to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who hosted by comedian Ben McKenzie (Dungeon Crawl, Melbourne Museum Comedy Tour) and writer John Richards (ABC1 sitcom Outland, Boxcutters podcast).

Described by its creators as part intellectual panel discussion, part nerdy Tonight Show, Splendid Chaps is a combination of analysis, enthusiasm and irreverence. The first episode went to number 1 on the iTunes TV & Film Podcast chart in Australia, and to number 4 in the UK.  The podcasts to the first two episodes are now available at www.splendidchaps.com or at  iTunes.

Tickets are now on sale for their March show, in which the Splendid Chaps TARDIS will be visiting Adelaide. They'll be discussing the frill-fronted velveteen Time Lord Jon Pertwee, and looking at the notion of Family in Doctor Who - why are there so few families in the early years of the show? What’s with all the distant aunts? How did it change the show when companions’ families started to appear after Rose?

Hosts Ben McKenzie, John Richards and Petra Elliott are joined by New York Times best-selling author Sean Williams plus other guests poached from the Adelaide Fringe Festival as Splendid Chaps makes the exciting move into colour and corduroy.

Splendid Chaps: A Year Of Doctor Who: "Three/Family"
Space: The Tuxedo Cat – The Yellow Room, 199-200 North Terrace, Adelaide.
Time: Sunday, March 10; show starts 2 PM (note that as we will be recording, latecomers will not be admitted until interval).
Tickets: All tickets $15 (plus booking fee where applicable).
Bookings: trybooking.com, tickets also sold at the door (subject to availability).
Podcast: not yet available; released 23 March 2013.
Accessibility: This venue is wheelchair accessible.

BBC Worldwide have announced details for the forthcoming release of The Visitation (Special Edition) on DVD. The two-disc set has been provisionally scheduled for release on the 6th May for both its R2 and R1 versions, and on the 24th April for R4.

Big Finish have released details on the latest adventures for the Doctor and his companions in February:


In addition to the Doctor Who releases, Vienna is a new series starring Chase Masterson as Vienna Salvatori, a cosmic assassin. The first story, The Memory Box, is out now and finds Vienna being investigated for the murder of an intergalactic businessman – but did she do it?

David Richardson says:

Finally, two Blake’s 7 titles are out this month – the full cast story Warship, which reunites all of the Season 2 line-up, plus The Liberator Chronicles: The Armageddon Storm, which stars Paul Darrow, Michael Keating, Jan Chappell plus Tom Chadbon as Del Grant.

Big Finish are running a promotion on The Eighth Doctor Adventures, with stories from all four series starring Paul McGann available at a discount until the 2nd March.

Producer David Richardson says:

The BBC has released details of three forthcoming books featuring the 11th Doctor, with new companion Clara also in one of them. All three hardback titles will be published on Thursday 11th April.

Nicholas Briggs has been a prolific Doctor Who contributor since 1999, when he began work on the Big Finish Doctor Who audio dramas, for which he is now executive producer. Nick is also an actor, and since Doctor Who’s return to television in 2005 he has worked on set with all three of the new Doctors as the voice of the Daleks, also providing the voice of the Cybermen and other aliens.

Justin Richards is creative consultant to BBC Books' range of Doctor Who titles, has written for stage and screen, and has penned novels and graphic novels. Together with Jack Higgins, he has also written several action thrillers for older children.

Tommy Donbavand is the author of the 13-book Scream Street series, published in more than 12 languages worldwide, and was the winner of the 2011 Hackney Short Novel Award.

The BFI is to screen The Robots of Death to mark the Fourth Doctor's era as it celebrates Doctor Who's 50th anniversary, it was announced today.

The four-part story, which first aired in 1977, will be shown at BFI Southbank on Saturday 20th April at 2pm. The guests will be announced in due course.

Tickets go on sale to the general public on Tuesday 12th March but will be available on Tuesday 5th March to people with a standard BFI membership and on Monday 4th March to Champion members.

Screenings that the BFI organised for last month, this month, and next month - honouring the First, Second, and Third Doctors - all sold out to members before tickets were due to go on general release.

The organisation has a Doctor Who At 50 season this year, showing a story per Doctor per month as well as digitally-restored prints of the two Dalek films, with question-and-answer panels featuring special guests at each session. In addition, the BBC Two docudrama An Adventure In Space And Time about the show's genesis, written by Mark Gatiss and currently being filmed, will debut at the BFI in November.

Matt Smith is to star in a new film, How To Catch A Monster, written and directed by Ryan Gosling. The film has been described as "set against the surreal dreamscape of a vanishing city and centred on a single mother of two being swept into a macabre and dark fantasy underworld, while her teenage son discovers a secret road leading to an underwater town." Smith is to play the, as yet unnamed lead, alongside Eva Mendes, Christina Hendricks and Saoirse Ronan. Filming begins in May. [Variety, 6 Feb 2013]

David Tennant is currently filming a new three-part thriller for BBC One, The Escape Artist, in which he plays Will Burton, a barrister who specialises in spiriting people out of tight legal corners. The show is written by Spooks creator David Wolstencroft, who said of the casting: "David Tennant is one of the most accomplished and iconic actors of his generation. I cannot wait to see him in Will's shoes.". The show also features Sophie Okonedo, Toby Kebbell and Ashley Jensen (with whom the actor appeared in his very first professional role, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui). [BBC Media Centre, 31 Jan 2013]

The actor has also been reunited with Emilia Fox for the drama Every Seventh Wave, a sequel to last year's Love, Virtually. It can be heard this Thursday on BBC Radio 4.

Christopher Eccleston took on the role of Winston Smith in the first BBC Radio 4 adaptation of George Orwell's 1984 broadcast at the weekend; on the enduring appeal of the book and his character, the actor said: "it's the human story that means that we keep coming back to it and keeps it relevant.". The adaptation forms part of a season of programmes entitled The Real George Orwell celebrating the writer, who used to work at Broadcasting House. (Eccleston isn't the only Doctor to have played the role - Patrick Troughton starred as Smith in a 1965 broadcast by the BBC Home Service.)

We reported back in September that Eccleston was amongst a number of celebrities who were making claims against News International over phone-hacking allegations - a settlement was reached last Friday, with the lawyer representing claimants reported that the actor has been "shocked and distressed" over the sixteen occasions his messages had been compromised, and that "owing to the deliberate destruction of documents by the News of the World, he will never find out the true extent to which his privacy and that of those close to him, was invaded". [BBC News/Express, 8 Feb 2013]

Peter Davison was recently subject to an internet death hoax, as a joke blog post escalated out of control across social media - the actor is of course very much alive! A number of celebrities have suffered similar reports in recent months as unfounded rumours spread through social media. However, this is not a new phenomenon as obituaries have been published in the past in print for people still very much alive! [Travelers Today, 2 Feb 2013]

Joy Whitby, former children's TV producer at the BBC, has revealed how producer Verity Lambert contacted her about a job on the recently launched Play School after she finished on Doctor Who. Surprised, she turned her down, considering her to be an over-qualified and high-powered producer! [BBC News, 31 Jan 2013]

Talking about how she became an actress, Freema Agyeman said: "No one in my family or my friend circle anywhere was in the acting business or anything to do with the industry whatsoever. I went to a very strict academic convent girls' school, and I was very into science and things like that when I was younger. And then I suddenly just went off on this tangent when I was 17 and I suddenly decided that I liked acting. But I also liked fine arts and English literature, so I would have gone and done any of them at a higher education level. I remember asking a career advisor, "What should I do?" and her advice was to apply to universities and see what happens. So I applied to either of the three at university, and I decided that fate would guide me. And it so happens that the theatre studies or the acting degree application was responded to first, so I thought it was a sign. And I learned everything as I went. I got into it quite late. I'm enjoying it, but I'm very much learning as I go - and enjoying that, actually!" [Hollywood, 5 Feb 2013]

The actress has also joined Twitter, and can be followed via @FreemaOfficial.

Toby Jones was named Best Actor at the London Evening Standard 2012 British Film Awards for his role as Gilderoy in the psychological thriller Berberian Sound Studio. [BBC News, 4 Feb 2013]

Daniel Blythe gave a reading of his Doctor Who book Autonomy to pupils at the Hepworth J&I School in Huddersfield. He visited the school to give a presentation on how he became an author and his Doctor Who connections. [Huddersfield Examiner, 1 Feb 2013]

In Memoriam:

The actor Peter Gilmore, who guest-starred as Brazen in the 1984 story Frontios, died aged 81 on 3rd February - 29 years to the day since the adventure's fourth and concluding episode was transmitted. He was best-known to TV viewers as shipping magnate James Onedin in the BBC period drama The Onedin Line and also made 11 appearances in Carry On films. [The Guardian, 6 Feb 2013]

Robin Sachs, who played a professor in Torchwood: Miracle Day, has died at the age of 61. He was the son of Leonard Sachs and was also known to sci-fi/fantasy fans for his roles in Buffy, The Vampire Slayer, Star Trek: Voyager, Babylon 5, and Galaxy Quest. [BBC News, 5 Feb 2013]

Two people from the Hartnell era have been reported as passing away in January: Reg Pritchard, who played Ben Daheer in The Crusade, and Keith Marsh, who played Conway in the Peter Cushing movie Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150AD. [The Stage, 7 Feb 2013]

The special guests for the screening of The Mind of Evil at the BFI Southbank next month have been announced. The announcement was made at the screening of The Tomb of the Cybermen on Saturday.

The event, which takes place on Sunday 10th March at 2pm, will see cast and crew from the episode on stage during the Q&A panels. The guests are:

• Katy Manning - companion Jo Grant
• Richard Franklin - Mike Yates
• John Levene - Sergeant Benton
• Tim Combe - Director
• Terrance Dicks - Script Editor
• Plus members of the Restoration Team

Tickets for the screening sold out within 5 minutes of going on sale to BFI members on 5 February at 11.30am.

BBC Worldwide have announced the Doctor Who stories that will be released on DVD in the United Kingdom up to September this year. As well as the titles known previously, the list confirms the inclusion of the colourised Third Doctor adventure The Mind of Evil, the incomplete Second Doctor tale The Ice Warriors, and also the animated 2003 story Scream of the Shalka - which starred Richard E Grant as the (very) short-lived online 'Ninth' Doctor.

The complete list of dates are as follows:

25th February:	The Ark in Space: Special Edition
11th March:	The Aztecs: Special Edition (plus Galaxy 4 reconstruction)
6th May:	The Visitation: Special Edition
27th May:	Inferno: Special Edition
3rd June:	The Mind of Evil
24th June:	Terror of the Zygons
15th July:	Spearhead from Space Blu-Ray
5th August:	The Green Death: Special Edition
26th August:	The Ice Warriors
16th September:	Scream of the Shalka

Unlike last month's release of The Reign of Terror, there has been no word on whether August's The Ice Warriors will also feature animated episodes, with only the condensed reconstruction of episodes two and three that accompanied its original VHS release in 1998 confirmed so far. No new information on features to accompany other releases in the list have been revealed since our previous updates.

As yet there has been no indication of how the final four existing episodes - The Tenth Planet(1-3) and The Underwater Menace(2) - are to be presented.

The Visitation:

In addition to above, the BBFC have now classified the features that will be presented on the second disc of The Visitation Special Edition, due in May:

00:45:08:13 GRIM TALES   -  REVISITING THE VISITATION
00:27:29:06 DR. FOREVER! -  THE APOCALYPSE ELEMENT
00:32:11:20 DOCTOR WHO   -  THE TELEVISION CENTRE OF THE UNIVERSE

The main disc will contain the original features from the 2004 release, though has revised production notes compiled by Nicholas Pegg, and (of course) newly remastered episodes.